Expatriate justice and host country nationals' work outcomes: Does host country nationals' language proficiency matter ?

Abstract

In this paper, we apply uncertainty management theory (UMT) to hypothesize that host country national (HCN) employees in foreign subsidiaries use the information of expatriates' procedural and distributive justice in their performance evaluations to reduce uncertainty about whether they trust these expatriates, which subsequently influence HCNs' job satisfaction and turnover intention. We also integrate UMT with research on language in MNCs to hypothesize that the level of HCN's English proficiency creates the context in which the aforementioned relationships are stronger when HCNs' English proficiency is high. Data collected from 501 HCNs in foreign subsidiaries in Japan provided support for these hypotheses. This study contributes to research on international management by focusing on HCNs' fairness perceptions, uncertainty, and English language proficiency in performance evaluations conducted by expatriates in foreign subsidiaries.