Conditional altruism: Effects of HRM practices on the willingness of host‐country nationals to help expatriates

• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21844
• Author: Haiying Kang,Peter J. Dowling,Jie Shen
• Published date: 01 January 2018

HR SCIENCE FORUM

Conditional altruism: Effects of HRM practices on the

willingness of host-country nationals to help expatriates

Jie Shen

1

| Haiying Kang

2

| Peter J. Dowling

3

1

Shenzhen-Audencia Business School,

Shenzhen University, China

2

School of Management, RMIT University,

Melbourne, Australia

3

School of Management, La Trobe University,

Australia

Correspondence

Jie Shen, Professor of HRM, Shenzhen

Audencia Business School, Shenzhen

University.

Email: jie.shen@szu.edu.cn,

Shen1000@hotmail.com.

The assistance of host-country nationals (HCNs) both within the workplace and in the external

environment plays a significant role in expatriate adjustment and work performance on interna-

tional assignments. Extant research exploring antecedents of HCNs' attitudes and behaviors

toward expatriates focuses on personal and intrapersonal factors but overlooks organizational

contextual effects. In this study, we propose and test a model that HCNs' willingness to help

expatriates is influenced by HRM practices in international subsidiaries of multinational enter-

prises (MNEs). Results of analyzing data collected from Chinese subsidiaries of South Korean

MNEs showed that high-commitment HRM practices directly and indirectly influence HCNs'

willingness to help expatriates through the mediation of perceived organizational support

(POS). Socially responsible HRM indirectly influences the criterion variable through the media-

tion of organizational identification. Moreover, POS and organizational identification sequen-

tially mediate the effect of high-commitment HRM on HCNs' willingness to help expatriates.

These findings shed some light on organizational antecedents that go beyond personal and

intrapersonal factors of HCN attitudes and behavior toward expatriates.

KEYWORDS

China, expatriates, HCNs' willingness to help, high-commitment HRM, socially responsible

HRM, South Korean multinational enterprises

1|INTRODUCTION

Research has shown that expatriates often face difficulties in and

outside of the workplace. As such, help from host-country nationals

(HCNs) with work and social support plays an irreplaceable role in

expatriates' adjustment and performance on international assign-

ments (Caligiuri, Joshi, & Lazarova, 1999; Farh, Bartol, Shapiro, &

Shin, 2010; Varma, Budhwar, & Pichler, 2011). Helping behavior

toward coworkers often goes beyond one's job duty and is risk-taking

behavior that may affect the provider's own work performance

(Shen & Benson, 2016). Expatriates have multiple identities; in addi-

tion to being coworkers, they are also seen by HCNs as representa-

tives of multinational enterprise (MNE) (Reiche, Harzing, & Kraimer,

2008; Zhou & Qin, 2009). Therefore, HCNs helping expatriates repre-

sents helping behavior toward coworkers, as well as their positive

attitudes and behavior toward the MNE.

The past decade has witnessed increasing academic interest in

exploring factors predicting the relationship between HCNs and

expatriates (e.g., see, Arman & Aycan, 2013; Toh & DeNisi, 2007;

Toh & Srinivas, 2012; Varma et al., 2011). However, the extant litera-

ture regarding determinants of the willingness of HCNs to help

expatriates has a focus on personal and intrapersonal factors such as

personality (Caligiuri, 2000; Johnson, Kristof-Brown, Van Vianen, De

Pater, & Klein, 2003) and social categorization (Arman & Aycan,

2013; Varma et al., 2011). Thus far, organizational factors predicting

the willingness of HCNs to help expatriates have been largely over-

looked, indicating a need for further theoretical and empirical clarifi-

cation. Due to the unique identities of expatriates, HCNs helping

expatriates is not only HCN prosocial behavior toward coworkers but

also reflects their positive attitudes and behaviors toward MNEs.

Thus, exploring organizational contextual effects on HCN attitudes

and behavior toward expatriates requires new theoretical frameworks

that differ from those presented in past studies.

The current study seeks to fill this important knowledge gap by

exploring the effects ofMNEs' HRM policies and practices in overseas

This research was partially supported by Chinese National Science Foundation

Grant 71572157.

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21844

Hum Resour Manage. 2018;57:355–364. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 355