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Virtual expatriates and subsidiary employees' engagement: The role of ambidextrous leadership
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DOI：10.1016/j.jwb.2026.101758.png)
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Abstract
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We analyze the complexity of virtual expatriation and the conflicting requirements it imposes for engaging employees remotely. Virtual expatriates must supervise and control remote employees while also fostering shared values and encouraging their engagement, but without the benefit of co-location, which has traditionally been assumed to be the reason for expatriation. Thus, the expatriate’s physical and psychological detachment from the supervised employees challenges the fulfillment of these functions. How can they lead, control, and facilitate engagement virtually? It calls for a leadership style that is more aware of this dilemma and its different manifestations across cultural contexts. We draw on Social Exchange Theory and examine the role of ambidextrous leadership (that combines fostering creativity and experimentation with providing guidance and monitoring) in promoting employee engagement. Moreover, we examine whether cultural intelligence, communication effectiveness, and interaction frequency might reinforce the positive relationship between ambidextrous leadership and employee engagement. Our empirical setting is the shipping and logistics MNC, Maersk, where we collect quantitative and qualitative data from employees whose supervisors are virtual expatriates, as well as from the virtual expatriates themselves. Our findings suggest that virtual expatriates need a more complex leadership style to engage employees from a distance, one that, in a flexible manner, combines opening and closing behaviors. Additionally, our results indicate that such engagement is strengthened among ambidextrous leaders who behave in a culturally intelligent way and who maintain frequent interactions with employees. Communicating effectively is a direct predictor of the employees' engagement, rather than a boundary condition.
Keywords:
Virtual expatriation
Ambidextrous leadership
Social exchange theory
Cultural intelligence
Communication
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