The Challenges Associated With An International Assignment

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

Expat. Expatriate, from the Latin ex ("out of") and patria ("fatherland"). Someone living in a foreign land. Immigrant. From the Latin immigratum ("go into", "move in"). A person who comes to a country to take permanent residence.

The opportunities to work abroad are more today than they have ever been in the history of mankind. The big planet Earth has become a small global village and sovereign barriers seem to have disappear. While working in a foreign country, some individuals

Performance criteria and goals are best established by combining the values and norms of each local environment with the home-office’s performance standards. An individual country profile should be developed and should take into account the foreign subsidiary’s environment. This profile should be used to review any factors that may have an effect on the expatriate employee’s performance. Such factors include language, culture, politics, labor relations, economy, government, control, and communication.

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.

Today, as businesses hire white-collar workers abroad, similar opportunities will abound for those ready to change and grow. As in earlier eras, the capital accumulation made possible by the increased efficiency and specialization at American companies will fuel demand for employees with new skills, such as managers able to integrate a company's activities across countries and cultures.

As the US expatriate managers are poorly trained for international assignments, they experience difficulty in adapting to the new culture and tradition. The adaptation to the new place, language, people and their cultural attitudes slow down their workplace performance. Also in the workplace, they experience the cultural shock in the different working mode and staff relations.

The definition of an expatriate is an employee who comes from a country that is different from the one in which they are working. (Foundations of Multinational Management, 2014)

The theory developed by Hofstede (1980) suggested that the national cultural differences have greater influence on shaping the management and business operations. The international experience from the repatriates has considerable positive effect on pre-departure training program. Enhanced cultural awareness is expected, since the repatriates are more familiar with the host country culture. The expatriate experience from the repatriates could provide more realistic information on business context in the host country which develop positive attitude to the assignment. They could act as guidance to allocate the resources to ensure that the expatriates familiarized the new culture and produce appropriate behaviours necessary within that culture. In other word, the chance of expatriate failure is likely to be diminished. On the other hand, repatriate experience could also play a role to aid with expatriate selection. Appropriate candidate for expatriate required to have “the ability to learn new business concepts, to supervise subordinates from different culture, to deal with family relocation issues and to adjust personally to a new culture” (Webb, Wright, 1995:39). Thus, we can know that the candidate selection is not solely depends on the technical competence but also the relational abilities. The international

The Floundering Expatriate case study provides the right example of problems associated with the global marketplace and when businesses and their leaders transcend physical and cultural boundaries and they fail to adapt to cultural specifics. We consider that this report will allows making an analysis that contains discussion on culture and communication issues along with globalization.

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.

Expatriation is when a company sends an employee overseas to work. Businesses needs to have a plan in place to insure a successful expatriation assignment. First, the business needs to make sure to choose the right person, who is open to new experiences and cultures. Second, the employer needs to prepare the expat and their family for what they will experience. Additionally, the business should have a program setup to prepare the expat with classes to teach about the culture the person will experience. If the area speaks a different language than the expat, the company should invest in a language tutor to help their employee. In this paper, I will discuss the person I selected for the expatriation assessment assignment. I will display

The culture of an organization can vary from country to country. It is important to recognize and respect the different cultural aspects of international business. According to Hill (2013), “an expatriate manager is a citizen of one country who is working aboard in one of the firm’s subsidiaries” (p. 570). It is of great importance for an expatriate manager to undergo

Forster, N., 2000. Expatriates and the impact of cross‐cultural training. Human Resource Management Journal, 10(3), pp.63-78.

The expanding global reach of many organisations today has increased interest in the topic of managing country managers. In most cases this is an expatriate, a home country national sent by the parent company to work temporarily or permanently in another country. In most cases this could be a temporary situation as the organisation is setting up its