Returnee managers as an asset for emerging market multinational enterprises: Chinese cross-border acquisitions (2008–2017)

Abstract

Returnee managers, a scarce human resource for emerging market multinational enterprises in the past, are becoming increasingly abundant, and their value is at risk of diminishing. The analysis of Chinese cross-border acquisitions (2008–2017) reveals that only returnee managers from the same country in which an acquisition is targeted facilitate the acquisition, whereas the others fail to make a difference. The impacts are stronger when the acquiring company has less international experience and when the target country has a weak institutional environment. Thus, returnee managers as an asset should be deployed where they are most needed and least substitutable.