Journal of Occupational Fsychology. 1981,54,255-263. Printed in Great Britain Mutual perception of managerial performance and style in multinational subsidiaries BRUCE W. STENING, JAMES E. EVERETT AND PETER A. LONGTON The University of Western A ustralia The study reports on the stereotypes of their own group and ofeach other held by local and expatriate managers in 34 American, British and Japanese multinational companies operating in Singapore. The 365 respondents were asked to assess each of the four national groups of managers on 18 items, each consisting of a pair of adjectival antonyms. It was found that the 18 items could be reduced to two principal components explaining about half their total variance, and that the two principal components were consistent between the four national groups of respondents. The two principal components were readily interpretable as relating to performance (functional/dysfunctional) and style (open/closed). The stereotype assessments were reduced to these two dimensions, permitting a discussion of the differences between the autostereotypes and the high and low contact hetero- stereotypes held by the national groups. Deviations around the group means were used to obtain regressions of the heterostereotype scores against the autostereotype scores. The results support a stereotype projection model, but with each of the principal components being projected independently, and with opposite sign. Principally through the development of the multinational corporation, large numbers of managers are now engaged (as expatriate, local or third-country national managers) in long-term relationships with managerial colleagues from different cultural backgrounds. It is surprising that so little research has been devoted to the nature of their perceptions of each other, especially their stereotypes of national groups of managers. Though numerous studies have examined differences in managerial attitudes, values, style and the like between cultures (e.g. Sirota & Greenwood, 1971; Ronen & Kraut, 1977;Whitely & England, 1977) and though general concem has been expressed as to how perceptions of such differences might affect the relationships between expatriate and local managers (Bass, 1971), with few exceptions (e.g. Stening & Everett, 1979) these studies have failed to consider the mutual work-related perspectives of expatriates and locals. Typically, the attitudes of managers of different cultural backgrounds have been surveyed within their own cultural milieu and comparisons made between cultures on the basis of item-by-item significance tests. The researchers' assumption has been that by identifying areas of difference between the cultures they would be able to pinpoint potential problem areas should managers from the cultures work together. The present study sought to overcome the limitations implied in this failure to consider the mutual perspectives of parties to cross-cultural managerial relationships. Specifically, the study examined the autostereotypes of expatriates and locals working in • Request s for reprints should be addressed to Dr B. W. Stening, Department of Management, School of Commerce, The University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia 6009. 255 0305-8107/81/040255-09 $02.00/0 ©1981 The British Psychological Society