Cultural and language skills as resources for boundary spanning within the MNC

Journal of International Business Studies - Tập 45 - Trang 886-905 - 2014
Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen1, Mats Ehrnrooth1, Alexei Koveshnikov1, Kristiina Mäkelä2
1Department of Management and Organization, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
2School of Business, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland

Tóm tắt

We examine the role of cultural and language skills as resources for individuals’ boundary spanning ability in multinational corporations. Our combined qualitative and quantitative analysis shows that cultural and language skills influence the extent to which individual boundary spanners perform four functions: exchanging, linking, facilitating, and intervening. Boundary spanners with both cultural and language skills perform more functions than those with only cultural skills, and language skills are critical for performing the most demanding functions. Key boundary spanners have properties that potentially make them not only valuable organizational human capital, but also rare and difficult to imitate. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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