Immigrant employee effects in international strategy: An exploratory study of international service firms

Abstract

Purpose

This exploratory study aims to examine the influence of immigrant employee effects within a sample of small New Zealand‐based international service providers.

Design/methodology/approach

Seven immigrant employees from six firms were interviewed. The interviews examined immigrant effects on four areas: knowledge transfer and application; customer relationships; marketing strategy and market entry mode. Propositions derived from the literature were tentatively tested.

Findings

The findings, consistent with other literature on immigrant effects, indicated that immigrant employees play an important role in shaping these areas within small international service firms. Of particular importance was knowledge of local culture and market conditions. Immigrant employees enjoyed considerable discretion in the creation and management of customer relationships.

Originality/value

There appeared to be strong interactions between the value of immigrant knowledge, relationships and the characteristics of service offerings. The results established have provided guidance for researchers when formulating their research frameworks concerning market entry mode, international marketing strategy, knowledge transfer, immigrant employees and so on. Managers should also consider employing the outcomes of this research when designing their international human resource management and marketing strategies. However, these exploratory findings should be confirmed by future research which is formulated with a larger sample size. Only then can the contributions of this study be considered more definite.

Citation

Chung, H.F.L., Enderwick, P. and Naruemitmongkonsuk, J. (2010), "Immigrant employee effects in international strategy: An exploratory study of international service firms", International Marketing Review, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 652-675. https://doi.org/10.1108/02651331011088272