Fostering assigned expatriates’ innovativeness via culturally intelligent supervisors: a resource gain perspective
研究东道国主管的文化智能如何通过工作投入和子公司社会化两条路径提升外派员工的创新性，并发现外派员工的文化元认知能增强这一效应。
Assigned expatriates play a role in the innovations of multinational companies (MNCs). Yet, we still know little about how MNCs can help their expatriates towards being more innovative. In this study, we draw on conservation of resources theory to propose that perceived host country national (HCN) supervisor cultural intelligence (CQ), as a contextual resource, positively influences expatriates’ innovativeness via two personal resource pathways. Specifically, we suggest that expatriates’ work engagement and subsidiary socialization, as corresponding personal energy and personal knowledge pathways, positively mediate between perceived HCN supervisor CQ and expatriate innovativeness. We further hypothesize that expatriate cultural metacognition, as a key resource, helps expatriates utilize contextual resources more effectively to generate personal resources to innovate, and thus, it positively moderates the two mediation pathways. We use time-lagged data collected from assigned expatriates to test our hypotheses. We discuss our theoretical and practical contributions to the international human resource management literature.