Expatriate Managers Analysis of Expatriate Management Successes and Failures

There are many factors that need to be considered when assigning a manager into an expatriate role. Of the many factors that most often lead to success, Emotional Intelligence (EI), transformational leadership, cultural awareness and the ability to adjust to a foreign culture and attain productivity and performance quickly (Baliga, Baker, 1985). Ultimately the four major determinants of expatriate performance include technical skills and mastery, contextual and pro-social performance, contextual and managerial performance and expatriate-specific performance in a given nation or region (Claus, Lungu, Bhattacharjee, 2011). These four factors combined to anchor the performance analysis provided in this paper.

Analysis of Success and Failure of U.S. Expatriate Managers

The single greatest reason cited for failure of U.S. expatriate managers is the motivation and vision of why assimilating into a new culture is relevant to their roles, and the emotional intelligence to change their management styles to reflect local...

The second most common reason is a sense of being out of control of the entire expatriate management role, with little control over autonomy, mastery and purpose of their jobs (Wong, 2005). This lack of autonomy, mastery and purpose leads to a lack of long-term motivation. Conversely, when expatriate managers are given an exceptional high level of autonomy, see purpose in their role and are given the freedom to attain mastery of it, they flourish and find meaning in their work. With the two areas of lack assimilative social skills and a lack of long-term motivation anchoring the scale of why expatriate managers fail, the other end of the spectrum, why they succeed, is even more critical.
Two competencies that can ensure success of an expatriate U.S. manager include greater cultural cross-training through a series of shorter assignments focused on giving them experience in more comparable cultures to the U.S. And greater participation in liaison roles with international subsidiaries before actually moving to a foreign location to manage it (Yamazaki, Kayes, 2007). Both…