Expatriation Failure

Expatriation failure is the premature return of an expatriate manager to his or her home country. Research has shown that the Multi-national companies experienced a minimum failure in expatriation at estimated 32% and the maximum failure in expatriation at estimated 40%. Expatriation failure can be costly and the direct cost of monetary and indirect cost of efficiency and effectiveness are greatly affected

The reasons for expatriate failure are:

One of the reasons is the inability of manager’s spouse to adjust to a new environment. The presence of culture shock was not tackled promptly, emotional problems, family-related reasons and spouses can not adjust to the environment. Thus, render inefficiency to managers and eventually leave prematurely

The inability to cope with larger overseas responsibilities is also one the reasons cited. Managers who are technically incapable and less competence find themselves unable to cope or handle tasks on a much wider scale and complexities. At the end, they leave prematurely

Overseas managers in the world have identified that performance appraisal was against them, many of them was appraised unfairly as the appraisal have not taken account that they are in another country.

The repatriation was not made clear to the managers. Many managers have no clue to what is going to happen at the end of the contract such as a position back home or forced to leave the company as there were no available positions. These uncertainties arise and stir demotivation which causes manager to leave prematurely.

Solutions

Firms can reduce expatriate failure through improved selection procedures of managers

It has been cited that successful managers possessed all 4 key attributes

1)      Self-orientation

It refers to the expatriate self confidence, self esteem and mental well-being.

Managers with high level of confidence and self esteem will not lose their confidence in the face of trouble and challenges as they are able to handle their emotions well. However, the problems of egotism may arise which will lead to ethnocentrism.

2)      Others-orientation

It is the ability to interact effectively with host-country nationals. The willingness to communicate increases the level of tolerance and adaptation of a manager.

      3)      Perpetual ability

It refers to the ability to understand the behaviour of people from other country. Managers go beyond the willingness to understand have higher levels of tolerance and acquired greater adaptability to new situation. Managers equipped with empathiness achieves efficiencies and effectiveness.

4)      Cultural toughness

It refers to the ability to adjust to the posting. This where managers can manage greater diversification in culture and adapt well

While the selection of manager procedures is important, it is also important to instill global mindset to global managers. This fundamental attribute can be acquired early from the culture exposed or the foreign languages.

Training and management development

The continuous training and management development play important key roles. Training focuses upon preparing the manager for a specific job. The management development is concerned with developing the right skills of the manager over their career with the firm. But training will place more emphasize than management development as training create awareness of culture and language. The cultural training seeks to foster an appreciation for host country’s culture, the language training renders managers the ability to communication with host country nationals and practical training helps manager and family members ease themselves to understand and experience the countries culture. Also, firms have also sent managers to the country first to let them adapt prior to station them for long years.

Also, the development managers' competence and technical capability are important because managers with greater technical capability and competences can cope wider and biggest complexities

Another area to reduce repatriation is that the performance appraisal needs to be done in a less bias manner. Firms should be impartial and take consideration that expatriates are at a different country. Comparisons should be avoided and ensure that fair level grounds of appraisals are present. This could greatly reduced frustration and de-motivation of expatriates. In order to reduce bias, firms can place more weight on site managers’ appraisal than off site managers’ appraisals. Firms can seek information from former expatriate to reduce bias. Firms can take in consideration of foreign on site managers’ evaluation of the expatriate manager. All these will constitute a 360 degree approach to appraisal a manager.

Lastly, the repatriation programs should be clearly prepared and developed for expatriate managers to re-enter into their home country. The well developed programs for re-integrating expatriates back into work life within home country organisation clarifies uncertainty of roles and increases the level of transparency of repatriation. Companies who do not plan repatriation loses knowledgeable workers and increases competition as the expatriate manager leaves the company and join competitors

Conclusion

In order to reduce expatriation rates, firms should understand expatriates better from many different perspectives. “Penny wise, pound foolish” solutions are short term of reducing cost but the long term benefits are the primarily important aspects that a firm should examine and it outweighs the short term. Also, understanding how expatriates go through in a foreign country is important. The elation when expatriates leave home country to undertake higher roles, the honeymoon experienced when expatriate steps into a foreign country, the depression experience to stay or leave, the adaptation of the country culture and the elation felt when the expatriate has served the contract. At different junctures, firms can devise strategies to assist expatriate cope with internal and external factors of foreign countries better. As a result, the expatriates gains and firm gain even more which is tacit knowledge and learning curve.