The double-edged sword of ethnic similarity
Introduces Shea Fan's work on ethnic identity confirmation in a Chinese host context
Smooth interactions between local employees and expatriates are crucial in creating a positive and effective work climate in MNC subsidiaries. Last year, I posted about a paper forthcoming in Human Resource Management by one of my talented PhD students: Shea Fan, based on survey data with dyads of expatriates and local employees. Entitled the Benefits of Being Understood, it illustrated the double-edged sword for overseas Chinese expatriates of sharing an ethnicity with local Chinese employees. This post became one of the ten most read posts in my first year of blogging, so it is clear that there is a lot of interest in this topic.
Today, I am proud to announce a second paper, accepted for Journal of World Business, on the same general theme drawing on experimental data with local Chinese employees.
- Fan, S.X.; Harzing, A.W. (2017) Host country employees' ethnic identity confirmation: Evidence from interactions with ethnically similar expatriates, Journal of World Business, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 640-652. Available online... - Publisher's version (free access!)
Shea's piece in the Conversation: Understanding identity is the key to succeeding in China is also worth reading as it outlines the key issues in lay language.
Abstract
Employing expatriates who share an ethnicity with host country employees (HCEs) is a widespread expatriate selection strategy. However, little research has compared how expatriates and HCEs perceive this shared ethnicity. Drawing upon an identity perspective, we propose HCEs’ ethnic identity confirmation, the level of agreement between how an HCE views the importance of his/her own ethnic identity and how expatriates view the importance of the HCE’s ethnic identity, affects HCEs’ attitudes towards ethnically similar expatriates. Results of two experiments show that HCEs’ ethnic identity confirmation is related to HCEs’ perception of expatriates’ trustworthiness and knowledge-sharing intention.
Related blogposts
- Of bears, bumble-bees and spiders & who’s in charge?
- The benefits of being understood
- Why is learning the host country language important for expatriates?
- Language barriers in multinational companies
- How you see me, How you don't
- Should we distance ourselves from the cultural distance concept?
- New research monograph: Managing expatriates in China
- Four seasons in one day? On the fluidity of identity in an era of global mobility
Copyright © 2022 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Wed 27 Apr 2022 17:08
Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.
