Ascribed Behavioral Determinants of Success-Failure among U.S. Expatriate Managers

Myriad factors have important effects on the performance of the multinational corporation. In addition to the normal business issues faced by its domestic counterpart, the multinational firm faces many added opportunities and problems simply because it operates in more than one country. Many of these complicating factors which are unique to multinational firms have been examined and researched in great detail. However, one set of factors which is very important to the success of multinational firms has received relatively little attention from researchers: those factors relating to the unique human and behavioral problems encountered by a firm operating in several cultural and national environments. One of these behavioral issues which is particularly vital to the multinational firm is the performance of persons of one nationality who are assigned to positions in another cultural environment.© 1971 JIBS. Journal of International Business Studies (1971) 2, 40–46