Reintegration in the headquarter: social identity equilibrium and reciprocity responsiveness

This study deals with a critical issue raised by prior research on “identity strain” of repatriate employees on their reintegration into the Headquarter (HQ) that, consequently, affected employee cooperative behavior, undermining the reverse form of knowledge transfer – the importance of MNC international assignments. We developed a debate on the issue by suggesting that “identity strain” could be also related to Alternative Equilibria (AEQ) (between-group differences in cultural beliefs, values, and expectations). We introduced a specific framework of Social Identity Equilibrium (SIE) that was expected to strengthen repatriate reciprocity responsiveness and reverse knowledge retransfer, making repatriate identity more probable, other than feeling strain. For the empirical work, we developed two independent survey studies, each had two waves, focusing on recently returned repatriates from Multinational Corporations (MNC) overseas assignments. The analysis also included mediation, moderation effects, and covariates using PROCESS macro in regression models. Findings supported our hypotheses by suggesting that AEQ and “identity strain” were positively associated, and they were both negatively related to repatriate Reciprocity Responsiveness (RR). The negative level became moderated when the degree of SIE was high, where the situated cognitions (i.e., shared expectations at the moment situations) were generated, which had a mediation effect and reinforced RR. We discuss how the SIE implies for modern organizations while increasingly organizational environments become more dynamic, complex, and workforces are more diverse, thus, how repatriates can reintegrate (or international employees integrate) and make reverse knowledge transfer more prevenient in the MNC.