Foreign coach no guarantee of success, but knowledge can give the Netherlands an edge

The appointment of Spaniard Xavi Hernández as manager of the Netherlands national football team raises the question of whether a foreign coach can actually make the team more successful. Research from Erasmus School of Economics suggests that the answer is nuanced. It is not simply the fact that a coach is foreign that matters, but the knowledge and experience he brings with him. 

Sports economist Thomas Peeters, co-author of the scientific paper “Manager migration, learning-by-hiring, and cultural distance in international soccer”, examined the performance of national football teams and the international mobility of their managers. The research shows that teams can improve when they appoint a manager from a country with a higher level of football know-how and expertise. 

Foreign managers can bring valuable knowledge 

Simply hiring a foreign manager does not automatically lead to better results. What matters is the manager's background and expertise. A manager from a more successful football country can bring knowledge and experience that is less developed in the host country. This process is known as learning-by-hiring: organisations acquire knowledge by recruiting people with valuable expertise from outside. 

In this respect, Xavi is an unusual choice for the Netherlands. Foreign managers are generally recruited by countries that are less successful, in an attempt to import knowledge from stronger football cultures. The Netherlands is already a traditional football powerhouse with considerable expertise. Xavi is therefore moving from one strong football culture to another. Spain has also been more successful than the Netherlands in recent years. 

Cultural distance can be a barrier 

The research by Peeters with co-authors Enrico Pennings (Erasmus School of Economics), Brian M. Mills (University of Texas), and Hojun Sung (Incheon National University), also shows that cultural differences can limit the effectiveness of a foreign manager. The greater the cultural distance between the manager and the host country, the smaller the positive impact on performance. International experience, however, helps managers overcome these cultural differences. Among managers with more than three years of international experience, the negative effect of cultural distance is no longer statistically significant. 

According to Peeters, Xavi's appointment in the Netherlands is therefore not necessarily a surprising choice. ‘Foreign managers tend to arrive when countries are performing poorly.’ Xavi, however, is not a typical foreign manager: he comes from a highly successful football culture and has already gained international experience. 

Finally, the research suggests that international managers can help narrow performance gaps between countries by transferring knowledge from stronger football cultures. The researchers argue that this mechanism may also be relevant beyond sport, particularly in industries where managers move across borders and where much of the relevant knowledge is difficult to codify and transfer.