Culture and communication practices: A study of expatriate and local managers in Malaysian freight forwarding industry

Abstract

Expatriates and local managers as proxies of their national culture are presumed to behave differently. An opposing body of evidence maintains that there is growing similarity engendered by education, experience and other organisational factors i.e. convergence hypothesis. This study examined these alternative hypotheses in the way expatriate and local managers in freight and shipping industry in Malaysia interact with their local employees. The evidence from 39 cases show mixed results. Some differences are observed but these are not major. The convergence or similarity hypothesis appears to have more support in this study than the dissimilarity theory.