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Our purpose in this paper was to investigate the role of self-construal by emphasizing 2 dimensions, namely the independent and interdependent views of self, as intercultural competencies that aid knowledge transfer and contribute to the enhancement of social capital between expatriates and host country nationals. Data were collected from 176 expatriates working in China, as well as 176 of their Chinese colleagues, all of whom completed measures of self-construal, frequency of interaction, trust, and shared vision. Further, supervisors rated their subordinates' knowledge sharing. The results revealed that for both sets of respondents, self-construal were facilitated by building positive relationships. This demonstrates the value of self-construal, revealing practical methods of developing social capital between expatriates and their host country colleagues as an instrumental means for knowledge transfer.
Keywords: self-construal, expatriates, host country nationals, knowledge transfer, social capital theory.
Smooth and effective knowledge transfers have given multinational corporations (MNCs) a notable advantage over their competitors (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1989). Thus, the question of how to transfer knowledge successfully between the headquarters of MNCs and foreign subsidiaries is crucial for sustaining a company's competitive advantage. Holtbrügge and Berg (2004) stated that knowledge transfer, which Kalling (2003) defined as a process in which employees within an organization learn from each other, has two dimensions: explicit knowledge (formal and codified) and tacit knowledge (informal, often culturally based understandings). The nature of tacit knowledge means that it is difficult to measure (Lee, Chen, Kim, & Johnson, 2008) because it is mostly transferred through face-to-face communication. Therefore, most researchers have focused on explicit knowledge because this creates a sustainable competitive advantage. Another topic of knowledge transfer in cross-cultural research that has received little attention (e.g., Hsu, 2012) is the specific aspects of relationships between expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs). Chang, Gong, and Peng (2012) posited that the new generation of expatriates acts as a knowledge buffer, by not only absorbing but also disseminating and generating knowledge. Heretofore, there have been few studies of how knowledge flows between expatriates and HCNs, even though their different upbringings and culture make it challenging for them to start and to sustain interrelationships. Furthermore, the transmission of data may be stifled or stopped by these difficulties. This raises what we believe to be an intriguing...