Culture and performance appraisal in multinational enterprises: Implementing French headquarters' practices in Middle East and North Africa subsidiaries

Performance appraisal requires interactions between managers and employees and as such can be highly sensitive to differences in cultural values. This can be challenging when multinational enterprises (MNEs) are active across different institutional contexts, particularly when operating in the culturally complex Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In this qualitative study, we apply institutional theory to explore how performance appraisal practices are implemented and internalized in MNE subsidiaries in the MENA region through manager–employee interactions. A total of 117 interviews were conducted with different headquarter and subsidiary stakeholders (managers and employees) of four French MNEs operating in Lebanon and Tunisia. The findings indicate that, during implementation, performance appraisal criteria, evaluation, and feedback were adapted based on socio-cultural values to achieve internalization. Such values include the emotional relationship between managers and employees, the fear of losing face, high power distance, the desire to avoid confrontation, and high-context communication. Insights for future research are presented regarding the viability of MNEs operating in the MENA region implementing corporate performance appraisal practices.

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [Culture and performance appraisal in multinational enterprises: Implementing French headquarters' practices in Middle East and North Africa subsidiaries. Human Resource Management 60, 5 p771-785 (2021)], which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22063. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions: https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/licensing/self-archiving.html#3.

Files

Metadata

Work Title Culture and performance appraisal in multinational enterprises: Implementing French headquarters' practices in Middle East and North Africa subsidiaries
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Dorra Yahiaoui
  2. Samer F. Nakhle
  3. Elaine Farndale
Keyword
  1. Performance appraisal
  2. HRM in MNEs
  3. Host-country
  4. National culture
  5. MENA
  6. Institutional theory
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Human Resource Management
Publication Date April 12, 2021
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22063
Deposited September 12, 2023

Versions

Analytics

Collections

This resource is currently not in any collection.

Work History

Version 1
published

  • Created
  • Added Author_accepted_HRM_Dorra.pdf
  • Added Creator Dorra Yahiaoui
  • Added Creator Samer F. Nakhle
  • Added Creator Elaine Farndale
  • Published
  • Updated Keyword, Publication Date Show Changes
    Keyword
    • Performance appraisal, HRM in MNEs, Host-country, National culture, MENA, Institutional theory
    Publication Date
    • 2021-01-01
    • 2021-04-12
  • Updated