Expatriate managers and MNC’s ability to control international subsidiaries: the case of Japanese MNCs

Building upon the notion of behavioral means of control, this paper contends that the level of cultural knowledge of expatriates plays a critical role in determining the effectiveness of expatriates as a means of control over international subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). An empirical investigation with a sample of Japanese MNCs indicates that while expatriate personnel with adequate cultural knowledge of the host country contribute to the MNC’s control ability, those without cultural knowledge do not.