HRMN 467 Week 5: Global Employee Relations, Expatriate Training, and Regions and Countries Issues

HRD Strategies for Expatriate Development: Review of Current Strategies and Potentials

of Expatriate Mentoring

Eunok Alice Kim

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Expatriates are critical human resources and means of global organizations. Through review of literature,

this paper examines HRD strategies that have been utilized to develop expatriates for international

assignments, identifies gaps in current HRD strategies, and investigates unique potentials of expatriate

mentoring contributing expatriate development in all three stages of expatriation.

Keywords: International Human Resource Development, Mentoring, Expatriate Development

One of the most influential factors that are shaping the Human Resource Development (HRD) field is globalization.

Globalization focuses on integration of business activities on a global basis and leads companies to locate important

activities such as production, marketing, and R& D in those countries where opportunities are best (Adler, 2002;

Evans, Pucik, & Barsoux,2002).

Expatriation and successfully managing expatriation have been important issues for many multinational

corporations (MNCs). Sending home-country personnel to the local subsidiaries has been the main strategy MNCs

have adopted to start global business, to transfer the knowledge and culture of the home organizations, and to make

a connection between headquarters and local subsidiaries (Black, Gregersen, Mendenhall, & Stroh, 1999; Evans et

al., 2002). Expatriation has recently been approached as a long-term global strategy rather than as a means of crisis

management. While expatriation has mainly been adopted to solve the urgent challenges in international markets

and the problems of subsidiaries on the past, it has recently been refocused on the areas of global leadership and

managerial development, as well as organizational learning from international experiences (Adler, 2002).

Problem Statement

One of the challenges that HRD in MNCs faces is the lack of globally effective human resources. The experiences

of MNCs and the research have shown that highly effective managers in the home country have not been as effective

in international settings. Between 16 and 40 percent of all American expatriates fail to complete their assignment,

while the domestic failure rate is only five percent. Even 30 to 50 percent of the American expatriates who do

complete their assignments are considered by their companies to be ineffective or only marginally effective (Morris

& Robie, 2002).

Thus, it has become imperative among MNCs to develop individuals who can work effectively and efficiently

in an international environment. Expatriate development matters to organizations and expatriates. Organizations

build their global competencies and strategic advantages in global perspectives through expatriates. Given the

importance and high costs of expatriation, it is important what HRD strategies have been utilized and what can be

done to help expatriate to develop and succeed in their international assignments.

The purpose of this paper is to identify gaps in the HRD strategies for expatriate training and development, and

to discuss how expatriate mentoring could fill the gaps, and to explore future research ideas and directions through

examining the literature on HRD strategies for expatriate mentoring. For this purpose, literature of theoretical

framework and empirical evidences was reviewed.

This paper is organized into the following three main sections: The first part is an overview of HRD strategies

for expatriate T & D. This part examines what have been known as well as unknown. The second part specifically

concerns expatriate mentoring as an HRD strategy for expatriates. The literature from the domestic business area is

examined as well as studies from international settings. The last part discusses future research directions on the

topic of expatriate mentoring as a means of developing expatriates.

Copyright © 2007 Eunok Alice Kim

Research Questions

The following questions guided the development of the paper:

1) What kinds of HRD strategies have been utilized for the development of expatriates and what are the gaps

in those strategies?

2) What are the potentials that expatriate mentoring could contribute to development of expatriates in addition

to HRD strategies that have been utilized?

3) What are useful future directions of expatriate mentoring research considering its unique contexts?

Method

Integrative literature review was utilized for the study. Three major business, education and psychology database

were searched: ABI INFO, ERIC, and Psyc INFO. Each database was searched with several keywords such as

international human resources, expatriates, expatriate development for materials published in the past thirty years.

The retrieved materials included journal articles, book sections, and reports. The abstracts of retrieved data were

reviewed, and relevant materials to the research questions were selected for detailed review. Bibliographies in the

reviewed articles also were looked up. This study is based on review of these available literature and reports.

Empirical and theoretical literatures were included in the paper to capture the multi-faceted nature of the topic.

HRD Strategies for Expatriate Training and Development

The HRD strategies for expatriate training and development in the international HRD context is summarized in this

section. To date, selection, pre-departure training, and cross-cultural adjustment have been among the most popular

issues for the preparation and development of expatriates in international HR (Tung, 2000). Studies on cross-

cultural training will be investigated first in this section. Secondly, the research on pre-departure and post-arrival

training will be described.

Cross cultural training

The difficulties that expatriates experienced in transplanting many practices abroad raise the question of

national culture. Hofstede’s (1980) groundbreaking research on cultural differences showed that national culture

differences account for managerial styles more than position within the organization, profession, age, or gender.

This theory implies that management and business operations are much more shaped by national culture differences

even within a MNC; thus it is imperative to take national cultural differences seriously when MNCs expand

internationally.

As cultural differences have been addressed as a key dimension of an international assignment, cross-cultural

training (CCT) has become the main focus of T & D for expatriates. Cross-cultural training is "those educative

processes that are designed to promote intercultural learning, by which the acquisition of behavioral, cognitive and

affective competencies is associated with effective interaction across culture" (Landis & Brislin, 1983; Morris &

Robie, 2001). CCT has long been advocated as a means of facilitating effective cross-cultural interactions (Black &

Mendenhall, 1990). Topics of expatriate training include informational briefings, area studies, cultural assimilators,

sensitivity training, field experiences, and language training (Downes, Thomas & Singley, 2002; Tung, 1981).

Black and Mendenhall’s (1991) review article on CCT effectiveness is based on 29 empirical studies evaluating

the effectiveness of CCT programs. From a review of those studies, three primary dependent factors were

commonly used as indicators of training effectiveness: Cross-cultural skill development, Adjustment, and

Performance. The researchers made a matrix of those factors and research results, and classified the CCT effects into

positive, negative, non-significant, and not addressed. They concluded that in general, CCT is effective in all of

those areas.

Morris and Robie’s recent meta-analysis on CCT effectiveness (2001) examined 16 empirical studies for

expatriate adjustment and 25 studies for expatriate performance. The study adopted more rigorous criteria that

solely focused on CCT for expatriates and used a more systematic analysis method, meta-analysis in combining the

results of multiple studies. In spite of the larger sample sizes (more than 1,500 for each dependent variable) than in

the previous meta-analysis, the results showed that the mean effect sizes were lower: the effect size was r=.26 for

performance and r=.13 for adjustment. These findings indicate that the effectiveness of CCT is somewhat weaker

than expected and can vary widely"(p.203). The researchers concluded that the prescription for CCT should be

made cautiously considering moderators such as individual and international contextual differences, and training

content and methods.