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The International Journal of Human

Resource Management
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The impact of individual performance

on organizational success and its
implications for the management of
expatriates
ab b
Jaime Bonache & Daniela Noethen
a
Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain
b
ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain
Published online: 20 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Jaime Bonache & Daniela Noethen (2014) The impact of individual performance
on organizational success and its implications for the management of expatriates, The International
Journal of Human Resource Management, 25:14, 1960-1977, DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2013.870287

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 The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2014
Vol. 25, No. 14, 1960–1977, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2013.870287

The impact of individual performance on organizational success and its

implications for the management of expatriates
Jaime Bonachea,b* and Daniela Noethenb
a
Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain; bESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain
In this paper, we present a new but simple typology of international assignments that
can help guide the management of expatriates. Applying a well-known job typology by
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Jacobs, D. (1981, ‘Toward a Theory of Mobility and Behavior in Organizations: An

Inquiry into the Consequences of Some Relationships Between Individual Performance
and Organizational Success,’ American Journal of Sociology, 87, 684– 707) and Baron,
J.N., and Kreps, D.M. (1999, Strategic Human Resources: Frameworks for General
Managers, New York: Wiley) to the international arena, we distinguish between star
and guardian assignments. The essence of this distinction lies in a difference regarding
a crucial relationship: the link between expatriate performance and organizational
success. Drawing on two well-known case studies, we analyze the essential
characteristics of and differences between star and guardian assignments, and deduct
concrete consequences for the employment of specific human resource management
policies along the expatriate cycle. The paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical
and practical implications.
Keywords: expatriate performance; international assignments; star and guardian jobs;
transnational organizations; workforce differentiation

Introduction
It is almost a truism to assert that expatriates’ good performance is a necessary condition to
judge the value and efficacy of international assignments – nevertheless, we beg to differ.
The popular logic is simple: if expatriates are successful, they will improve the subsidiary’s
performance (Gong 2003; Gaur, Delios and Singh 2007; Colakoglu and Caligiuri 2008;
Chang, Gong and Peng 2012), and with this, eventually, the organization’s performance.
Typical organizational performance outcomes derived from successful expatriates include
better control and coordination, and the transfer and building of key intangible assets
(organizational culture, knowledge and global mindsets) throughout the global operations
(Edström and Galbraith 1977; Bartlett and Ghoshal 1989; Kogut and Zander 1993;
Groysberg, Nohria and Herman 2011). But as we will show, such outcomes are often not
linearly influenced by expatriate performance.
While much research in the field of international transfers has been dedicated to the
predictors of expatriate or assignment success (Clarke and Hammer 1995; Harrison, Shaffer
and Bhaskar-Shrinivas 2004; Kraimer and Wayne 2004; Reiche and Harzing 2011), the link
between individual success and the subsidiary and/or organizational success has not
received as much research attention. Rather, as mentioned above, it has been simply
assumed that a positive linear relationship exists between expatriates’ successful
completion of assignments on the one hand and benefits for the organization on the other.
For example, Chang et al. (2012) recently suggested a positive effect of expatriates’
performance (in terms of knowledge transfer) on subsidiary performance. They showed that

*Corresponding author. Email: jaime.bonache@uc3m.es

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1961

having more skilled and motivated expatriates (who should perform better at knowledge
transfer tasks) leads to more knowledge receipt by the subsidiary, which subsequently
entails better subsidiary performance. On the contrary, a failure of the expatriate is
generally assumed to result in immense costs that do not only involve direct expenses such
as the assignee’s salary and training, but may also extend to indirect costs such as a damaged
relationship with customers, host government officials or local staff (Reiche and Harzing
2011).
In this paper, we question these assumptions and suggest that a detailed investigation
of the relationship in question is necessary. Accordingly, we formulate the following
research question: What is the impact of expatriates’ performance on company success? In
a theoretical approach to answering this question, we draw on the well-founded typology
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of star and guardian jobs initially introduced by Jacobs (1981) and revised by Baron and
Kreps (1999) as well as on two popular case studies, the case of ‘Silvio Napoli at Schindler
in India’ (Fagan, Yoshino and Bartlett 2006) and the case of ‘Levendary Café in China’
(Bartlett and Han 2011a). According to our analysis, and contrary to the above-mentioned
assumptions, the relationship between expatriates’ performance and subsequent
organizational results is not linear, but rather exponential and depends, in its concrete
form, on the type of assignment the expatriate is facing. We present arguments that in
some cases (star assignments), high expatriate performance can lead to huge
organizational success, while poor performance will not result in much damage. In
other cases (guardian assignments), however, even exceptional expatriate performance
will not lead to a significant contribution to the organization’s success, while a failure can
result in extraordinary losses. Assuming these cases can be distinguished in advance – and
we argue that they can – it seems only reasonable for organizations to manage them
differently. Accordingly, our secondary research interest focuses on the question on how
far the human resource management practices along the expatriate cycle are (or should be)
contingent on the different expatriate assignment types. Again, we approach this question
via a theoretical analysis drawing on the typology of star and guardian jobs as well as the
two illustrative case studies. Our analysis suggests that HR practices for the star and
guardian assignments should differ substantially, focusing either on the maximization of
chances for success in the case of star assignments, or on the minimization of the potential
for failure in the case of guardian assignments.
By doing so, we aim to make the following contributions: first, we seek to advance
IHRM theory through the application of the afore-mentioned well-known organizational
typology (of star and guardian jobs) to the area of expatriate performance. One of the
benefits of this application is the attainment of a new, broad, conceptually grounded
understanding of the management of international assignees which allows us to question
and clarify certain beliefs that are widespread and firmly rooted in the literature. Second,
rather than simply offering a new typology, we aim to provide a framework of HR
practices along the entire management cycle of international assignees, contingent on that
typology. Last but not least, we aim to demonstrate that the theoretical analysis presented
in this paper is in line with the very practical context organizations are faced with in
reality.
The paper is structured as follows: first, we analyze the extant literature with respect to
expatriates’1 performance on international assignments and its link to subsidiary and
organizational performance. Subsequently, we briefly describe the two cases mentioned
above and categorize the assignments depicted therein as either star or guardian type of
assignments. In a next step, we examine the characteristics of the two assignment types
and identify essential factors that allow to differentiate between them: task
 1962 J. Bonache and D. Noethen

interdependence and task difficulty. Finally, we elaborate on the consequences of this

theoretical framework for the management of expatriates, analyzing how the attributes and
characteristics of star and guardian assignments relate to different human resource
practices used by organizations along the so-called expatriation cycle.

Expatriate performance and contribution to organizational success

Definition and antecedents of expatriate performance
The extant literature presents a number of criteria when it comes to defining success of
international transfers (Yan, Zhu and Hall 2002; Reiche and Harzing 2011). The most
commonly used operational measure for assignment success2 is the expatriate’s
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completion of the full term of assignment, while a premature return has been interpreted
as expatriate failure (Feldman and Thomas 1992; Thomas 1998; Yan et al. 2002; Reiche
and Harzing 2011). While this is a very narrow definition, and not a very accurate one for
that matter (Harzing and Christensen 2004), other researchers have attempted a more
comprehensive definition of assignment success. For example, Yan et al. (2002) described
criteria from the expatriate’s as well as the organization’s perspective (e.g. promotion of
assignee upon repatriation vs. utilization of expertise by subsidiary), considering short-
term (expatriation) as well as long-term (repatriation) success. For our purpose, such an
attempt is too broad and ambitious. When we mention expatriate performance or success
in the following, we simply refer to the actual (task) performance of the assignee on the
assignment – or, as seen from the organizational point of view, the completion of
assignment objectives.
As already mentioned, antecedents of expatriate or assignment success have been
extensively investigated in the past (Clarke and Hammer 1995; Harrison et al. 2004;
Kraimer and Wayne 2004; Reiche and Harzing 2011). Several individual, job,
organizational and non-work-related factors, such as personality, experience with
previous assignments, role clarity or spouse adjustment, have been found to influence
expatriate adjustment, performance and assignment success (e.g. Tung 1984; Black,
Mendenhall and Oddou 1991; Shaffer, Harrison and Gilley 1999; Caligiuri 2000). For
example, Caligiuri (2000) found that conscientiousness, one of the Big Five personality
factors, was positively related to supervisor-rated performance on the expatriate
assignment, while Kraimer and Wayne (2004) found that (perceived) organizational
support had a positive relationship with different expatriate success criteria.

Contribution to subsidiary and organizational success

In the extant literature on international assignments, there is an internal differentiation of
corporate expatriates. In addition to the common categories of duration (long vs. short),
level (managerial vs. technical) and nationality (Host Country Nationals vs. Third Country
Nationals), corporate expatriates differ in their desired outcomes (e.g. control,
coordination, knowledge transfer, management development; Edström and Galbraith
1977), the relative importance of knowledge inflows and/or outflows (Gupta and
Govindarajan 1991, 1994), as well as their link to the overall international strategy of the
MNC (Bartlett and Ghoshal 1989; Daniels, Radebaugh and Sullivan 2012). However, as
briefly mentioned, this literature assumes an identical linear relationship between
individual performance and organizational success for all types of assignments: the high
(or low) individual expatriate performance will have positive (or negative) impacts on the
organization (e.g. Wang, Tong, Chen and Kim 2009; Chang et al. 2012).3
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1963

However, we are convinced that the effect of expatriate performance on organizational

outcomes is not as simple. Rather, we suggest that the relationship is not only nonlinear,
but also depends to a great extent on the assignment type the expatriate is facing.
To demonstrate this point, we recur to the two practical cases mentioned in the
introduction.

Two typical contexts for expats

Silvio Napoli at Schindler
As described in the case ‘Silvio Napoli at Schindler India (A)’ (Fagan et al. 2006),
Schindler, a Swiss-based manufacturer of elevators and escalators, employed over 38,000
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people in 97 subsidiaries as of 1998. In India, the company’s engagement had been

growing stronger ever since the 1950s, culminating in the management’s decision to
establish a wholly owned subsidiary as they saw the Indian market to have a huge growth
potential. The start-up had to be built from scratch, offices were to be established, local top
managers needed to be hired and an aggressive business plan stood to be implemented.
And all this in an – for the company – unknown environment, or, as the case authors put it,
‘in a hostile environment where nothing works as it should’. Thus, completely new
knowledge and skills had to be created. India, according to Schindler’s Chairman and
CEO, was expected to be the company’s ‘Formula One racing car’, where innovations
could be developed and tested in isolation and on a fast track, to be later adapted to the rest
of the group.
For the position of country manager, Schindler needed a flexible generalist (rather than
a specialist) who knew the company, people and products. This person would be key to the
success of the business plan and eventually the subsidiary, as he or she would have free
reign in setting up the subsidiary without much guidance from headquarters.
Schindler eventually offered the job to Silvio Napoli, a 33-year-old, strong-headed,
single-minded and energetic Italian. After receiving an MBA, Silvio had joined Schindler
as head of corporate planning only 4 years previously, but had worked directly with the
corporate executive committee and thus gained visibility. He had headed a project to
develop a standardized elevator at dramatically lower costs which involved changes that
were ‘unthinkable in the past’, redesigning the entire supply chain. More importantly,
Silvio had spent 9 months developing a detailed analysis of the Indian market and a
business plan for the company’s market entry. Thus, Schindler opted for someone with
limited experience in the company, not much international experience, but also who had
proven he could find creative solutions.
For Silvio himself, the position offered was a high-risk assignment that would either
boost his career or put an end to any aspirations to move up the career ladder.
Nevertheless, he accepted, and took his pregnant wife and two small children with him to
New Delhi. While the first 2 months seemed a battle between family relocation and
company start-up, the situation became critical 8 months into the assignment: already
behind the planned schedule, Silvio faced several challenges as in managing the local
staff who did not stick to the business strategy, dealing with intense cost pressures and
changes in country legislation, and not receiving needed support from European
subsidiaries. Furthermore, he was struggling for acceptance of his radically different
business approach.
The case is an excellent example of a typical situation in an MNC, explicating choices
to be made before the assignment as well as hurdles and challenges that the assignee often
has to face on the assignment, especially in the case of start-ups.
 1964 J. Bonache and D. Noethen

Levendary Café
The case ‘Levendary Café: the China Challenge’ (Bartlett and Han 2011a) leads up to a
very different type of assignment: in 2011, Levendary is a chain of 3500 Cafés with
revenues of $10 billion that started out 32 years earlier as a small Denver soup, salad and
sandwich restaurant. Levendary Café distinguishes itself by serving wholesome food using
high-quality ingredients, and committing to timely service in a comfortable, friendly
environment. The menu as well as the look and feel of the restaurant remains largely
consistent across stores, with the exception of very small local variations.
Standardization is a leading concept within the company, and is reflected in its
centralized organizational structure: headquarter exclusively takes decisions about food
development and marketing, defines detailed processes for food preparation in the stores
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and conducts quality checks in the field. In company-owned stores, operations are closely
monitored and store-level expenses controlled, and also in franchised stores, brand and
operating standards are strictly enforced. This standardization is put to a test when
Levendary’s first stores in China are established. The task to start business and establish a
strong market position in China were entrusted to an external hire, Louis Chen. Louis is a
34 years old MBA, bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese, with a decade-long
experience as a retail property developer in China and an extended network of contacts
there. After a short period of preparation and socialization in different Levendary
departments and stores, Louis left for China to replicate what he had seen. While enjoying
full trust and little control from headquarters, he set up the first store after 3 months and
another 22 stores within the 1st year.
But soon, problems became apparent to the new CEO, Mia Foster: first, all management
and financial reports from the Chinese subsidiary were submitted in their own instead of the
company standard format, creating additional work for the finance group, an issue on which
Louis refused to cooperate. Second, the COO to whom Louis had been reporting admitted
that managing him had been a frustrating experience as Louis was not providing much
insight into China operations. Third, and most disturbing, a visit of the chief Franchise
Officer to China revealed that Louis had taken many liberties regarding defining elements
of the Levendary experience, which led some of the headquarter managers to fear for
Levendary’s reputation and image. Rather than responding to their concerns, Louis felt his
efforts and hard work were not appreciated. On a related note, headquarters was concerned
about Louis’ lack of strategic plan for growth and insistence on building and adapting stores
individually on the go. Mia, the CEO, thus decided that a closer collaboration and more
support for Louis are needed to ascertain consistency across borders.
Although the case ends here, we would like to envision the next steps that Mia would
be taking. It is very probable that headquarters would assign an experienced area director
or headquarter manager to the Chinese subsidiary in order to assure that Levendary
standards are met in a more rigorous way without neglecting local preferences. The
assignee would have to be a very experienced member of the Levendary family, familiar
with standards, procedures and best practices. At the same time, the expatriate would have
to be persevering and must not shy away from conflict, as Louis would obviously not be
pleased to have somebody tell him what to do. Again, this is a brilliant example for
situations MNCs face, usually some time into their engagement in a foreign market.

Expatriates as guardians or stars

The above two cases are interesting for our discussion of the relationship between
expatriate performance and subsidiary or organizational success, because they represent
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1965

two different forms of the said relationship: this becomes clearer when we ask what would
happen in the respective cases if the expatriates in question (Silvio Napoli and a future
expatriate at Levendary Café China) were successful in their assignments, or, on the other
hand, if they showed a poor performance, not reaching the assignment objectives.
Of course, there is no unequivocal answer to these questions, but we can hypothesize about
the answers: taking the case of Silvio Napoli, the successful set-up of the Indian subsidiary
and achievement of goals set in the business plan would obviously increase Schindler’s
revenues and profits. Maybe it would even turn the company into one of the big players in
the Indian elevator and escalator market. Furthermore, as India is seen as the ‘Formula
One racing car’, the innovations Silvio introduces might be applied to the entire group and
thus have major benefits for subsidiaries elsewhere. On the other hand, assuming he could
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not solve the problems he is facing, the company might lose the money invested in the
set-up (which in this case would be comparatively low as no production facilities
or infrastructures were set up), but would otherwise remain largely unaffected.
In the case of Levendary Café, the picture looks very different. If an expatriate could
successfully help Louis Chen to collaborate with headquarters, develop a strategic growth
plan and bring stores closer to Levendary standards, the China business could continue to
grow. Thus, business would continue to be profitable, but profitability would not
necessarily increase due to the expatriate’s intervention. On the other hand, if the
expatriate would fail to reach his objectives, the China stores would, at least, become hard
to manage or unmanageable due to a lack of standardization (Louis is already ‘in trenches’
with the 23 stores set up), and the business would eventually stop to grow. Furthermore,
local management and employees might be demotivated and frustrated by the intervention,
creating further negative impact. In a worst-case scenario, the China business could hurt
Levendary’s image and reputation beyond China.
These two expatriate assignments correspond to two job types first mentioned by Jacobs
(1981) and further developed by Baron and Kreps (1999), namely the star job (Silvio Napoli)
and the guardian job (expatriate at Levendary Café). Baron and Kreps’ framework classifies
jobs according to their consequences for the organization in case of high or poor performance
of the incumbent. They call a job a star job ‘when a bad performance isn’t too bad, but a good
performance is very good for the firm’ (p. 27), whereas they define a guardian job as a job
where ‘a bad performance is a disaster, but a good performance is only slightly better for the
firm than an average performance’ (p. 27). Differently put, the range of potential
(organizational) outcomes differs between star and guardian jobs (consider the range on the
y-axis covered by the two graphs in Figure 1). Another dimension on which these jobs differ
is the probability of good (or bad) organizational outcomes: whereas for people with a star
job, ‘the odds of a good outcome are quite low, with most outcomes in the average-to-
mediocre range’ (Baron and Kreps 1999, p. 27), the opposite is true for guardian jobs, where
‘most of the time the outcome should be average to slightly above average, with small
probability of a disaster’. In other words, good performance is much more common among
guardians than among stars, whereas stars fail more often than do guardians (we will see why
this is the case in the next section). Typical star jobs, according to Baron and Kreps, would be
‘jobs involving the production of knowledge or innovation, where only the (occasional) good
idea is adopted after being thoroughly vetted’ (p. 27), whereas typical guardian jobs ‘are
often found when the work technology involves a complex, interdependent system of
production, and overall performance is determined largely by the worst individual
contribution’, or ‘when the organization’s reputation is a valuable asset’ which can suffer
disproportionately by the news of a single mismanagement (p. 27). The priority, thus, in a
star job, is to try to excel, whereas the focus in a guardian job lies on not to fail.
 1966 J. Bonache and D. Noethen
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Figure 1. Relationship between expatriate performance and organizational success in Star and
Guardian Jobs in contrast to previous empirical results. Note: The solid line represents a linear
relationship as found in empirical studies, the two dotted lines represent the relationship contingent
on assignment type according to our theoretical framework. The distribution of x (which is theory –
and not empirically based) reflects different probabilities of poor and high performance for the two
assignment types. As can be seen, the linear relationship (as a result from statistical analysis) can
easily mask the two underlying nonlinear effects.

It is worth mentioning that star and guardian types do not exhaust all possible job
types. There are many jobs which will not have a tremendous impact on the organization,
no matter if they are performed exceptionally well or exceptionally bad (e.g. room
cleaners, secretaries or teachers). These are usually first-line jobs without major
responsibilities or strategic importance. Baron and Kreps (1999) describe this job type as
the ‘foot soldier’, who is characterized by a high probability of average job performance,
and more importantly, by almost exclusively neutral outcomes for the organization (i.e. no
possibility to influence outcomes in a positive or negative way). But, given that the broad
majority of corporate expatriates does not fall into this job category (if the performance
does not matter, a cheaper local can easily fill the job), we will exclude this job type from
further analysis and focus merely on star and guardian types.
Extending the framework of star and guardian jobs to the international arena, we think
that we can gain a better understanding of the management of international assignees and
their contribution to organizational success. The application of this framework suggests
that the seemingly linear relationship between expatriate performance and organizational
success, which has been proposed in the literature, would actually be masking two separate
functions reflecting two separate assignment groups or expatriate job types.
Each of these functions then describes a nonlinear effect of expatriate performance on
organizational success. Figure 1 shows, in a simplified manner, how aggregating data
across these two types might lead to the conclusion of a linear relationship.
Given their decidedly different impact and the importance of setting different foci, star
assignments and guardian assignments call for a differentiated management of the
respective assignees. Thus, organizations cannot simply rely on expatriation ‘best
practices’, but should analyze which type of assignment they are faced with, and then
adapt management of the expatriate, along the expatriate cycle, accordingly. In the
following, we describe attributes of the two assignment types that help define and identify
them and furthermore have implications for expatriate management.
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1967

Attributes defining star and guardian assignments

Naturally, there is more to the distinction between star and guardian assignments than the
differences regarding the relationship between expatriate performance and organizational
success. There is quite an array of differentiating characteristics of star and guardian
assignments (such as innovation requirements, task uncertainty, standardization or risk;
for a first analysis, see Jacobs 1981), but there are two very striking attributes on which we
focus here due to their evident discrimination between the two assignment types as well as
their obvious consequences for managing expatriates: task difficulty and task
interdependence.

Task difficulty
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The key to the first distinction lies in what Baron and Kreps (1999) describe as the
‘probability distribution of possible outcomes’ and Jacobs (1981) terms ‘the probability of
individual success’, i.e. in the different chances of success and failure for the two types.
Assuming that expatriates sent on guardian as well star assignments are both able and
motivated, the reason for the persistent difference in expatriate performance must lie
somewhere else: in the task to be accomplished and, more specifically, in the task’s
difficulty. A difficult task is one that is hard to accomplish, for example because it is
complex or needs a lot of effort (Locke, Shaw, Saari and Latham 1981). A typical way to
measure task difficulty has actually been the probability of task success (Atkinson 1958).
Thus, we suggest that in general, task difficulty on star assignments is much higher than on
guardian assignments. This can partly be explained by the low standardization and high
uncertainty entailed in the former in comparison with the latter. For both, star and guardian
jobs or assignments, the objectives to be achieved are rather clear, but especially for star
assignments, the steps necessary to reach these objectives as well as the environmental
challenges that stand to be faced are usually unknown. To excel on star assignments,
expatriates therefore have to find creative solutions and be highly flexible and persevering.
But even given these characteristics, chances are they will fail due to unforeseeable
impediments. Referring to our examples, Silvio, when first setting up the business plan for
India, had no clear indications how Schindler could strive in this unfamiliar market.
Simply following the European business model or mimicking competitors would not do.
Rather, he developed a business model that was not only new and different, but even drew
critique from headquarters as well as the local team. Turning this business plan into action
proved to be even more difficult, as unexpected problems (e.g. changes in country
legislation) arose. Striving under such circumstances is very difficult. For an expatriate at
Levendary Café China, on the other hand, the road ahead is fairly clear, and the concrete
measures to be taken would be outlined in advance by headquarters. Rather than finding
creative solutions for the China restaurants, the task would consist in applying company
knowledge and enforcing certain standards. Thus, though neither star nor guardian
assignments are inherently ‘easy’, task difficulty is much more reasonable in guardian, and
much higher in star assignments. As we will see further on, these differences in task
difficulty have consequences for example for the selection of expatriates, the support
rendered to ease their job adjustment, or for setting incentives.

Task interdependence
The second distinction between star and guardian assignments lies at the basis of what Baron
and Kreps depict as the differing range of possible outcomes: task interdependence. Task
 1968 J. Bonache and D. Noethen

interdependence, which Jacobs (1981) already signaled as an important differentiating

attribute, represents, generally speaking, ‘the dependence of one [organizational] unit on
another for materials, resources, or information’ (Daft 1983, p. 429). In its essence, it
describes the interconnectedness between tasks in that successful completion of one task or
piece of work depends on the successful completion of another (Van der Vegt, Emans and
van de Vliert 1998). Applied to the arena of international assignments, we define it as the
dependence of the expatriate’s task performance on the performance and collaboration
(materials, resources, information) of others and vice versa. These ‘others’ may be local or
headquarter individuals or groups. Of course, neither star nor guardian expatriates are
completely free of task interdependence, but the level they experience is very different. To
better express these differences, we can use Thompson’s (1967) categorization of task
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interdependence as pooled, sequential and reciprocal. Star assignments tend to be

characterized by tasks with pooled interdependence, that is, the assignees do not directly
depend on other members of the organization to complete their tasks – they may hardly
interact with others at all. Nevertheless, they are interdependent in that the organization as a
whole would be jeopardized unless all ‘parts’ were to perform adequately. Every unit or
member, the expatriate included, ‘renders a discrete contribution to the whole and each is
supported by the whole’ (Thompson 1967, p. 54). For example, Silvio operated in India
largely without relying on input from other members or units of the company (with the
exception of importing parts for standard elevators and receiving plans for local design and
production of parts), but, of course, the Indian subsidiary is not completely independent.
Guardian assignments, on the other hand, include but go beyond pooled interdependence.
They are characterized by reciprocal task interdependence, that is, for assignment tasks to
be completed, information (and other materials or resources) has to be passed back and forth
between the expatriate and headquarter as well as local members of the organization. If we
picture the expatriate who would be sent to Levendary Café China, he or she would rely
heavily on the cooperation of Louis Chen (accessing information, talking to suppliers and
customers, implementing changes) as well as on interactions with headquarters (receiving
instructions, sending information about advancements to then receive new instructions).
The dependence on others, of course, conditions the effect the expatriate’s performance
alone can have on organizational outcomes: a complex task interdependence (such as
reciprocal interdependence in guardian assignments) entails that expatriate failure will
negatively affect all connected units or agents, whereas at least a solid performance is
necessary but not sufficient for a positive outcome, because the latter depends, in turn, on the
performance of the connected units and agents (‘the weakest link in the chain’ determines
the outcome). On the other hand, low – as in merely pooled – task interdependence (as in
star assignments) implies that failure will affect the expatriate or subsidiary in question only,
whereas an excellent performance can have actual positive outcomes that reach beyond the
expatriate or subsidiary. As we will see further on, these differences in task
interdependence, too, have direct consequences for the management of expatriates, for
example for the selection of expatriates, for setting (dis)incentives, or for granting
promotions upon repatriation.
Thus, task difficulty and task interdependence lie at the heart of the categorization into
guardian and star assignments – although, as mentioned before, they do not define nor
distinguish these types exhaustively. In the following, going beyond the mere
categorization of assignment types, we describe how expatriates on the two types of
assignments should be managed – as a consequence of task difficulty, task
interdependence and the resulting difference in the relationship between expatriate
performance and organizational success.
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1969

Consequences for the management of expatriates

The strategic design of expatriate management policies is based on two essential assumptions:
first, to be effective, these policies have to adequately match the internal and external context
of the organization (Milliman, von Glinow and Nathan 1991). The external factor that we
focus on in this paper is the assignment type (guardian or star), while assuming that all other
factors are held constant (e.g. international strategy, host country or industry). Second, the
organization can choose from a variety of policies, all of which have strategic implications
(Caligiuri, Lepak and Bonache 2010). The policies we will look at in the following are a
selection of those that can be implemented before, during and after the expatriation. It is
important to note that the hypothetical choices for each policy type we present for star and
guardian assignments usually represent two extremes of the same continuum. We can assume
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that in real-life situations, the decisions of MNCs on how to manage their expatriates will fall
somewhere in between these two extremes, and only in some rare cases will they adhere to a
pure management type, in the same manner as real-life assignments might not always be pure
guardian or star assignments. Most likely, there is a great variance between different
organizations. What we will analyze and propose in our hypotheses is how organizations
should most rationally manage the two different types of expatriates.

Before the assignment: profile and selection of the expatriate

One of most striking observations when examining the expatriate literature is the apparent
difficulty of predicting the future performance of expatriates. Although the actual failure
rates of expatriates stand to be discussed (Harzing 1995, 2002), the problems of cross-
cultural adjustment and underperformance of expatriates are sufficiently documented (for
a recent review, see Takeuchi 2010). Surveys show that, lacking reliable predictors of
future performance, organizations often simply rely on past performance in a similar
position (e.g. see ORC Worldwide 2006).
The insecurity regarding valid predictors of performance has important consequences
for the selection of expatriates, but differently so for the two assignment types. For
guardian assignments, where a bad expatriate performance can do much damage due to
high interdependence with other jobs or units, the costs of selecting an individual who
results to be inadequate are very high. Thus, the aim of selection should consist in
minimizing the risk of failure. But how can this risk be minimized? Since previous
experience with similar work is the best, even though not a perfect predictor of future
performance, the rational strategy of a company consists in being very selective in its
recruitment (Jacobs 1981), considering only those employees for such an assignment who
have an extensive record with the company and have gained the company’s trust. Given
that, furthermore, the task difficulty on such assignments is not exceedingly high and
uncertainty rather low, a good performance in the past is, a priori, a good predictor of
performance on a new assignment. Let’s think about the profile that Levendary Café
would look for in an expatriate to send to China to collaborate with Louis Chen; in the
situation described at the end of the case, the Chinese branch needs control and process
standardization in agreement with the company culture and standards. Under these
circumstances, the most adequate person to send to China and conduct a transformation
would have the profile described above, an experienced company veteran who has dealt
with similar issues. Based on this example and the arguments presented above, we suggest:
Hypothesis 1: For guardian assignments, in order to minimize the risk of failure,
organizations will select assignees from within the company who have
worked in similar positions before.
 1970 J. Bonache and D. Noethen

When, on the other hand, the assignment corresponds to the pattern of star assignments,
the selection process should be rather different. In this case, the ability to predict future
performance of assignees is even more limited as many of the concrete tasks and challenges
are unknown or uncertain. Moreover, task difficulty is high, so that only very few expatriates
on such assignments succeed anyways. Fortunately, due to pooled task interdependence,
even outright expatriate failure does not result in high costs for the organization. In these
circumstances, the aim of the selection process should not consist in minimizing the risk of
failure, but in maximizing the probability to succeed. The typical characteristics of
candidates who promise an exceptional performance will be more relevant than warning
signals that presage potential problems. As a result, the recruitment process should be less
selective and include candidates from different sources, with different characteristics and
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with much ‘riskier’ and unconventional profiles. Taking the case of Schindler in India as an
example, the selection of Silvio was very risky. His lack of certain knowledge and skills
(limited industry exposure, no genuine market knowledge, no valid general management
experience, lack of relationship with operating managers in Europe) as well as certain
aspects of his character (impulsive, impatient, hard-driving) cast doubts on his future
performance in a slow-paced, consensus-oriented cultural environment such as India. These
‘risk factors’ notwithstanding, Silvio also had several promising attributes that would result
as beneficial when opening the Indian subsidiary and which finally eclipsed the doubts that
presented his selection (sound understanding of the elevator industry, deep knowledge of
and strong commitment to business strategy, contacts at the top management level,
competitiveness, strong desire to succeed). Had the primary concern of company
management been to reduce the probability of failure – and the associated losses – Silvio
would surely not have been offered the position. But as such losses, and this is crucial, would
be negligible in comparison with the enormous profits that Silvio’s success would imply (a
new market in an emerging country, gaining experiences that could later be applied in other
countries, etc.), he was selected for the position. Thus, we propose:
Hypothesis 2: For star assignments, in order to maximize the probability of success,
organizations will be less selective in their recruitment and select
assignees about whom they may have less information (e.g. external
candidates, candidates without previous experience in this job and/or the
host country).

During the assignment: adjustment, control approach and reward disparity

Once the expatriates have arrived at their destination, the topic that has received most
attention is cross-cultural adjustment (Shaffer et al. 1999; Reiche and Harzing 2011),
referring equally to the adjustment to the position, the organization and the country (Black
et al. 1991; Shaffer et al. 1999). In the following, we focus on the adaptation to the
position, as this is where we deem our typology to be most relevant. In fact, one of the
important determinants of the adjustment to the job is previous knowledge of the tasks to
be realized, such as role clarity (e.g. Black et al. 1991; Shaffer et al. 1999). Keeping in
mind that expatriates for guardian assignments should be selected based on their
experience with similar tasks, and that task difficulty and uncertainty for such assignments
are comparatively low, we can assume that, in general, the job adjustment of expatriates on
guardian assignments should be rather smooth and should require few support from the
company’s side. The case of expatriates on star assignments is very different; as
mentioned before, star assignments are characterized by low standardization and high
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1971

uncertainty with respect to tasks and challenges (and, partly therefore, by high task
difficulty). Moreover, due to the very different selection criteria, the assignee may have no
experience in the respective industry, sector and/or country. Consequently, adjustment to
the position should be much more difficult, take longer and necessitate more company
resources such as mentoring and coaching. This is evident in the case of Silvio Napoli.
Apart from him and his family having trouble adjusting to the country and customs, his
adaptation to the new position was an on-going process throughout the case, during which
he struggled with becoming sensitive to organizational power and relationship issues, with
defining which type of jobs to create, with achieving acceptance of his business plan (and
authority in this matter), and with dealing with employee disobedience. To ease his
adaptation to the new role and position, he sought support in hiring a more senior
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managing director as well as received direct advice and coaching from the Chairman and
CEO himself. Summing up, we propose:
Hypothesis 3: Organizations will provide more support for job adjustment (in the form
of mentoring and coaching) to expatriates on star assignments than to
expatriates on guardian assignments, as the adjustment of the latter
should be smoother and less challenging.
Deciding on how the quality of the expatriate’s work will be controlled is an essential
strategic decision, with the two most basic alternatives being a rather tight, i.e.
bureaucratic control mechanism, or a rather loose or flexible control mechanism. The
decision mainly concerns how tolerant headquarter managers will be with respect to
alternative forms of work execution, and how much autonomy they are willing to grant in
order to create exceptions adapted to the particular idiosyncrasy of the subsidiary situation.
We can argue that the bureaucratic control mechanism is more adequate for expatriates
on guardian assignments, while flexible control seems more appropriate for expatriates on
star assignments. Essentially, the bureaucratic mechanism emphasizes rules, operative
procedures and hierarchy. Thus, it fits especially those situations in which it is vital to
prevent inept performance and mistakes (Jacobs 1981), or when there is one agreed-upon
best way to carry out a task (Thompson and Tuden 1959). Both these conditions are met in
the type of assignment necessary in the case example of the more mature Chinese
subsidiary of Levendary Café. As mentioned before, a future assignee would have to
protect the image of the company and improve operational efficiency by implementing
standard procedures and transferring best practices. In this situation, headquarters would
want to avoid the risks associated with the abundant autonomy that the subsidiary
management enjoyed in its 1st year.
As a typical example of a star assignment, the new Indian subsidiary of Schindler has
very different requirements. Like in any other subsidiary in its initial phase (Bartlett and
Han 2011b), the expatriate’s tasks here consist in understanding the local market (e.g.
consumer tastes, behavior, market infrastructure), adapting and modifying company
standards (e.g. in products and policies) and transferring knowledge back to headquarters.
To this end, the expatriate needs more autonomy and much less internal control. In this
case, a flexible type of control, based on basic alignment of objectives, results to be much
more effective than a tight bureaucratic control mechanism. Accordingly, we assume:
Hypothesis 4: Organizations will establish a bureaucratic control mechanism for
expatriates on guardian assignments, whereas for star assignments, they
will rely on a flexible control type which implies a broader margin for
expatriate autonomy.
 1972 J. Bonache and D. Noethen

Rather than through the use of direct control, behavior can also be guided in a more
indirect manner by setting incentives. Incentives (rewards) are used to increase the
likelihood of a desired behavior, whereas disincentives (punishments) are used to decrease
the likelihood of an undesired behavior. To determine the (dis)incentive strategy to be
followed in managing the two types of expatriates, we can revisit some of the arguments
presented for the hypotheses regarding recruitment policies: as mentioned before, for
guardian assignments, organizations select candidates with the goal of minimizing the risk
of expatriate failure. The incentives that are set during the assignment should follow the
same objective – avoiding that the expatriate makes mistakes. Accordingly, disincentives
for poor performance seem very appropriate in the case of guardian assignments, and this
in spite of the potential costs of punishments (such as negative side effects): due to the
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low-task difficulty and high-success rate on this type of assignments, punishments would
only be applied in exceptional cases, keeping negative effects to a minimum. Incentives
for excellent performance, on the other hand, do not pay off for the organization in these
cases (Jacobs 1981): first, because excellent performance is more common among
guardian expatriates, and the organization would thus be forced to pay out more benefits,
although, second, an outstanding expatriate performance on a guardian assignment does
not contribute much more to organizational success than an average performance.
In contrast, for star assignments, the goal of selection, and equally the objective of the
incentive strategy, is to maximize the chance for success, that is, to encourage expatriates
to put in more effort, to take more risks and to search for creative solutions. Accordingly,
rewarding excellent performance lends itself as the appropriate incentive policy for star
assignments. As the probability for success on such assignments is rather low, the financial
cost of such incentives for the organization will be reasonable (Jacobs 1981), especially
since an excellent expatriate performance should translate into large organizational
benefits. Punishing poor performance on such assignments, on the other hand, would have
destructive consequences as many star expatriates do achieve only mediocre performance
and would be subject to potential negative side effects of punishment. A typical example
of a star assignment incentive strategy is the one employed by 3M. This company, which
has a ‘no-layoff’ policy, rewards innovation by tying compensation to the eventual profits
of innovative ideas, should these ideas be implemented (Gomez-Mejı́a, Balkin and
Milkovich 1990). Similarly, Stonich (1981) suggests that Japanese workers are more
innovative and enterprising because they are less worried about the negative effects that
these activities could have on their job security. In line with these arguments, we suggest:
Hypothesis 5: Whereas punishments for poor performance will be the primary (dis)
incentive strategy on guardian assignments, rewards for excellent
performance will be the predominant incentive strategy used with
expatriates on star assignments.
Another essential strategic decision to be made in the management of expatriates
concerns the design of compensation (for a recent review see Bonache and Stirpe 2012).
The most recent literature on expatriates focuses on pay disparity, that is, variance in pay
between expatriates and local employees (Toh and DeNisi 2003). However, a related but
slightly different topic has received much less attention so far: the potential variance in pay
between expatriates on similar tasks, for example working on the same type of assignment
(i.e. guardians, stars and others). To our knowledge, no study has addressed this issue so
far, therefore, what we propose in the following has to be viewed as purely speculative.
The literature suggests that a high-pay disparity is dysfunctional given that it favors
feelings of inequality (Wade, O’Reilly and Pollock 2006; Devers, Cannella, Reilly and
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1973

Yoder 2007). This most likely constitutes a problem in cases of high-task interdependence
between different individuals carrying out similar tasks (Baron and Kreps 1999), or in cases
where an equivalent level of performance is expected from different individuals (Jacobs
1981). As argued before, these conditions are met in the case of guardian expatriates. The
reasonable solution for this scenario would be to grant these expatriates a salary based on
their job title, avoiding larger differences between salaries beyond those that derive from the
benefits typically included in expatriate compensation packages (e.g. housing differential,
incentives for mobility and so on; see Bonache 2008; Bonache and Stirpe 2012). A variable
component of the salary tied to outstanding performance is, as argued under incentives, not
conducive for managing guardian expatriates. Not surprisingly, the case of star assignments
is very different, as incentives for excellent performance seem to be not only an adequate,
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but also necessary component of their compensation. And with a larger variable component
of salaries, pay disparity should increase. Moreover, due to low-task interdependence, the
salaries of different expatriates of this type do not lend themselves to comparison. Thus, pay
disparity between star expatriates can be higher without stipulating feelings of inequality.
Accordingly, we argue:
Hypothesis 6: Pay disparity among star expatriates will be higher than that among
guardian expatriates, partly due to a larger part of the salary being tied to
performance.

After the assignment: impact on career

Advancement upon repatriation is one of the most important concerns of expatriates (e.g.
Stahl and Cerdin 2004; Lazarova and Cerdin 2007). However, research has shown that
repatriates are often frustrated because neither is their experience made use of (Lazarova
and Cerdin 2007), nor are they assigned to a job appropriate to their skills (Riusala and
Suutari 2000; Kraimer, Shaffer and Bolino 2009). How can this situation be explained?
And does it affect all repatriates equally? Many variables have been drawn on to explain
the impact of expatriation on career advancement, for example the existence of a mentor
(Carraher, Sullivan and Crocitto 2008), the strategic importance of the host country
(Bolino 2007) or the applicability of the acquired knowledge upon return (Kraimer et al.
2009). However, among these antecedents, the actual performance of the individual is
probably the most powerful predictor of future promotion (Bolino 2007). The typical
assumption is that a good performance during the assignment justifies expectations for
future promotions. Yet, our analysis points out that high performance is a necessary but not
a sufficient condition for further promotion. The added value a good individual
performance provides for the success of the organization is another essential factor to be
considered. When the organization can derive benefits from high expatriate performance,
as is the case for star but not for guardian assignments, the organization can be expected to
pass on parts of these benefits to the expatriate in the form of a promotion. This was
exactly the case for Silvio Napoli, who passed on to take over a job of higher responsibility
in China after successfully completing his assignment in India. However, this cannot be
expected in the case of guardian assignments, which come with a high success rate but
with limited positive effects on organizational success. Thus, an expatriate sent to
Levendary Café China would probably not be advanced upon successful return in the same
manner as Silvio Napoli. We summarize this thought in our seventh hypothesis:
Hypothesis 7: High expatriate performance will be more often rewarded with a
promotion among repatriates returning from star assignments than
among those returning from guardian assignments.
 1974 J. Bonache and D. Noethen

Conclusions and future research

In this article, we have applied the typology of star and guardian jobs by Jacobs (1981) and
Baron and Kreps (1999) to the arena of international assignments. Thereby, we contributed
to the existing literature on management of international assignees and advanced IHRM
theory through the introduction of star and guardian assignments, through a thorough
description of the differences between these assignment types and through a re-
examination of certain relationships based on this typology (e.g. the relationship between
expatriate performance and organizational success). Second, we did not only present a
new typology, but also deducted and explored consequences of this typology for the
management of expatriates before, during and after assignment, thus demonstrating the
practical implications of the typology. In doing so, we have argued that a good fit between
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assignment type and expatriation policies positively influences outcomes, a linkage that is
commonly omitted in the literature too frequently eager to find universal best practices in
this area. Last but not least, we demonstrated the face validity of the introduced typology
by basing our analysis on two popular case studies that respond to the two assignment
types, star and guardian.
The work presented here has theoretical as well as practical implications. Beginning
with the theoretical implications, the arguments put forth in this paper change our view of
previous findings regarding issues such as the effect of expatriates on subsidiary
performance or predictors of repatriate promotion. For example, we deducted that
expatriates could not possibly expect a promotion after an assignment if the assignment
type did not allow for them to derive important benefits for the organization. Moreover,
our analysis presents a basis for further theoretical work, extending the typology presented
in this paper: so far, we only considered corporate expatriates. However, this is not the
only group of employees that is sent abroad in MNCs. Following Reiche and Harzing
(2011), there are moreover self-initiated expatriates, short-term assignees, virtual
assignments and international business travelers. Our analysis could be carried further to
include these types of assignees and examine in which relationship their performance
stands to organizational success and personal advancement. Along the same lines, we only
applied two of the three original job types described by Baron and Kreps (1999) to the
expatriate context. In future theoretical work, the ‘foot soldier’ as well as mixed types, e.g.
a mixture between star and guardian assignment, could be included. According to Baron
and Kreps (1999), management positions sometimes have elements of both, guardian
assignments and star assignments with potential negative organizational outcomes for low
and potential positive organizational outcomes for high performance. Although these
cases go beyond the scope of the present paper and necessitate a complex analysis, they
would definitely be interesting for future study. Similarly, we did not discuss potential
assignments where there is high contribution to organizational success despite poor
individual performance or where there are losses despite high expatriate performance.
These potential situations (and their implications for the management of expatriates in
those categories) are worth considering for potential future studies. Furthermore, we only
analyzed the consequences of the two assignment types for a selection of HRM policies.
Rather than claiming this selection to be exhaustive, we deem it necessary to examine the
appropriateness of many other policies in the context of different assignment types. Also,
future studies could consider additional types of fit. Drawing on domestic HR literature,
improved organizational outcomes could be seen as a consequence of a two-stage fit
(Baron and Kreps 1999): first, fit between the overall business strategy (including specific
subsidiary roles and the international strategic approach) and the correct identification of
the types of assignments needed; second, fit between the types of assignments and the
 The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1975

application of those expatriation policies that are consistent with them. This paper has
dealt with the second stage throughout the hypotheses development. However, the first
stage, although implicit in the two cases we have analyzed, could also be addressed by
explicitly using basic international management concepts and frameworks (e.g. the
Levendary Café case can be argued to be a clear example of developing global strategies in
implementer subsidiaries). Last but not least, our work can serve as a basis for subsequent
empirical research as some of the topics we dealt with have not received any research
attention as of yet (e.g. the pay disparity between expatriates sharing similar
characteristics).
As to the practical implications, we have shown in the second part of this paper that the
theoretical distinction between different assignment types can have very real
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consequences for the management of expatriates along the entire expatriate cycle. Thus,
we delineated how our typology has direct effects for selecting candidates, supporting
expatriates in their job adjustment, setting the focus for control mechanisms, deciding on
incentives and compensation, and adjusting expectations for promotion. As mentioned
above, this is only a fraction of potential HR strategies that would have to be employed
differently depending on the assignment type. Evidently, the practical consequences of our
work are far reaching. We hope that the typology and recommendations presented will
help improve the management of expatriates and will be extended over time to reflect the
variety in today’s landscape of international assignments.

Acknowledgement
Authors thank financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science (ECO2012-37314).

Notes
1. When we talk about expatriates, we refer to traditional corporate expatriates as distinguished
from alternative types of expatriates (e.g. inpatriates, self-initiated expatriates).
2. Note that we use the terms expatriate success and assignment or transfer success
interchangeably, assuming that the assignment and its objectives constitute the expatriate’s task.
3. To be more exact, in both these studies, knowledge transferred mediated the effect of expatriate
motivation and competencies on subsidiary performance. But as the predictors of expatriate
performance are not a main concern of this paper, we focused on the relationship of interest.

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