Submitted to:

Ma'am Sanam
 Group 5
Submitted by:
 Ukasha Shahzad BBA-F15-63
 Mohsin Yaqoob BBA-F15-71
 Hamza Talib BBA-F15-69
 Hamza khan BBA-F15-67
Chapter 7

INTERNATIONAL
TRAINING,
DEVELOPMENT,
& CAREERS
 INDIVIDUAL REACTIONS TO RE-ENTRY
As with cross-cultural adjustment, the re-entry process is a complex interaction
of several factors.
Re-entry readjustment categories into two factors.
 Job-related Factors
 Social Factors
Job-related factors:
 These factors center around future employment prospects as a consequence
of the international assignment.
 The value being placed on the person’s international experience, coping
with new role demands and the loss of status and financial benefits upon re-
entry.
Factors influencing repatriate adjustment
Job-related factors
Career anxiety:
When surveyed, expatriates consistently list two motivators for
accepting an international assignment.
 career advancement
 financial gain.
The Brookfield 2010 Survey asked about the value of international
experience to an employee’s career and respondents gave the
following responses:
 33 percent of respondents said that expats were promoted
faster.
 28 percent believed that expats obtained positions in the firm
more easily.
 28 percent of respondents noted that expats changed
employers more often.
The causes range across the following in
career anxiety:
 No post-assignment guarantee of employment.
 A fear that the period overseas has caused a loss of visibility and
isolation
 Lack of information may increase the level of anxiety
 Changes in the home workplace.
Another issue here is that restructuring can affect the host-country
operations. Such as
 Closure Of A Plant
 Dissolving Of A Joint Venture
 Merging Of Operations Post-acquisition.
This may leave the expatriate stranded, or force an early, unplanned
repatriation.
 Career Benefits

 All of these factors combine to suggest that expatriates can

be deeply affected by career anxiety.
In addition, In a recent study examining expatriates’ views relating to
the perceived benefits gained at the individual level from
international assignments.
Specific benefits from international assignments included:
 Being more visible; it should open up doors to the future.
 Exhibiting a broader mindset which should make me better suited
for advancement.
 Giving me loads of experience to bring back to home country.
 Work adjustment
Black, Gregersen and Mendenhall, argue that work adjustment has an
important impact on a person’s intent to stay with the organization.
 The employment relationship.
 Re-entry position.
 Devaluing the overseas experience.
The employment relationship:
 An individual’s career expectations may be based on clear
messages sent by top management to the effect that an
international assignment is a condition for career progression.
 That is, verbal or written statements such as:
 ‘We are an international company and we need internationally
oriented people who have worked in our overseas facilities’.
 Expected career outcomes also are influenced by comments made
by HR or line managers during the recruitment and selection stage.
For example:
The line manager may suggest to a younger employee:
 ‘You should volunteer for that international assignment. It would
be a smart career move at this stage in your life’.
 If others have been promoted upon repatriation, it may be
perceived to be the ‘norm’, thus reinforcing the perception that
international assignments lead to promotion upon re-entry.
 For these reasons, the person believes promotion should follow
based on successful performance while abroad and if the re-entry
position does not eventuate within a reasonable time frame, then
career anxiety is justified.
 The psychological contract is a moderator of re-entry readjustment
as well as on-assignment adjustment and performance.
 It is important to note that the psychological contract concerns
perceptions and expectations.
Re-entry position:
The re-entry position is frequently judged by whether it matches the
repatriate’s career expectation.
particularly when the international assignment has caused considerable
family disruption.
Such as a forced break in the career of the accompanying partner, or
difficulties experienced with the education of the children involved.
Devaluing the overseas experience:
 Career progression is important but to be promoted upon reentry
signifies that international experience is important and valued by the
organization.
 However, the re-entry position may be a less challenging job with
reduced responsibility and status than that held either during the
international assignment, or prior to the period overseas, in ‘holding’
positions.
 The positions do not seem to be related, nor draw upon,
experiences and skills the person may have acquired during the
international assignment – that is, giving the impression that such
experience is devalued.
 Social factors
The international experience can distance the repatriate, and his or
her family, socially and psychologically.
 Family adjustment
 Social networks.
 Effect on partner’s career.
Family adjustment:
It must be stressed here that, where spouses, partners and children are
involved, each family member is experiencing his or her own
readjustment problems.
For some returnees, re-entry is a shock.
Re-entry reminds them that life is not static
Social networks:

 In the 21st century this is much less of a problem as the coverage by

satellite television news channels such as CNN and BBC World,
internet, email, social media, mobile phone technology, the low cost
of communication via Skype .
 It make significantly easier for expatriates to follow events in their
home country and stay in touch with their extended family. But re-
establishing social networks which can be difficult especially if the
family has been repatriated to a different state or town in the home
country.
 Children may also find re-entry difficult. Coming back to school,
attempting to regain acceptance into peer groups and being out-of-
touch with current sport and fashion can cause some difficulties.
Effect on partner’s career:

 Partners encounter difficulties in re-entering the workforce,

particularly if the partner has not been able to work outside the
home.
 Negative experiences during the job search may affect the partner’s
self-worth, compounding the readjustment process and even causing
tension in the relationship.
 Readjustment of the expatriate, whether male-led or female-led,
may be linked with concerns about the effect that the foreign
assignment might have on the partner’s career.
 RESPONSES BY THE MNE
 Now examine the issues from the viewpoint of the multinational
enterprise.
 Early studies into the issue of repatriation indicated that it was
somewhat neglected by MNEs.
 Managing the process of repatriation should be of concern to MNEs
that desire to maximize the benefits of international assignments
and create a large internal labor market.
A well-designed repatriation process is important in achieving these
objectives, for three main reasons:
 Staff availability
 Return on investment
 knowledge transfer
Staff availability and career
expectations
 The way a multinational enterprise handles repatriation has an
impact on staff availability for current and future needs.
 Re-entry positions signal the importance given to international
experience.
 If a MNE does not reward expatriate performance, tolerates a high
turnover among repatriates, or is seen to terminate a repatriate’s
employment upon re-entry.
 Then it is likely that younger managers will conclude that
acceptance of an international assignment is a relatively high-risk
decision in terms of future career progression within the
organization.
Linking repatriation process to
outcomes
 There has been some discussion in the management literature about
international assignments and boundaryless careers.
Boundaryless Careers:
 The term ‘boundaryless career’ appears to have been coined in
recognition of shifts occurring in the employment relationship,
particularly in Western countries.
Employees now tend to switch jobs more frequently, either voluntarily or
involuntarily due to economic changes or organizational restructuring.
Boundaryless Careerist:
 Is the highly qualified mobile professional who builds his or her career
competencies and labor market value through transfers across
boundaries.
 International assignments, particularly for career expatriates or
global managers, are sometimes regarded as boundaryless in that
the assignment places the person in another organization, most
commonly a subsidiary or an international joint venture.
 In some instances MNEs may choose to select international
itinerants, that is,
 professional managers who over their careers are employed for
their ability, by at least two business organizations that are not
related to each other, in at least two different countries.
 IHRM measures such as repatriation programs influence the
outcomes in terms of the employment relationship in general and
specifically employee retention rates and commitment.
 More sophisticated practices with higher levels of firm
involvement in an employee’s career are described as
‘multidirectional’ and ‘active planning’ forms of career
management.