The knowledge transfer and learning aspects of international HRM: an empirical study of Singapore MNCs

Eric W. K. Tsang

International Business Review, 1999, vol. 8, issue 5-6, 591-609

Abstract: This paper has two main objectives: first, to theoretically examine the knowledge transfer and learning aspects of international human resource management (IHRM), and second, to empirically evaluate the IHRM practices adopted by 12 Singapore multinational corporations with respect to their foreign direct investments in China from a knowledge-based and learning perspective. It was found that the Singapore companies in general held an ethnocentric attitude and would like to transfer their routines to China. Their IHRM practices in terms of the decision to send expatriates to China, selection of expatriates, pre-assignment training, learning by expatriates, knowledge diffusion, evaluation of expatriates' performance, and expatriate failure are analyzed. Generally speaking, the IHRM practices adopted by these companies failed to take account of the fact that expatriates are key agents of knowledge transfer and learning.

Keywords: Knowledge; transfer; Learning; International; human; resource; management; Singapore; Fledgling; multinational; corporations; Internationalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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