Career Academy Mannheim

Training expatriates – crucial components in
preparing for overseas assignments

by

Norika Gölz

Table of Contents  I

1. Increasing Globalisation 1

2. Expatriation  2

3. Reasons for Overseas Assignments 3

4. When is the Overseas Assignment failed?  5

5. Culture 6

5.1. Culture in General  6
5.2. Cultural Barriers in Communication 7
5.3. The Cultural Aspect according to Hofstede  8

6. Training for Overseas Assignment 13

6.1. Skills of Efficient Expatriates  14
6.2. Intercultural Training  15

6.2.1. Informative Training  15

6.2.1.1. Culture-General Informative Training  16
6.2.1.2. Culture-Specific Informative Training  16

6.2.2. Interactive Training 17

6.2.2.1. Culture-General Interactive Training  17
6.2.2.2. Culture-Specific Interactive Training  17

6.2.3. Language Training 18
6.2.4. Problems with Intercultural Training  18

7. Importance of the Family 18

8. Integration in the Overseas Subsidiary  19

9. Reintegration  20

10. Limitation and Importance of Intercultural Training  21

Bibliography 23

1. Increasing Globalisation

The increasing globalisation of the markets in our modern world creates more and more challenges for many companies. With Joint Ventures, Strategic Alliances or overseas subsidiaries they start to conquer foreign markets (Sangmoon et al. 2003:81). Competent managers with enormous technical knowledge are not enough in these demanding times. Many companies have understood that with the increasing educational background of our modern society those technical skills cannot count as appropriate prerequisites for global workplaces (Krippl et al. 1993:159). More and more intercultural skills and international management qualities are searched for manager positions (Kepir Sinangil et al. 2001:424). As successful overseas assignments are good indicators of these skills, they obtain all the more on importance.

Companies are more and more forced and willing to send expatriates abroad to come up to the challenges of global markets. Already in the early 1980s, Adler surveyed multinational companies and found out that already 600 of them employed 13.338 expats. And this number increased considerably over in the last 20 years (Kepir Sinangil et al. 2001:424). Especially at the moment in uncertain economic times and unstable world events, it was very surprising for the Global Relocation Services to discover in their latest survey that more than three-in-four respondent companies said they anticipated their expatriate population would stay the same or even increase (Warren 2003). Nevertheless it is very important not to underestimate the cultural differences of various countries. Just to send a qualified manager abroad and hope he will work as efficient as he did in the home country is in most cases not working and it will turn out to be a very expensive experiment for the Training expatriates – crucial components in preparing for overseas assignments company¹. It is important to prepare the expatriates for the different cultures, the different living conditions, the different leading aspects and to bring them closer to the importance of cultural knowledge. As almost all companies face the challenge of sending expatriates abroad they should therefore consider the crucial components in preparing them efficiently for an overseas assignments (Hartl 2003:8). Katharina Hartl (2003) explains in her book short and to the point that the uniqueness of an overseas assignment does not only lie in an individual having to leave his/her trusted environment, followed by the need to adjust to a new environment, but also in the fact that tasks have to be accomplished interacting with people with a different cultural programming.

2. Expatriation

“Expatriation involves the transfer of parent country nationals, host country nationals and third country nationals – and often their families – for work purposes between two country locations, and for a period of time that requires a change of address and some degree of semi-permanent adjustment to local conditions.” (Hartl 2003:8).

Whether the company chooses local employees or prefers expatriates depends on their business attitudes and strategic objectives. One way to categorise their behaviour can be found in an ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric company philosophy (Hartl 2003:8).

When a company follows the ethnocentric orientation they are more likely to fill their overseas subsidiaries with parent country nationals. They regard their home country as superior over the rest of the world and think they will be successful with their home strategy all around the world. Polycentric companies on the other side respect the differences between various countries and consider every country as unique.

[...]

1 see Proctor & Gamble, in Lomax 2001, page 5