Management Values and International Staffing Policy What determines whether firms use locals or expats?

Ideally, rational reasons like cost and competency will prevail. However, the company s top executive s values will also play a role. For example experts often classify top executives values as ethnocentric polycentric, or geometric. In an ethnocentrically run corporation the prevailing attitude is that home country attitudes management style, knowledge evaluation criteria and managers are superior to anything the host country might have to offer. In the polycentric corporation there is a conscious belief that only host country managers can ever really understand the culture and behavior of the host country market; therefore the foreign subsidiary should be managed by local people. Geocentric executives believe they must scour the firm s whole management staff on a global basis, on the assumption that the best manager for a specific position anywhere may be in any of the countries in which the firm operates. Why Expatriate Assignments Fail The international assignments are the heart of international human resource management. The exact number of failures is hard to quantify, in part because failure means different things to different people. For example some expatriates may fail less consciously, quietly running up the hidden costs of reduced productivity and poisoned customer and staff relations. However there are some evidence that the rate of early departures, at least, is declining. This appears to be because more employers are taking steps to reduce expats problems abroad. For example they are selecting expats more carefully, helping spouses to get jobs abroad, and providing more ongoing support to the expat and his or her family. Another example, some companies have formal global buddy programs. Here local managers assist new expatiates with advice on things such as office politics norms of behavior and where to receive emergency medical assistance. Expatriate failure is usually defined as a posting that either ends prematurely or is considered ineffective by senior management. Most research into the matter has come to the conclusion that failure rates are high and can vary between 10% and 50% depending on the country Emerging countries such as those of Southeast Asia are . considered higher risk than advanced nations The costs of failure have been estimated by numerous means with widely varying results Despite the lack of . clarity, it is clear that a failed assignment in an overseas location is considerably more expensive than one occurring closer to home. Below are chief factors resulting in an unsuccessful expatriate assignment, Traits of Successful Expats 1. Family Pressures: Most expatriate managers are challenged and excited to be in their newpostings. They need to spend a lot of time at work since they are under pressure to adapt to the new culture and their overall responsibilities are often larger than they have experienced before. As a result, the wives of expatriates spend a lot of time by themselves. In short, it is generally the trailing spouse who suffers the greatest culture shock in the new country. The result can be a unhappy spouse who does her best to impair the performance of the expatriate manager.Total marriage breakdown is not an uncommon result. Unofficial numbers from the Asian Development Bank (a large development organization modeled after the World Bank) are

that upwards of 60% of their expatriate s marriages fail due to the stress of off shore postings.The consequence is that many expatriate postings are either terminated early or the performance of the expatriatemanagers are impaired. 2. Cultural Inflexibility If the expatriate manager is to be successful, he will need to learn how to adapt to concepts such as savingface (the cause of the local manager not showing up forwork) and building consensus that are important in Asia. He also needs to realize that transforming his new staff into Americans or Europeans has been tried a million times and it doesn t work. All expatriates maneuver a narrow path between accepting local conventions on one side and aspiring to international standards on the other. Southeast Asia has a rich variety of cultures. The differencesin religion are one example. Thailand is graciously Buddhist, Indonesia is gently (but intensely) Islamic and Philippines is completely Catholic. As for Singaporeans, some say their only religion is work. Managing such varied peoples obviously requires different tactics. 3. Emotional Immaturity

In their home countries, most expatriates are middle-managers with relatively ordinary lives. Once relocated to Asia, they are suddenly thrust into the national spotlight as the Country Manager of a multinational organization. They have more people reporting to them than ever and often have more control over them. On the personal front, they may have household servants for the first time, are called upon to meet senior government officials and are generally made to feel important. Further, the expatriate may be attracting enthusiastic attention of certain local females seeking their own type of fame and fortune by landing a highstatus foreign husband or boyfriend. The combination of greatly expanded responsibility and social status can be difficult to handle for people lacking the emotional maturity to keep themselves grounded. It is not uncommon for expatriates to either destroy their career opportunities and/or marriages by ignoring responsibilities and succumbing to temptations. 4. Responsibility Overload In almost all cases, the new organization will be larger than the expatriate manager is used to overseeing. This is especially true when the posting is in an emerging country. Such large increases in responsibility are difficult for anyone to handle. Added to that, are the new challenges of managing expectations of head office managers and clients in other countries and who may not understand the cultural differences that are impacting results. 5. Physical Breakdown

Expatriates are generally motivated to succeed and excited about gaining international experience. As a result, they often work long hours in the early part of their posting to do whatever it takes to be successful. They are also adapting to seemingly overwhelming cultural differences with local staff and greatly expanded responsibilities. On the home front, the families of expatriates are almost certainly going through their own severe cultural adjustments and may be clamouring for the managers time and attention to help them through it. The combination of emotional despondency and physical exhaustion (otherwise known as burn-out) from elevated stress levels and overwork is a common problem for new expatriates. Unless alleviated, the result can be dramatically reduced effectiveness or work-interrupting illness for the manager.