Language, Cultural Intelligence, and Inpatriate Turnover Intentions: Leveraging Values in Multinational Corporations through Inpatriates

Abstract

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are increasingly hiring inpatriates into their headquarters (HQ) to disseminate and implement shared organizational values throughout the organization. The purpose of this study is to investigate the antecedents of inpatriates’ turnover intentions, which would be detrimental to the MNCs’ practices of spreading and leveraging organizational values through inpatriates. Based on the survey responses from 148 inpatriates in Korea-based MNCs, we conducted hierarchical moderated linear regression analyses to test our hypotheses. Results showed that greater levels of English use as a common corporate language in the HQ and perceived organizational-level motivational cultural intelligence (MCQ) were negatively related to inpatriate turnover intention. Furthermore, the negative relationships were attenuated by inpatriates’ host country language proficiency and individual-level of MCQ. Findings suggest that through inpatriate assignments, MNCs can implement and leverage their shared values among organizational subsidiaries across different operations. MNCs can retain inpatriates by better implementing a common corporate language and making their organizations more multicultural.