MNE Subsidiary Managers’ International Work Experience and Advice Networks: The Moderating Role of Cultural Distance

Purpose – To perform effectively in the context of the dual embeddedness of MNE subsidiaries, subsidiary managers need to build and use wide advice networks across headquarters and their host countries. Informed by social learning theory, we explore how a subsidiary manager’s prior international work experience contributes to building advice networks and how cultural distance between the manager’s home and the prior working country moderates the relationship between international experience and the advice networks there Design/Methodology/Approach – The study is based on a survey of 187 subsidiary managers that report directly to subsidiary heads, in 43 subsidiaries of 12 South Korean MNEs. Findings – We find that parent country national subsidiary managers with prior international work experience in a host country tend to have larger and stronger local advice networks in the country, whereas host country national subsidiary managers’ prior international work experience in the multinational enterprise’s home country contributes to building strong advice networks in the home country. More crucially, we find that a parent country national subsidiary manager’s prior international work experience in the host country has a stronger influence on the size of local advice networks when there is higher cultural distance between the home and the host country. Research Implications – In the management of this paper, our study identifies cultural distance as a boundary condition in the relationship between MNE subsidiary managers’ international work experience and advice networks.