INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The High Failure Rate of Expatriate Assignments

The High Failure Rate of Expatriate Assignments

Introduction

The term expatriate failure denotes bringing an international assignment to an end earlier than the contract runs out. Most of the existing literature simply explains expatriate failure as the untimely finish to the job or a project, either with or without mentioning the reasons (Edwards & Rees, 2006, p.121). As said by Webb and Wright, there are a number of remunerations to the individuals going for a foreign assignment, predominantly an international business experience. In addition to this, these individuals may have several constructive results in their prospective career that includes long term career advancement, personal development, and skill acquisition. However, this kind of experience is does not come devoid of difficulties. On the contrary side, a number of expatriation issues have been discussed as expatriates' inadequate preparation to adopt a foreign position together with the often-cited social and family tensions associated with expatriate assignments. It is well established that the career propositions of international assignments are mostly frustrating (De Cieri, Cox & Fenwick, 2007, p.290). A need of reverence and esteem for acquired skills, reverse culture shock and loss of status on return are persisting issues in a number of companies. Thus, this paper aims to find out how to measure the high failure rate of expatriates and whether it is the right factor to measure or not. Moreover this paper also discusses the major causes or reasons behind the failure.

Discussion

Factors Causing Expatriates Failure on Foreign Assignment

Cross-cultural tuning of expatriates is a special trait of foreign assignments. The tuning or adjustment of expatriate denotes residing and working in an unfamiliar cultural environment. The adjustment of expatriates to a different culture and dealing with that culture is considered a fundamental part of their success or failure. The height of comfort an individual enjoys in his/her environment settles on how far he can be successful in carrying out his foreign assignment (Stahl & Bjorkman, 2006, p.81). It has been witnessed that when expatriates are not fully prepared for the new setting on a foreign area, there are worth mentioning consequences on the expatriates' performance. It can bring about an untimely withdrawal or an absolute breakdown of expatriates. Basically the expatriates come across three kinds of adjustments; the work adjustment is obviously related to the job, cultural adjustment is for the most part not related to the work, and interaction adjustment partly covers the work and non-work settings (Stahl & Bjorkman, 2006, p.82). A number of precursors of these adjustment measurements have been discussed, however little has been carried out by a few writers to officially or evidently link cross-cultural adjustment to the untimely return decisions of the expatriates. Gregersen and Black (1990) explored powerful relationships between intention to keep on and a range of dimensions of the adjustment of expatriate. However, job satisfaction was not included in these analyses.

Expatriates family members and spouses have tremendous influence his accomplishment or failure as an international ...