Country-of-origin effect on manager’s competence evaluations

Functioning of multinational corporations requires international staffing decisions, which involves, among other issues, sending expatriates to foreign subsidiaries and/or hiring inpatriates in the headquarters. The evaluation of a manager’s professional competence by his/her subordinates, peers or superiors is determined, for example, by cultural stereotypes intertwined with the manager’s nationality. Such an evaluation may affect the quality of cross-cultural interactions and therefore influence effectiveness of a MNC’s staff. Thus the aim of this paper is to initially verify whether the country-of-origin of a manager may affect the perception of his/her professional competence. The analysis of this relationship is based on the literature review and the empirical findings from the authors’ research. An experiment on management students is the research method that was applied in the study. As a result, the authors attempt to examine whether there are cultural stereotypes that ascribe higher or lower managerial competence to individuals from certain countries. The analysis may also contribute to the literature and research on liability of foreignness as well as cultural stigmatization issues. The empirical findings from the pilot study suggest that the nationality of a manager may affect the evaluation of his/her competences by other people.