Global migration creates both challenges and opportunities for employees and employers.
An important issue in international business and human resource management is the
integration of employees into a culturally diferent working industrial environment
because focusing on cultural diferences, integration, and mitigating culture shock
can provide a competitive advantage. Our research examined the global migration involving
the Hofstede cultural dimensions in the sports industry, especially in the football
transfer market. The paper aims to fnd a relationship between cultural distance as
an expression of cultural diferences and international transfers of professional footballers
as high-skilled and talented employees.
Our study is based on a substantial quantitative examination of processing 34,430
international transfers. Our research question is: What kind of relationship can be
detected between cultural distance and the migration of professional footballers?
The results of a linear regression model show a signifcant negative correlation between
the number of transfers and cultural distance. However, we believe that the country’s
economic performance and professional sports standards or quality are essential in
addition to the cultural distance. Therefore, as a next step, the analysis involved
both factors in getting a more sophisticated result. The results of the multiple regression
model confrm the attitude of professional athletes; besides cultural distance, the
impact of other factors (economic and/or professional aspects) is also important.
Therefore, we recommend that companies pay close attention to their particularly valuable
human resources.
