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Expatration

Expatriation involves temporarily relocating employees abroad for business purposes. It includes long term assignments, preparation, adjusting to culture shock, and roles like knowledge transfer. Success depends on factors like skills, relationships, family support, and language ability. Failure has direct costs like relocation expenses and indirect costs like damaged relationships.

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41 views26 pages

Expatration

Expatriation involves temporarily relocating employees abroad for business purposes. It includes long term assignments, preparation, adjusting to culture shock, and roles like knowledge transfer. Success depends on factors like skills, relationships, family support, and language ability. Failure has direct costs like relocation expenses and indirect costs like damaged relationships.

Uploaded by

Priyankga Sree
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Expatriation

Expatriation
• The word “expatriate” originates from the mid
eighteenth century from the Latin word
expatriāre meaning gone out from one’s country
(from ex- ‘out’ + patria ‘native country.’)(Oxford
English Dictionary 2010).
• The Dictionary of Human Resource Management
(2001, p. 120), on the other hand, suggests that
expatriation is the process of sending employees
abroad on an international assignment.
Expatriation
• Traditionally, expatriation
– is a temporary displacement
– to a different country
– to attain business goals.
• Expatriation Involves
– traveling, short-term assignments,
– commuter assignments, and
– virtual working, or
– long-term placements
Definition
• Expatriation is herein defined as
– a company assignment
– through which an employee is displaced to another country,
– on a long-term but temporary basis,
– where he or she is expected to accomplish pre-defined
business goals,
– such as searching for local market opportunities,
– launch a host subsidiary,
– share business knowledge, control,
– or simply fill a local skill gap.

(Ref:https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d71a/bb7d305781886757cdf3c11873
48926ed741.pdf)
Process of expatriate management
Process of expatriation
• Resourcing
• Expatriate preparation and training
• Culture shock
• Recovery
• Adjustment - Adaptation
– Oberg’s phases of adaptation: honeymoon, culture
shock, recovery and adjustment
• Repatriation
Expatriate adjustment curve
Phases of adaptation
Culture shock
• 1 Stress, one must make an effort and do what is required in
order to adapt and work in the new culture;
• 2. Sense of loss, the employee is in a new country where the
status he used to have in his own country together with friends,
possessions and sometimes even family are gone;
• 3. Sense of becoming an outcast, the expatriates start rejecting
the natives and thus being ostracized by them;
• 4. Confusion, one becomes unsure of his own identity, feelings
and values;
• 5. Feelings of surprise and anxiety, one starts being aware of
the culture differences;
• 6. Sense of powerlessness, the sojourners are not able to deal
with the cultural differences
Roles of an expatriate
• Agent of direct control
• Agent of socialization
• Network builder
• Boundary spanner
• Language node
• Transfer of competence and knowledge
Figure 3-4: The roles of an expatriate
Figure 5-5: Expatriate career decision points

5/12
Successful expatriation
• Job Factors
• Relational Dimensions
• Motivational State
• Family Situation
• Language Skills
Successful Expatriation-job factors
• Technical skills
• Familiarity with the host
• country and headquarters operations
• Managerial skills
• Administrative competence
Successful Expatriation – Relational
Dimensions
• Tolerance for ambiguity
• Behavioral flexibility
• Non judgmental
• Cultural empathy and low ethnocentrism
• Interpersonal skills
• Issues of Identity
– Personal identity,
– Social Identity: Ethnic Identity
– (ref: https://www.anzam.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/392_ANZAM-2012-
442.pdf)
Successful Expatriation-Motivational State

• Belief in Mission
• Congruence with career path
• Interest in overseas experience
• Interest in specific host country culture
• Willingness to acquire new patterns of
behavior and attitudes
Successful Expatriation – Family Situation

• Willingness of spouse to live abroad


• Adaptive and supportive spouse
• Stable marriage
Successful Expatriation-language Skills
• Host country language
• Non verbal communication
(Ref:https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d71a/
bb7d305781886757cdf3c1187348926ed741.pdf)
Expatriate failure direct costs
• airfares, associated relocation expenses, and
salary and training
– Varies according to level of position concerned
– Country of destination
– Exchange rates
– Whether ‘failed’ manager is replaced by another
expatriate
Expatriate failure indirect costs
• Indirect costs (invisible)
– Damaged relationships with key stakeholders in
the foreign location
– Negative effects on local staff
– Negative effects on expatriate concerned
– Family relationships may be affected
Expat support activities
• Inter-company networking: the
multinational attempts to place the
accompanying spouse or partner in a
suitable job with another multinational
• Job-hunting assistance. Here the
multinational provides spouse/partner
assistance with the employment search in
the host country
• Intra-company employment: sending the
couple to the same foreign facility, perhaps
the same department
• On-assignment career support: Motorola is
an example of how a multinational may
assist spouses to maintain and even
improve career skills through what
Motorola calls its Dual-Career Policy
Fallouts
• Home and family issues – frequent absences
• Work arrangements – domestic side of
position still has to be attended to
• Travel logistics – waiting in airports, etc.
• Health concerns – poor diet, lack of sleep, etc.
• Host culture issues – limited cultural training
The role of non-expatriates
• People who travel internationally yet are not
considered expatriates as they do not relocate
to another country
– Road warriors, globetrotters, frequent fliers
• Much of international business involves visits
to foreign locations, eg.
– Sales staff attending trade fairs
– Periodic visits to foreign operations

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