About the Paucity of Empirical Research in Ihrm: a Test of the Downes Framework of Staffing Foreign Subsidiaries

This research note draws the attention to the harmful consequence of a serious lack of empirical research in the field of International Human Resource Management: myth-building on the basis of one or two publications. The apparent myth of high expatriate failure rates is shortly discussed. To prevent another myth from appearing, this time in the field of staffing policies, this research note provides an empirical test of the framework proposed by Meredith Downes (1996) for making decisions about staffing foreign subsidiaries. The propositions set forward by Downes are tested using a database of nearly 1800 subsidiaries located in twenty-two different countries. Headquarters of these subsidiaries are located in nine different countries and operate in eight different industries. Although the variables suggested by Downes have a fair explanatory power, some of the specific propositions had to be rejected.