Managing International Team Operations and Expatriate Success

Selecting the Right Team for Overseas Assignment

The first step in taking a team overseas is to determine what components will be required. Only then can the best team be selected, but there are unique selection criteria that must be taken into consideration for an international assignment. No matter how talented, not everybody is suited to work overseas, and the more different the culture, the bigger the challenge will be. First, team members will need some linguistic and intercultural communication skills. Familiarity with Latin America in general will be beneficial, as will Spanish or Portuguese language skills. There are differences among the various cultures in South America, but a general familiarity with Latin culture will help anyone doing business in the region, as there are also many similarities.

It is also important that the people selected have a high degree of adaptability. This is perhaps even more important than familiarity with the foreign culture. Somebody of Hispanic origin who has lived their entire life in the U.S. and lacks adaptability is essentially an American who will have a tough time transitioning to the new operating environment. Somebody who is adaptable will be in a better position, regardless of whether or not they have any prior familiarity with the culture. Freedom to go is another key variable. Not everybody who is capable of performing the tasks will be willing or able to leave the country for work. People have family and other responsibilities, and it can be extremely stressful to leave home. In fact, one of the biggest drivers of early return from overseas assignments is that the employee's spouse is not adapting to life abroad. Without work to anchor them, the spouse often finds the transition more challenging than the employee does. The company will still need to offer support, but where families are more adaptable, the early return rate for expatriate managers is significantly lower (Andreason, 2003).

Organizing the Team and Building Trust

Once the team has been selected, it must be organized. An in-person meeting of the team members should be held to initiate the project. This will allow members to meet one another and develop familiarity early in the process. Studies of international virtual teams show that face-to-face introductions can reduce dissonance between team members compared with teams whose members only meet online. Establishing trust among team members will be critical to building a team that can work together under difficult circumstances overseas (Holton, 2001). Team members can return to their home locations to prepare for the move once the project has been initiated in this way, and they should be able to function as a global virtual team in the short run, supported by a high degree of trust and communication.

Pre-Departure Training: Culture, Safety, and Workplace Norms

Part of the organizational process should include a training session introducing team members to the issues they will face when doing business overseas. There are certain things that will feel familiar in South America, but there will be many things that are quite different. For example, the safest cities in Brazil are more dangerous than the worst cities in the United States, and that is something expatriates may or may not be aware of. Many other important differences can be taught, especially those that distinguish the foreign country from the home country.

The team will also be trained on cultural basics. As Zimmerman (2014) notes, there are some interesting challenges in this area. South America is by no means a cultural monolith, and more importantly, even within a single country there are significant differences among people. For example, the culture of northern Brazil is very different from that of the far south. Cultural training must avoid degenerating into stereotypes, as those will not serve anyone well. Furthermore, the training must be realistic and practical. Training focused on which fork to use or who makes the first toast is entirely outdated. Training should instead focus on critical matters such as banking, medical care, education for families, transportation, and security — things that genuinely matter to expatriates. Social norms can be figured out in context, and they are not universal anyway.

Workplace norms, however, deserve dedicated attention. The company will need to decide whether to follow U.S. norms and policies or those of the foreign country, and managers will need training on the differences between the two. Where the host country has problems with issues such as corruption or discrimination, it is advisable for the firm to adopt U.S. policy in the foreign country, provided that managers understand this must be clearly communicated to local employees who join the firm and to suppliers as well (Worstall, 2013).

References

Andreason, A. (2003). Direct and indirect forms of in-country support for expatriates and their families as a means of reducing premature returns and improving job performance. International Journal of Management, 20(4), 548–555.

Holton, J. (2001). Building trust and collaboration in a virtual team. Team Performance Management, 7(3/4), 36–47.

Worstall, T. (2013). How Google could end web censorship in China in two easy steps. Forbes. Retrieved May 12, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/11/23/how-google-could-end-web-censorship-in-china-in-two-easy-steps/

Zimmerman, A. (2014). International cross-cultural management. Loughborough University. Retrieved May 12, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYgZCDQowIM