Knowledge Acquisition of Local Managers: Its Antecedents and Effectiveness

Abstract:The objectives of this article are to examine how expatriates and local managers of the subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations’ (MNCs), or joint ventures, interact to affect local managers’ learning; and to investigate how local managers’ knowledge acquisition from expatriates affects their own performance. To achieve those objectives, the research utilises both quantitative and qualitative exploratory approaches. Data were collected from surveys and indepth interviews at 109 international joint ventures in Vietnam, including dyadic data from 68 local manager-expatriate duos. Through the survey, this research confirms the hypothesis that expatriation fosters tacit knowledge transfer. It also suggests that receivers have a stronger impact on knowledge acquisition than providers. In addition, we find that among various types of knowledge being transferred in expatriate-local manager interactions, only ‘acquired tacit professional’ knowledge affects local managers’ performance.