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In the current environment, an important firm asset is the employee knowledge base, which in a large part depends on employee willingness to share information. Yet prior research has noted that while employees are delighted to reveal success they are often reluctant to reveal errors. While there are many factors affecting managers’ reluctance to reveal errors, this study focuses on cultural differences between Chinese migrants and Anglo residents as well as the role of acculturation. This is particularly relevant given the very significant foreign direct investment into China, and migration of managers and high-end technical staff from portions of Greater China to the management and higher technical classes of the Anglo world. Prior studies including Chow, Harrison, McKinnon, and Wu (1999a). Accounting, Organizations and Society, 24, 561–582, Chow, Deng, and Ho (2000). Journal of Management Accounting Research, 12, 65–95, and Tinsley and Pillutla (1998). Journal of International Business Studies, 29(4), 711–728, provide conflicting views and evidence for differences in information sharing between Chinese and Anglo managers, and there is no accounting or management literature that deals with changes in information sharing behavior in the migration process.

This study employs an experiment to test for differences in individuals’ willingness to share information about a prior costing error. Using a sample of students from two different nationalities drawn from a major Australian university (Australian and Hong Kong SAR, China), this study finds that migrant Chinese share less information than Anglo-Australians. This study further provides empirical evidence that the relative change in willingness to share this information when the supervisor is removed from the decision context is lower for the migrant Chinese than for the Anglo-Australians. Finally, this study finds evidence for acculturation as the willingness of migrant Chinese managers changes with the length of their stay in the new society. Acculturation occurs relatively quickly and highly acculturated Chinese information-sharing behavior is not significantly different from the Australian-born subjects.