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Cross Cultural Management 3219_Mehreen Anwar Ali

Email ID: mehreen_anwar12@hotmail.com Date of submission: 23rd April 2012

Challenges faced by Expatriates Q1. What personal characteristics are important for expatriate adjustment? Q2. What are the challenges faced by Expatriates? Q3. What is the training requires for expatriate to be adjusted in different culture?

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Table of Contents S.No 1 2 3 4 5 6 Introduction Personal Characteristics important for Expatriate Adjustment Challenges faced by Expatriates Training for Expatriates Conclusion References Contents Pg. no 3 4-5 5-6 6-7 8 9

Introduction: Due to the globalization of trade and services, many organizations are planning for the establishment of their businesses overseas and to gain a competitive advantage, they must be effective and efficient in the fulfillment of their international business operations and assignments. To operate effectively in various geographic regions, companies identifies the competent workforce who work on such international assignments, they are called expatriates. Expatriates are the individuals who are not the citizens of countries in which they are assigned to work but are sent to those countries for the accomplishment of tasks and assignments. They are the expensive human resource of an organization and have critical position in an organization. Due to the nature of their job, human resource department invest heavily in their training. Apart from technical skills, the organization also provides cross cultural and intercultural training that assist them in understanding the cultural beliefs, norms and business practices of the host country; this understanding helps them to meet the challenges of the host country.

Personal Characteristics important for Expatriate Adjustment: To what extend an individual has a tendency to be adjusted in a new culture based on their personality trait. The selection of expatriates should be based on the testing criterion that is efficient in testing the personality traits of an individual. The personality traits of an individual should be in align with the culture of the host country. According to research carried by Hofstede, it is concluded that to be effectively adjusted in a new cultural environment, an individual should have high agreeableness, extraversion,

conscientiousness, and openness to experience (Hofstede, 1991). Below are the points to show how each of the personality traits effect the expatriate adjustment

Extroversion is the degree of social interaction. An expatriate who have a high degree of extroversion, doesnt feel reluctant in their interaction with the host country nationals and are keen to learn their culture. They effectively make adjustments essential for their survival in the host country. For example the extroverts, who have an extensive Guanxi, can easily communicate with the Taiwanese.

Agreeable individuals tend to follow the norms of other people. The agreeable expatriates strives to learn from the local people and are highly adaptive, which helps them in building good relations with the local people. For example in Taiwan, the subordinates normally think that a good superior should always stand on their side. Due to this approach of their thinking, Taiwanese likes the expatriates who have a high degree of agreeableness.

Conscientiousness explains how a person respects social roles and demonstrates trustworthiness to others (Mount and Barrick, 1995). An expatriate with high conscientiousness is more devoted toward his work and completes his task in an organized manner but are disturbed by the unexpected rules which may hinder their plans and performance.

Openness to experience refers to the degree of readiness to experience new things. They have a high degree of tolerance for the ambiguity. An expatriate who has this trait, feels himself comfortable in a new environment and interested to learn and experience new things

Challenges faced by expatriates: 1. Lack of cultural intelligence becomes a hurdle for the expatriates to adapt the host culture and their working environment. Cultural intelligence refers to an individuals capability to deal effectively with people from a different cultural background and understanding (Earley & Ang, 2003). 2. Difference of lifestyles and experiences creates problems and need for adjustments for the expatriates to survive, live and work in a foreign country. 3. Problems of cultural clash arise when the expatriates come across the difficulties in understanding the values and behavior of the host country. (Elashmawi & Harris, 1993) 4. The gender differences of the host country create the problems. Women expatriates face cultural differences in male dominated society, which ultimately affect the efficiency of their assignments. 5. Expatriates experiences Cultural shock when they come across with fundamentally different culture and cant finds the ways to be adjusted in such cultures

Following are the examples of cultural differences faced by the expatriates in the following countries: China: In the welcome banquet, expatriates are offered duck tongue and pigeon head as meal. The Chinese culture is often described in terms of Guanxi (Xin and Pearce, 1996). To be successful in business relationships, expatriates should have extensive Guanxi Brazil: expatriates stress that cell phones are essential because home phones dont work Indonesia: expatriates need to be financially planned as they have to give the rent of two or three years in advance.

Training requires for expatriate to be adjusted in different culture: To address the challenges faced by the expatriates in the foreign country and to be psychologically and culturally adjusted, expatriates should prepare themselves for such cultural differences. To manage expatriate performance, the multinational cooperation provides training. The training helps in reducing the expatriate failure rate which results in negative consequences such as losing the business opportunity, reducing productivity and effects the corporate reputation and relations. It is for these reasons that expatriate training has become a necessary element. The aims of such training is not to transform the personality of the expatriates but to develop cross cultural competency skills in the expatriates. Cross Cultural Training: The main purpose of cross cultural training is to minimize culture shock. Culture shock is a state of disorientation and anxiety created, when people come across with fundamentally different culture and are unaware of their norms, values and behaviors.

Cross culture training helps the expatriates to understand the cultural differences and to manage such differences constructively. The training intends to provide the solutions in all matters such as organization culture, etiquette, communication, conflict resolution, values of the organization and other issues that will be beneficial for them. It reduces the level of ambiguity and stress by increasing the cross cultural awareness, understanding and cultural flexibility which help the expatriates to modify their thoughts and action in align with the cultural practices of host country.

The inter cultural training programs include two activities 1. The first set is to provide the applied information of the living conditions of the host country it includes the political, economic and cultural information about the country and to provides the information which make the expatriates well aware of the culture of the host country 2. It second set consists of practical learning activities which aims to develop intercultural skills such as stress management, relationship building, cross cultural communication and negotiations techniques. The basic aim of these activities is to reduce the cultural biases by making the expatriates well aware about the diversified management practices and to help the expatriates become familiar with the global management business practices and philosophies.

Conclusion: To meet the global challenges of the world, every business are in progress to expand their business worldwide which make them to establish their business operations internationally. To the successful launch and progress of the business, human resource plays a critical role. Expatriates are sent overseas to manage the operations. The selection of expatriates is an important success factor. The individual differences on expatriate effectiveness generates the need to analyze the personality traits of an individual and give such tasks and assignments which are in align with their personality. During their period of residence in foreign countries, expatriates face cultural challenges which need to be addressed efficiently. To meet such challenges employees are trained.

References: 1. Daniel J. Kealey & David R. Protheroe (1996). The Effectiveness of Cross-Cultural Training for Expatriates: An Assessment of The Literature on The Issue. Int. J. Interculfurol Rel. Vol. 20. 2. Earley, P.C., & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural intelligence: Individual interactions across cultures. Palo Alto:Stanford University Press. 3. Elashmawi, F., and Harris, P. R. (1993). Multicultural management: New skills for global success. Houston: Gulf Publishing Co. 4. Mount, M.K. and Barrick, M.R. (1995) The Big Five Personality Dimensions: Implications for Research and Practice in Human Resources Management, Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 13: 153200. 5. Raduan Che Rose, Jegak Uli & Naresh Kumar (2010). Personality and Cross-Cultural Adjustment among Expatriate Assignees in Malaysia Vol. 3, No. 4 6. Raduan Che Rose, Subramaniam Sri Ramalu, Jegak Uli & Naresh Kumar (2010). Expatriate Performance in International Assignments: The Role of Cultural Intelligence as Dynamic Intercultural Competency. Vol. 5, No. 8; August 2010 7. Tsai-Jung Huang, Shu-Cheng Chi and John J. Lawler (2005). The relationship between expatriates personality traits and their adjustment to international assignments Int. J. of Human Resource Management 16:9 September 2005 16561670. 8. Xin, K.R. and Pearce, J.L. (1996) Guanxi: Connections as Substitutes for Institutional Support, Academy of Management Journal, 39(6): 1641 58.