Ihrm

Chapter 7 Summary

The role of expatriate training

1. The highlights and focus on expatriate training is:

• Pre-departure training activities – developing cultural awareness
• Pre-departure training is a subset of general training
• Effective cultural training – Earley points out that intercultural training is to help people overcome unexpected events in a new culture

1. Tung’s study on expatriate practice – shows that US are less frequently implement cultural training than Japanese and European firms
2. Cultural awareness training for spouse and family, due to the increasing importance between performance and family adjustment
3. Mercer reports that the provision of pre-departure training may vary across industries

Components of effective pre-departure training program

Cultural awareness training:

• Five different category:

• Environmental briefing
• Cultural orientation and assimilators (assimilation of various cultural situations and discussions)
• Language training
• Sensitive training
• Field experience

• Contingency framework based on two factors:

• The degree of interaction
• Similarities between two culture

These two factors would decide whether the focus is on job-related issues or cross-cultural skills

• Limitation of the model

It does not assist the user to determine which specific training methods to use or what might constitute more or less rigorous training

• Training should be more life-long orientated than ‘one-shot’ programs
• There should be more emphasis on provision of foreign language training
• More emphasis on the levels of communication competence

• Mendenhall extended Tung’s model, proposed three key dimensions in their cross-cultural training model:

• Training methods
• Levels of training rigor
• Duration of the training relative to degree of Interaction and culture novelty

• Informative-giving approach (short period)

• Area or cultural briefings
• Lectures, movies or books
• Use of interpreters
• ‘survival-level’ language training

• Affective approach (long period)

• Role-playing
• Critical incidents
• Culture assimilator training
• Case studies
• Stress reduction training
• Moderate language training

• Immersion approach

• Assessment center
• Field experiences
• Simulations
• Sensitivity training
• Intercultural web-based workshop
• Extensive language training

Preliminary visits

• Allows them to assess their suitability for and interest in the assignment
• Introduce business context in the host location
• Help encourage informed pre-departure preparation
• It is essential that this visit should be relevant to the intended position that the international employee will take
• Brewster and Pickard found that an expatriate community has an influence on expatriate adjustment

Language instructions

• The role of English as the language of world business

• Tung reports that most English-speaking country deemed language training as unimportant
• The resultant lack of language competence has strategic and operational implications as it limits the multinational’s ability to monitor competitors and process important information

• Host country language skills and adjustment
• Knowledge of the corporate language

Practice assistance

• Preparing office paper/visas
• Shipping assignee’s goods to the host country
• Shipping additional baggage by air
• Interim accommodation in the host country

Use relocation specialist

Security briefing

• Relatively new
• Political environment, natural disaster, exposure to disease, travel accidents

 nn