Helping expatriate employees’ deal with cultural shock

 

Helping expatriate employees’ deal with cultural shock

Being an expatriate is one of the more unique jobs in our labor force. An expatriate (or expat) is someone who works in a foreign country, one where the person doesn't have citizenship. Expatriate assignments are a result of globalization, which is the interaction of businesses operating in multiple countries. Many companies are relocating their employees and sending them on assignment to work in their overseas operations as expatriates. International assignments are often more complex than domestic assignments since they involve going to another country and work in a different culture. This is where training is helpful to best ensure the success of such assignments.

Training develops expatriate‘s learning orientation and helps them to understand the culture of overseas destinations (Porter and Tansky, 1999). 

Training helps expatriates to improve their current working behavior and skills. Development

Encourages employee to increase their abilities that relate to some future job or position. It is the central role in integrating international operations and developing a cross-national corporate culture (Shen, 2005). It develops effective worker’s abilities to adopt expatriates working in the host country easily (Hill, 2007).

Effective training can prevent and minimize the impact of others. Some of the biggest issues against expatriates are personal shortcomings in areas such as politeness, punctuality, tactfulness, orderliness, sensitivity, reliability, tolerance and empathy. Effective training programs can minimize these personal behavioral issues. These issues arise primarily due to differences in Culture. Training encourages expatriates and families to achieve the cultural adaption that influence to the effective operation of expatriates in the host country (Jun, 2001). Proper training can address some of these demands. Training and development is a subset of Organizational Development, culture change and knowledge management.

 

Figure 1 describes the process of Training and Development in the International Human Management context.

Figure 1: Process of Training and Development in International Human Management (Black and Gregersen, 1999)

 

Cultural Training

 Cultural training explores to feed suitability for the culture of the host country that it help expatriate to understand in dealing with the host nation’s culture. The aspects of the culture are necessary  in training  that  comprise  of  history,  politics,  culture, politics,  economy, social,  religion, business practices,  housing  and sensitivity  training for flexible  attitudes.

According to Dowling and Welch (2004), studies indicate that the essential components of pre-departure training programs that contribute to a smooth transition to a foreign location include Cross-Cultural Training, preliminary visits, language training and assistance with practical day-to-day matters.

 

Cross-Cultural Training

 

The organizations provide cross-cultural training for probation that employees are sent to overseas subsidiaries. Without an understanding of the host country’s culture, the expatriate is likely to face difficulties during the international assignment. Cultural, physical and interpersonal adjustments to the new host environment affect to professional effectiveness in business responsibilities of expatriate’s achievement. Thus, cross-cultural training programs focus on improving knowledge, 

abilities and skill of expatriates need (Shen, 2005). Moreover, there is a study of cross-cultural training practices and policies in terms of the level of rigor, provision of delivery that the different cross-cultural training affects to the expatriates’ working effective in Australian MNEs (Shen and Lang, 2009).

 

Another training form that is useful in orienting international employees is to send them on a preliminary trip to the host country. A well-planned trip overseas for the candidate, spouse, and family provides a preview that allows them to assess their suitability for and interest in the assignment. Such a trip also serves to introduce expatriate candidates to the business context in the host location and helps encourage more informed pre-departure preparation (Dowling & Welch, 2004).

The result of lacking host language competence has strategic and operational implications as it limits the multinational’s ability to monitor competitors and processes of important information. Having the ability to speak a foreign language can improve the expatriate’s effectiveness and negotiating ability (Dowling & Welch, 2004).

Knowledge of the host-country language can assist expatriates and family members gain access to new social support structures outside of work and the expatriate community (Dowling & Welch, 2004).

Many multinational companies now take advantage of relocation specialists that help the expatriate with accommodation, suitable job and school for the spouse and children.

To sum up, the international  training  and  development  are  key  significant  factors  to  survival  in international competition.

 

How the IIAL’s training program is structured? As a total electrical provider all over the world IIAL follows both pre-departure and post arrival training. Language training is also offered. IIAL was established in 1989. The main business of the company is in the electrical infrastructure developments in both local and international. It has today grown to having 33 nos foreign projects in different regions like Asia, Africa, and America etc. Ongoing projects are in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Kenya, Bangladesh, India, Indonisia, Ethiopia etc. IIAL organizes the CCT of its employees going on international assignments, the training methods the company uses. Their international project success is the CCT implementation. How does IIAL prepare and train its employees for international assignments?

Cross-cultural intelligence could also explain why IIAL can use mainly culture general didactic training methods and still keep the early return rate at a low level. The low number of premature returns could, possibly, also be connected with an effective selection process of expatriates. This thesis have identified the training methods IIAL uses and can thus not be used to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of the training. It is, on the other hand, a fact that early returns are rare within IIAL. Further considering with both present and returned IIAL expatriates can determine the importance of the CCT and its good performance.

References

 

Black, J.S and Gregersen, H. (1999) The Right Way to Manage Expats. Harvard business review. [Online] https://hbr.org/1999/03/the-right-way-to-manage-expats

[Accessed on 2022.04.27]

 

SHEN, J. (2005) International training and management development: Theory and reality. The Journal of Management Development, 24(7), pp 656-666.

 

HILL, C. W. L. (2007) International Business, 6tn edn, New York: McGraw-Hill.

JUN, S., GENTRY, J. W. &HYUN, Y. J. (2001) Cultural adaptation of business Expatriates in the host marketplace.  Journal of International Business Studies, 32(2), pp. 369-377

 

Brewster,C., Houldsworth,E., Sparrow,P., Vernon,G. (2016) International Human Resource Management.Fourth edn. London : Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

 

DOWLING, P.J., ENGLE Sr., A.D., and FESTING, M. (2008) International dimensions of human resource management. 5th edn. London: Thompson Learning.