The Role of Parent-Country Nationals in Reducing the Adverse Effect of Perceived Value Inconsistency on the Commitment of Foreign Subsidiary Employees

Use of the parent country nationals as work group leaders is an important tool for creating alignment within the MNC network. We argue that the parent country expatriates have a key role in mitigating the adverse effects of
perceived values’ inconsistency on affective commitment of employees in foreign subsidiaries, and ultimately MNC performance. Drawing on data from a global survey of 1567 work groups in a large European MNC, we demonstrate the adverse effects of perceived gaps in corporate core values and demonstrate that by acting as culture carriers and translators of corporate messages, parent country expatriates can create alignment around core espoused values and limit the negative consequences of values’ inconsistency at subsidiary level.