Bringing New Knowledge Home - And Away

The work international assignees perform on site at their host unit is valuable for the business as a whole. But these employees hold the potential to add much more value to the organization via their ability to transmit intellectual capital between the home and host units of multinational enterprises (MNEs). In "The Role of International Assignees' Social Capital in Creating Inter-Unit Intellectual Capital: A Cross-Level Model," professors B. Sebastian Reiche, Anne-Wil Harzing and Maria L. Kraimer describe the functions international assignees play as both knowledge brokers and knowledge transmitters, and illuminate the importance of expanding social capital to the organizational level to promote this knowledge-sharing. They present a cross-level model that clarifies the circumstances surrounding the translation of social capital into inter-unit intellectual capital.