Expatriates in Multinational Organizations Performance

The Performance of Expatriates in Multinational Organizations

An expatriate is defined as an individual living in a foreign nation working in a foreign nation. With the rise of global multinationals there has been a corresponding rise in the number of expatriate workers (“Expatriate,” 2018). There are many reasons that individuals might wish to work and live abroad, including the desire to experience a new culture and career advancement. Multinationals can benefit by sending trusted and experienced workers with experience in the company culture into emerging markets. If the expatriate has a personal connection to the emerging market (for example, personal knowledge of the government structure and culture), this may ease the ability of the company to effectively break into the marketplace. But integrating one’s self into the emerging market is not always easy for the expat.
Strategies to Improve Performance of Expatriates
Expatriates, regardless of their familiarity with the culture of the emerging nation, need a full orientation into the process of doing business there, including any potential red tape and bureaucracy they may encounter, in contrast to how they are familiar to doing business at home. Even a worker who comes from the culture of the emerging nature by birth may be unfamiliar with accepted business practices there. For example, in India, bribery is often an accepted way of life and cost of doing business, even though it is considered unethical in the United States. Even if the company is not prepared to do business in such a manner, it must prepare it workers for such offers as “…any company operating in India – domestic or foreign – is vulnerable to these often socially-acceptable practices and they have real power to facilitate or conceal serious malpractice” (Owen, 2015, par.6). This is not simply true of India, but also China and many other emerging nations.
Factors Influencing Expatriate Performance
A familiarity with the foreign nation’s culture, and preferably its language, is an undeniable asset to cultural integration for the expatriate. But this is not always possible to find in a pool of typical workers. What can be leveraged, however, is intellectual curiosity about going abroad combined with a flexible and open-minded outlook. “They assign international posts to individuals who not only have the necessary technical skills but also have indicated that they would be likely to live comfortably in different cultures” (Black & Gregersen, 1999, par.13). Companies frequently engage in extensive screening of workers before hiring them, to ensure that they are amenable to and can be well-integrated into the corporate culture itself. But being integrated into the business culture of the foreign nation to which the expatriate is being sent may be different than being integrated into a domestic culture and just like personality is a factor in job performance at home, the same is also true abroad.
Improving the Performance of Expatriates in Emerging Nations
To improve the performance of expatriates in emerging nations thus requires a good fit between employee and nation. But even the culturally and linguistically fluent must be well-prepared before going abroad. Additionally, once there, they should be supported by the home office with constructive advice when they encounter obstacles. Engaging in joint ventures and making connections with on-the-ground foreign nationals may be also useful to forge a more successful connection.
Efficacy of Expatriates
Using expatriates alone may not be enough to create a truly effective outpost that thrives. Starbucks has been so successful in its attempts at expanding abroad because of its reliance upon joint ventures, rather than simply exporting workers from the US to emerging markets. Expatriates can be an effective voice for a multinational, but they must be carefully oriented and managed to ensure that they are leveraged to their maximum advantage.
Bibliography
Black, J. & Gregersen, H. 1999. The right way to manage expatriates. HBR. Accessed 15 Jul
2018. https://hbr.org/1999/03/the-right-way-to-manage-expatshttps://hbr.org/1999/03/the- right-way-to-manage-expats
Expatriate. 2018. Investopedia. Accessed 15 Jul 2018.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/expatriate.asp
Flannery, R. 2017. Starbucks makes its biggest acquisition buying China JV stakes for 1.3b.
Forbes. Accessed 15 Jul 2015. https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2017/07/27/starbucks-makes-its-biggest- acquisition-buying-china-jv-stakes-for-1-3b/#719ceeb14386
Owen, J. 2014. India’s corruption culture: A dangerous game for businesses. Forbes. Accessed
15 Jul 2015. https://www.forbes.com/sites/riskmap/2014/06/25/indias-corruption-culture- a-dangerous-game-for-businesses/#aa0094513349