Of Bears, Bumble-Bees, and Spiders: The Role of Expatriates in Controlling Foreign Subsidiaries
Anne-Wil Harzing
This article investigates the role of expatriate managers in multinational companies. We discuss three key organizational functions of expatriation: position filling, management development, and organization development. In the last function, organization development, international transfers are used as an informal coordination and control strategy through socialization and the building of informal communication networks. The article explores this role of international transfers in greater detail, but also discusses a more formal way in which expatriates can control subsidiaries. The following metaphors for these different control functions of expatriation are introduced: “bear” (formal direct control), “bumble-bee” (socialization), and “spider” (informal communication). A large-scale mail survey offers empirical evidence for the bear, bumble-bee and spider roles and shows under which circumstances they are most effective. Being aware of the different control functions of expatriation and the circumstances under which they are most effective can help managers to use expatriate assignments as a more strategic tool.

n the field of International Human Resource Management, the management of expatriates, headquarters employees working abroad in one of the firm’s subsidiaries for a limited period of usually two to five years, often takes up a dominant role. This is not surprising given the fact that many of the traditional functions of HRM—staffing, training & development, appraisal and
Anne-Wil Harzing, University of Melbourne, Department of Management, Faculty of Economics & Commerce, Parkville campus, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia anne-wil@harzing.com .

I

compensation— become far more complex when an expatriate dimension is added. However, in