Managing in the International Context: Testing Cultural Generality of Sources of Commitment to Multinational Enterprises

Abstract

The globalization of American business has reactivated a longstanding debate over international exportability of American management theory and practice. This controversy prompted an investigation into factors binding foreign employees to an American multinational enterprise and the consistency of those effects across the firm’s culturally diverse subsidiaries. In a survey, 1,859 managers from 15 European and Canadian affiliates of a U.S. multinational firm described their organizational commitment and bases for that commitment-namely, job scope, role clarity, extrinsic rewards, and participative management. Applying structural equations modeling, we determined whether or not commitment sources similarly developed company attachment across offshore operations. The findings disclosed that these antecedents strongly predicted commitment but displayed no meaningful cultural moderation. Implications for etiology of employee loyalty to global corporations are discussed.