Parent cultural control of foreign subsidiaries through organizational acculturation: a longitudinal study

Abstract

Organizational acculturation refers to changes in the work values of host-country employees in foreign subsidiaries. Although many multinational corporations practise cultural control of global operations, organizational acculturation has attracted very little academic research. In the present study, the subjects are Hong Kong Chinese managers employed in subsidiaries of multinational corporations from a European country. Longitudinal research was conducted over three years among an 'acculturation' panel, a control panel and a benchmark panel. The findings showed that organizational acculturation may have occurred in some of the work values measured. Implications of these findings for international firms are discussed in detail.