‘Am I Still One of Them?’: Bicultural Immigrant Managers Navigating Social Identity Threats When Spanning Global Boundaries

• Date: 01 June 2017
• Published date: 01 June 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12259

‘Am I Still One of Them?’: Bicultural Immigrant

Managers Navigating Social Identity Threats When

Spanning Global Boundaries

Aimee A. Kane and Natalia Levina

Duquesne University; New York University

ABSTRACT We examine the practice of nominating bicultural immigrants to manage

knowledge-intensive projects sourced from their host to their home countries. We focus on

their actions vis-a-vis global collaborators and unpack psychological processes involved.

Managers in these positions have to navigate the workplace social identity threat that arises

from being associated with the home country group – a lower status group in this context.

How they navigate this threat shapes the way they use their bicultural competencies and

authority as managers. When they embrace their home country identity, immigrant managers

tend to enable knowledge-based boundary spanning through actions empowering home

country collaborators, such as teaching missing competencies, connecting to important

stakeholders, and soliciting input. Instead, when distancing from their home country identity,

they tend to hinder collaborators by micromanaging, narrowing communication channels, and

suppressing input. We develop theoretical implications for the study of global boundary

spanning, bicultural managers, and workplace social identity.

Keywords: biculturals, cross-cultural collaboration, global boundary spanning, offshoring,

qualitative research, social identity

INTRODUCTION

Enabled by advances in information and communication technologies and fuelled by an

increasingly global economy, collaboration across national boundaries is increasingly

prevalent and important (Hinds et al., 2011). The effective functioning of multinational

corporations (MNCs), for example, involves complex initiatives undertaken jointly by

headquarters and subsidiary units located around the globe, such as the introduction of

new systems, products, and services (Schotter et al., 2017). It is also common for organi-

zations to offshore information technology (IT), engineering, consulting, scientific

Address for reprints: Aimee A. Kane, Palumbo-Donahue School of Business, Duquesne University, 600 For-

bes Avenue, 828 Pittsburgh, PA 15282, USA (kanea@duq.edu).

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Journal of Management Studies 54:4 June 2017

doi: 10.1111/joms.12259

research, and other knowledge-intensive projects to professionals in countries such as

India, Russia, and China (Di Gregorio et al., 2009; Jensen, 2012; Jensen and Pedersen,

2010; Kenney et al., 2009; Lewin et al., 2009; Mudambi and Venzin, 2010; Mudambi

et al., 2014). These initiatives and projects require knowledge sharing as well as the joint

development and refinement of novel ideas between parties located in different coun-

tries; in other words, they require global boundary spanning (Mudambi, 2011; Schotter

and Beamish, 2011).

Collaborative boundary spanning involves activities, such as productive conflict reso-

lution, that can result in a synergistic combination of the diverse expertise and interests

of parties separated by institutional and cultural boundaries (Hardy et al., 2005; Levina

and Vaast, 2013; Schotter and Beamish, 2011; Tippmann et al., 2017). Such collabora-

tive boundary spanning, however, is quite difficult to achieve in global contexts because

the parties involved, e.g., headquarters and subsidiaries or onshore clients and offshore

providers, tend to differ significantly in terms of status and power as well as culture and

language (Cramton and Hinds, 2014; Hinds et al., 2014; Hong, 2010; Levina and

Vaast, 2008; Schotter and Beamish, 2011). The nascent literature in this area provides

some guidance to redress these issues, suggesting that organizations nominate powerful

agents, e.g., expatriates (Reiche et al., 2009), onshore clients (Levina and Vaast, 2008),

or subsidiary managers (Schotter and Beamish, 2011), to boundary spanning roles or

that organizations employee bicultural individuals with competencies in the cultures to

be spanned (Brannen and Thomas, 2010; Hong and Doz, 2013). Without closer theo-

retical scrutiny and empirical attention, however, it is not clear whether the status con-

ferred by nomination and the competencies associated with biculturalism are indeed

sufficient for collaborative boundary spanning in global settings.

To further push our understanding of boundary spanning empirically and theoreti-

cally, we examine global boundary spanning where the structural condition of being

nominated to a boundary spanning role and the individual condition of biculturalism

have already been met. In particular, we focus on the rather common occurrence of an

organization nominating a bicultural individual to manage a knowledge-intensive pro-

ject sourced to his or her country of origin (Carmel and Tjia, 2005; Johri, 2008; Krishna

et al., 2004; Rai et al., 2009). For example, a bank headquartered in the United States

that offshores a software development project to a group of professionals in Ukraine

may appoint one of its IT professionals who years ago emigrated from Ukraine (i.e.,

immigrant’s home country) to manage the project remotely from the USA (i.e., immi-

grant’s host country). Indeed, the idea behind nominating an immigrant as an onshore

manager on projects sourced to his or her country of origin is that, as a bicultural in a

powerful structural position, he or she is likely to have the necessary resources for span-

ning across the groups involved. Although intuitively appealing, it remains unclear

empirically how bicultural managers draw on these resources when positioned for global

boundary spanning. Examining such managers also presents an attractive research

opportunity as it allows us to theoretically unpack the psychological processes and result-

ing actions of boundary spanners who are endowed with requisite resources to fulfil their

roles, but may or may not do so in practice.

We take a practice-theoretical perspective, which underscores that boundary span-

ning activities are both situated in institutional settings characterized by multiple,

541Navigating Identity Threats in Spanning Boundaries

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conflicting, and asymmetrical power and status relations as well as emerge from micro-

level interactions of agents (Bourdieu, 1977; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Accord-

ingly, we set out to understand the situated, emergent nature of collaborative boundary

spanning as it unfolds in settings that require globally distributed parties to collaborate

to refine and create ideas, innovations, and other forms of work-place knowledge.

Because issues pertaining to knowledge and collaboration are deeply embedded in prac-

tice (Orlikowski, 2002) and because our aim was to develop an empirically grounded

interpretive understanding of this phenomenon, we undertook an inductive qualitative

study (Charmaz, 2006; Doz, 2011). Of the various legitimate ways of writing up qualita-

tive research (Pratt, 2008), we chose to first present relevant background literature to sit-

uate our inductive theory building. We then present our methods and findings, followed

by our empirically grounded theoretical framework. We conclude with contributions,

future research directions, and limitations.

BACKGROUND LITERATURE

How Individuals Enable Boundary Spanning-in-Practice

Boundary spanning involves combining the expertise and interests of collaborators sepa-

rated by social boundaries (Carlile, 2002; Cramton and Hinds, 2014; Hardy et al.,

2005; Levina and Vaast, 2005; Mudambi and Swift, 2009; Schotter and Beamish,

2011). Collaborators situated in social contexts (or fields of practice) separated by such

boundaries have differential access to terminology, tools, perspectives, and other work-

relevant knowledge that arise from the habituated actions of the agents in each setting

(Levina and Vaast, 2005, 2008, 2013). The practices of technical professionals, for

example, can be readily differentiated from those of graphic designers, and the concomi-

tant inter-organizational boundary between such practices delimits diverse expertise

and interests (Levina and Vaast, 2005). Collaborative boundary spanning that enables a

synergistic combination of diverse expertise may result in novel solutions to long-

standing problems and innovative products and services (Levina and Vaast, 2005). It is

no small order, however, to combine such diverse practices. It is challenging for individ-

uals from diverse groups to be willing and able to understand one another (Cronin and

Weingart, 2007), especially when their interests do not fully align under a common goal

(Kane, 2010; Kane et al., 2005) and their knowledge is tacit and embedded in practice

(Carlile, 2002; Cramton and Hinds, 2014).

Although no one individual can overcome these challenges alone, the process often

does rely on specific individuals, termed ‘boundary spanners-in-practice’, whose actions

help diverse parties relate their different interests and practices and negotiate a common

way of working (Levina and Vaast, 2005). As shown in Table I, three conditions need to

be met for individuals to become boundary spanners-in-practice (Levina and Vaast,

2005, pp. 353–54). First, individuals need to become legitimate peripheral participants in the

practices of both groups (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Such participation enables individu-

als to develop an understanding of each group’s practices, which is critical, albeit not

sufficient, for negotiating relations among those practices. Second, individuals must be

recognized as negotiators for the group. Earning this recognition may arise from, among

542 A. A. Kane and N. Levina

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