Importance of Cross-Cultural Training for Expatriates

Competing in global markets entail many factors and centralization of its human resource practices is certainly vital to improve global competitiveness and empower employees for global assignments. To achieve success in global marketplace, the challenge of all businesses regardless of their size is to understand global corporate cultural differences and invest in human resources which includes selecting and retaining talented employee, training and development whilst encouraging employees to be innovative and creative. Employees selected to work in foreign locations should be prepared beforehand with adequate cross-cultural training. For an organization to be successful in the international marketplace, it must be concerned with this fit from both an internal and

Another factor in the success of an expatriate involves the expatriates pre-existing culture intelligence quotient (CQ). It is still uncertain that an expatriate’s success working internationally is determined by their CQ but it is crucial for expatriates working on international assignments because it is a sign of cultural competency.

This report examines cultural and institutional factors of Mexico and how they can impact global HR management and practices. Specifically, by analyzing Mexican culture based on Hofstede’s dimensions, economy, labor legislation, union and employment tradition we reached the conclusion that the features of Mexican culture (high power distance, strong collectivism, high level of masculinity and uncertainty avoidance) and institutional factors have a strong impact on management styles and HR practices of business in Mexico and may arouse some challenges for global company and their expatriates, especially those from countries that bear different cultural features and institutional conditions. In order to minimize the potential conflict between Mexican local employees and expatriates, parent companies need to provide trainings (culture assimilation, country condition, etc.) before sending anybody to Mexico. Also, whether the expatriates should put more effort to disseminate home country (headquarter) culture or to adjust to local culture depends on the company’s strategy in terms of being localized or standardized around the globe.

Those that go into the business world quickly recognize that each work environment they find themselves in can be total different from another. This can especially be said even of environments within the United States, from region to region. There is definitely a disparity of workplace environments from country to country. Not only can culture drive a varied atmosphere, but the diversity of the personnel making up that environment can equally create a challenge that a leader must be prepared to manage. Recognizing that special care needs to be placed on communication and perception skills is crucial in our present professional domain. Managers of today need to employee tools from the psychological and sociological field to be successful. Having a deep understanding in the differences in culture and diversity in the workplace is critical, especially when debating about accepting a position overseas or assigning an employee to an embedded position abroad. With a broad knowledge of cultural differences and diversity, success as a manager and the stability of a positive work environment can be achieved and maintained without unnecessary effort and focus.

Kreitner, R. (2009). International Management and Cross-Cultural competence. (11th ed.). Management. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage

. A well-designed cultural awareness training program seeks to foster an appreciation of the host country's culture so that expatriates can behave accordingly, or at least develop appropriate coping patterns. A preliminary trip to the host country provides a preview to assess their

The Recruitment and Selection Process must be simple and must be robust enough to operate excellently in the moment of the insufficient number of candidates on the job market and the process must be also able to process a large number of candidates within given time limit (Richards, 2008). Cross-cultural training encompasses a combination of translation, instructional design and cultural adaptation, each of which is required to convey new concepts to a target audience in another country. Simply translating training material will not work, as it fails to take into account the cultural factors that influence the trainees' perceptions (Smith, 2004).

Managers in human relations needs a variety of skills and knowledge to help their firms succeed in the global marketplace. They need to cope with the initial shock that often accompanies working and living in a different culture. Also, they can become more effective through learning the language of the host country and interpreting accurately the work values of their foreign counterparts. The following traits may be associated with candidate’s who are likely to succeed in international contexts, such as, flexibility, sensitivity to culture differences, business knowledge, culture adventurous and a desire for their views. Before doing business with people from different cultures, managers can familiarize themselves with research that describes important cultural differences in work values. There is four dimensions on which different cultures can be compared, which includes of power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity/femininity.

While there are many various global issues that affect the International Human Resource Management to run efficiently, there are two key concepts that play a major role in understanding how to approach them with cohesive and a well coherent strategy; they are the International Human Recourse Management Strategy and Understanding the Cultural Environment. In the International Resource Management strategy, many companies will do their research in finding companies that offer the

Briscoe D., Schuler R., Tarique I., (2011). Internatonal Human Resource Management : Policies and Practices for Multinational Entreprise.

In summary, the home culture of an expatriate predisposes them to certain behaviors and situations. It allows them to operate efficiently in that environment. However, moving to the host-culture changes that operating environment and makes their 'mental software ' less efficient and effective. Culture is clearly a relevant variable when expatriating employees and their families for international business assignments. Training can be applied to ameliorate these effects. Also, training provides insight into the procedural, substantive and informational aspects of their work and personal life in the host location.

International businesses that are ill informed about the practices of another culture are unlikely to succeed in that culture. One way to develop cross-cultural literacy is to regularly rotate and transfer people internationally.

In this era of Globalisation, cross cultural management is the biggest challenge that is faced by the organisations. Within the business context, cross culture refers to interaction between different cultures. Cross cultural management refers to managing the employees from different cultural background in one environment (Adler, 2008). Cross culture management is a significant issue within the organisations as the success of an organisation depends upon the smooth interaction of the employees. This paper is aimed at providing insight on the cross cultural management and the main issues and challenges relating to cross cultural management. For the purpose of this paper, two articles, “Cross-cultural Differences in Management”, by Amman & Jordan

This paper is a report on cross-cultural management, with the issues related to cross-cultural management being discussed in the paper. Additionally, the report has produced the future way of cross-cultural management, including how it can be improved in offices relying much on this strategic approach.

Globalisation, as an integrated and independent world economy, has contributed to the rapid expansion of international trade and world’s economic growth (Paik & Vance, 2006; Mutsuddi, 2012). The increase presence of global firms is shifting domestic HR towards global HR in addition to carry out a wider span of HR responsibilities (Losey, Meisinger & Ulrich, 2005; Rao, 2010; Jie, 2011; Mutsuddi, 2012). The generation of cross-border labour market also had brought human resource management into an international context (Mutsuddi, 2012).