Navigating cross-cultural dynamics in European multinational firms: How acculturation strategies influence African indigenous employee outcomes

Purpose: This research examines how acculturation strategies impact employee restiveness, internal legitimacy and job satisfaction among local workers in European multinational firms in Africa. Design/methodology/approach: Utilising a quantitative research design, the study uses a structured questionnaire to draw data from 515 indigenous employees in German-owned and French-owned multinational firms. The hypothesis was tested using structural equation modelling. Findings/results: Contrary to expectations, the results suggest that integration strategy significantly addresses employee restiveness, internal legitimacy and job satisfaction in German-owned and French-owned multinational firms in Nigeria. Conversely, assimilation, separation and marginalisation acculturation strategies were found to have insignificant influence on internal legitimacy, employee restiveness and job satisfaction among the employees. Practical implications: The outcomes of this study will enable managers to understand the appropriate acculturation strategy that can help foreign firms to gain internal legitimacy and address employee restiveness and job satisfaction in Africa. The findings will also motivate foreign firms to provide support to local employees to adopt the beneficial acculturation strategy for the overall benefit of the organisation and the employees. Originality/value: This study makes two unique contributions to management literature. Firstly, this study is the first to provide insights into how integration strategies relate to employee restiveness for sustainable harmonious relationships in multinational firms in Africa. Research has shown that Nigerian work environments are characterised by employee restiveness. Secondly, providing insights into how each of the four dimensions of acculturation strategies relate to the realisation of firms’ internal legitimacy enriches the literature, as it is pointed out that researchers mainly focus on external legitimacy while neglecting the internal legitimacy perspective.