Management Of Expatriates : Contemporary Development And Future Challenges 9781845445263, 9780861768127

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Journal of Managerial Psychology

ISSN 0268-3946 Volume 18 Number 3 2003

The management of expatriates: contemporary developments and future challenges Guest Editors Michael J. Morley, Margaret Linehan and Hugh Scullion

Access this journal online __________________________ 170 Editorial boards ___________________________________ 171 Abstracts and keywords ___________________________ 172 Introduction Michael J. Morley, Margaret Linehan and Hugh Scullion________________

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Global managers: career orientation, career tracks, life-style implications and career commitment Vesa Suutari ___________________________________________________

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Going the extra mile: local managers and global effort Carol Reade____________________________________________________

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Are women ‘‘better’’ than men? Personality differences and expatriate selection James P. Guthrie, Ronald A. Ash and Charles D. Stevens _______________

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Expatriate career intentions of women on foreign assignments and their adjustment Jan Selmer and Alicia S.M. Leung__________________________________

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Expatriate stories: a vehicle of professional development abroad? Lyn Glanz _____________________________________________________

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD

Professor Neil Anderson Department of Work and Organization Psychology, University of Amsterdam

Chair Dr Dean Bartlett University of North London, UK

Professor Chris Argyris Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, USA

Dr Gayle Baugh University of West Florida, USA

Professor Warren Bennis University of Southern California, USA Professor Frank Bournois Universite´ Panthe´on-Assas, Paris II, France Dr Yue Wah Chay Singapore Management University, Singapore Professor Cary Cooper University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, UK Professor Martin Evans Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Canada Dr Frank Heller Tavistock Institute, UK Professor Geert Hofstede Institute for Research on Intercultural Co-operation, The Netherlands Professor Paul Iles Teesside Business School, UK Professor Andrew Kakabadse Cranfield School of Management, UK, Founding Editor of Journal of Managerial Psychology Dr Bruce Kirkcaldy International Centre for the Study of Occupational and Mental Health, Du¨sseldorf, Germany Professor Harold J. Leavitt Stanford University, USA

Dr Patrick Foley Victoria University, Australia

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Dr Patricia Hind Ashridge Management College, UK Professor Henry S.R. Kao University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Dr Robert Kovach and Brett Seamons RHR International Co., London, UK Dr Peter Liu Verity International Ltd, Toronto Dr Zehava Rosenblatt University of Haifa, Israel Dr Raymond Saner and Dr Lichia Yiu Centre for Socio-Economic Development, Geneva, Switzerland Dr Rene´ Schalk Tilburg University, The Netherlands Dr Sherry E. Sullivan Bowling Green State University, USA Professor Gladys L. Symons Ecole Nationale d’Administration Publique, Universite´ de Quebec, Canada Dr Daniel Vloeberghs University of Antwerp, Belgium Dr Jacob (Yaacov) Weisberg Bar-Ilan University, Israel Professor Jack Wood Monash University, Australia

Professor Manuel London State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA Professor Dr Wolfgang Mayrhofer Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria Professor John B. Miner Consultant and writer, Eugene, Oregon, USA Dr Greg Northcraft Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, USA Dr Francisco Gil Rodriguez Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain Professor Zhong-Ming Wang Hangzhou University, China Journal of Managerial Psychology Vol. 18 No. 3, 2003 p. 171 # MCB UP Limited 0268-3946

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Journal of Managerial Psychology Vol. 18 No. 3, 2003 Abstracts and keywords q MCB UP Limited 0268-3946

Global managers: career orientation, career tracks, life-style implications, and career commitment Vesa Suutari Keywords Careers, Management, International business, Commitment, Lifestyles The need for developing a cadre of global managers who are capable of working in international key positions wherever the needs of companies require it, has been widely stressed. Typically, the literature on international careers still deals with international assignments as “once-in-alifetime” experiences and thus as a continuum from selecting the right candidates to repatriating them back to the home country. Less attention has been devoted to so-called global managers who are committed to international careers for a longer term. In the present study, career orientations, career tracks, career commitment and life-style implications of global managers are analysed. The results indicate that the majority of managers were originally interested in an international career. In their career they typically vary between positions abroad and in the home country instead of moving from one international assignment to another. Typically they consider the positive implications to override the negative implications of such a career with respect to both themselves and their families. As a result, they are often firmly committed to working in international environments in the future.

Going the extra mile: local managers and global effort Carol Reade Keywords International business, Human resource management, Multinationals, India, Pakistan The competitive international environment of the twenty-first century is said to require greater collaboration between the multi-

national corporation (MNC) units, where local employees work toward global as well as local goals. What does it take to motivate local employees to go the extra mile for the sake of the MNC as a whole? This article reports the results of a study conducted among 317 local managers at the Indian and Pakistani subsidiaries of a British MNC in the consumer products industry. Organisational identification, or a psychological bonding with the organisation, was one of several factors contributing to the willingness of local managers to exert extra effort toward organisational goals. Implications of the findings are drawn for expatriate managers who work alongside local managers, and for international human resource management.

Are women “better” than men? Personality differences and expatriate selection James P. Guthrie, Ronald A. Ash and Charles D. Stevens Keywords Expatriates, Gender, Personality, Selection Using data from 1,080 study participants, this study simulates a hiring scenario in which personality measures are used to screen candidates for a hypothetical expatriate (expat) position. On the basis of recent research indicating that selected “big five” personality variables are related to expat assignment success, an expatriate composite score was computed-based on NEO personality inventory and Hogan personality inventory scale scores. Across these two personality instruments, four samples, and eight selection ratios, a greater proportion of women versus men are consistently “selected”. Statistical tests confirm that the use of personality criteria results in gender being significantly associated with selection outcomes. These results are consistent with arguments that women are dispositionally advantaged with respect to international

assignments. These findings contrast sharply with extant evidence indicating that women hold relatively few expat positions.

Expatriate career intentions of women on foreign assignments and their adjustment Jan Selmer and Alicia S.M. Leung Keywords Expatriates, Career planning, Interaction, Hong Kong Despite an increasing demand for international executives, only the most determined women may get assigned abroad. Will this resolve for a career abroad also help them to become successful in their foreign assignment? To answer this question, Western female business expatriates in Hong Kong responded to a mail survey about their expatriate career intentions and their international adjustment. Controlling for the time they had been assigned to Hong Kong, the results show that the more determined the women are to pursue an expatriate career, the better is their interaction adjustment. This is a fundamental finding, as both the other two dimensions of sociocultural adjustment, general adjustment and work adjustment, are

based on interpersonal interactions. Implications of these findings for globalizing firms as well as for their female employees are discussed.

Expatriate stories: a vehicle of professional development abroad? Lyn Glanz Keywords Expatriates, Narratives, Professionals, Development Two-thirds of European organisations are using informal briefings for expatriates. Why should expatriates place a heavy premium on such input, even when given in the stories of complete strangers? This article uses narrative method to examine expatriate experience, considering how stories enable expatriate understanding of novel environments. It considers briefly the importance of surprise in these situations and Weick’s seven properties of sensemaking are used as a guideline for placing such expatriate stories in a sensemaking context. It further questions whether such stories might contribute to professional development by helping to bestow meaning for expatriates reflecting on their experiences.

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Journal of Managerial Psychology Vol. 18 No. 3, 2003 pp. 174-184 q MCB UP Limited 0268-3946 DOI 10.1108/02683940310465216

Introduction About the Guest Editors Michael J. Morley is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Business at the University of Limerick where he teaches organisational behaviour and human resource management. He holds the University of Limerick Teaching Fellowship for pedagogical research on correlates of personal, emotional and academic transitional adjustment among early undergraduates and their relationship with academic performance. His other current research interests include international HRM with particular reference to expatriate adjustment, the flexibilisation of working practices, and family-friendly work initiatives. E-mail: [email protected] Margaret Linehan is a Lecturer in Human Resource Management in the Department of Adult and Continuing Education at Cork Institute of Technology. Author of Senior Female International Managers: Why So Few? (Ashgate, Aldershot), her current research interests include women in international management from a European perspective and the repatriation of international assignees. E-mail: [email protected] Hugh Scullion is Professor of International HRM at Strathclyde Business School, Strathclyde University, Glasgow. He holds a PhD in International HRM, a master’s in industrial relations (Warwick) and a first class honours degree in Political Economy (Glasgow). He is a Visiting Professor at Erasmus Rotterdam University, Grenoble Business School and ALBA (Athens). Professor Scullion has taught international management programmes in North America, Asia and Europe. He has written several books and over 50 academic articles and also plays a leading role in international conference organisation.

The management of expatriates: contemporary developments and future challenges The rapid growth of international business at a time when many multinational companies (MNCs) are under increasing cost pressures has led these organisations to take a much closer look at their expatriation policies and practices. Faced with unprecedented levels of foreign competition at home and abroad, firms are beginning to recognise not only that international business is high on top management’s list of priorities but that finding and nurturing the human resources required to implement an international strategy is of critical importance (Dowling et al., 1994). Much of the research on the management of expatriates currently available is drawn from research focused on North American multinationals. Adler (1997) commented that most research on international human resource management was concerned with American expatriates and continues to be written from an American rather than an international perspective. This introduction seeks to highlight the growth of research into expatriation to set the context for the five papers in this special edition that both add to some traditional areas of expatriate research and open up new fields relevant to this area of enquiry in international management and international business. An understanding of the management of expatriates is of growing importance at the present time for a number of reasons outlined below (see Scullion, 2001):

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As MNCs increase in influence and number associated with rapid increases in global activity, so the role of expatriates in those MNCs increases in significance (Black et al., 1999). The effective management of expatriates is increasingly been recognised as a major determinant of success or failure in international business (Black and Gregerson, 1999). Research suggests that many international firms had experienced shortages of international managers, which often acts as a significant constraint on the implementation of international growth strategies (Price Waterhouse Europe, 1997/1998). The rapid growth of smaller and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that have internationalised their operations in recent years means that issues of expatriate management are increasingly important concerns in a far wider range of organisations than the traditional giant multinationals (Brewster and Scullion, 1997). It is increasingly recognised that the human and financial costs of underperformance/failure in the international business area are considerably more severe than in the domestic area. There is also evidence that many companies relatively new to the international scene underestimate the complex nature of human resource (HR) problems in the international arena and that business failures in the international arena may often be linked to the poor performance of expatriates (Forster, 2000).

In general terms, the study of expatriation has followed the traditional expatriate “cycle” – selection, training, relocation and adjustment, pay and performance and return, with early attention on the earlier stage of the assignment and a successively developing focus on the later and more complex issues of performance and repatriation (Scullion and Brewster, 2001). Baruch and Altman (1999) found that much research dealing with expatriation has been concerned with individuals lacking in conceptual work at the organisational or human resources operational level. Linehan (2000), Adler (1997) and Harris (1995) suggest that expatriate management has long been a masculine preserve in the USA and Europe, with little research conducted with European female expatriates, mainly due to their relative scarcity. According to Adler (2002), as global competition intensifies, the opportunity cost of relying on the traditional male expatriate escalates. Most global managers know their companies can no longer afford to ignore potential talent “simply because it’s wearing a skirt” or because it holds a passport different from that of the founding executives (Fisher, 1992). The empirical research on trends in international staffing policies, in addition to identifying the reasons for employing expatriates, also revealed some interesting differences between North American and UK firms with the

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latter using longer assignments and relying more heavily on expatriates to control overseas operations (Scullion, 2001). Recent European research highlights the importance of country specific factors and points to the differences between countries in staffing practices. Harzing’s (1999) study, for example, shows Japan and Germany at one extreme with a high level of expatriate presence while the USA was at the other extreme. Recent research has highlighted that not all cross-border business activities are staffed by “traditional” expatriates, that is, expatriates on international assignments lasting several years. Increasingly, purchasing and sales activities are conducted by people on short (often, literally flying visits). The development of travel and technology is making such “substitute” expatriate activities more common, particularly in Europe. Euro commuting or frequent flying is becoming increasingly common (Petrovic et al., 2000; Mayrhofer and Scullion, 2002) and the increasing use of video conferencing and real time computer information from around the world has provided alternatives to control by the physical presence of an expatriate. The implications of these developments for the management of expatriates remain largely unresearched, but they may have considerable implications for MNCs (Scullion and Brewster, 2001). Research into the recruitment and selection of expatriates is often highly prescriptive and has generally been focused on issues such as selection criteria. Recent European research, however, highlights that in practice decisions on expatriate selection are usually taken by line managers – who often simply ignore the selection decisions espoused by the HR department (Brewster and Harris, 1999). Research also suggests that European companies pay closer attention to the selection of expatriates, perhaps reflecting the greater importance of international revenues for European MNCs relative to US MNCs. Also research suggests that international experience was more highly valued in European MNCs, and expatriate assignments were regarded as high status and often integral to the management development process (Price Waterhouse Europe, 1997/1998). Training and development programmes for expatriates are more common in European than in US MNCs. Research shows that cultural awareness training remains the most common form of pre-departure training for expatriates but that other forms of preparation – briefings, shadowing, look-see visits – are more frequent than formal training programmes and may be more cost effective (Brewster and Scullion, 1997). A recent trend is that European MNCs are extending their pre-departure training programmes to include the partner and children, reflecting the growing awareness of the link between expatriate performance and family adjustment (Linehan and Scullion, 2002). Finally, several influential models of training and development for expatriate management have been developed including contingency models which consider the task, the individual and the environment before deciding the depth

of training required (see Black et al., 1999). Recent research, however, suggests that the development of international managers in the future will involve more frequent cross-border job swaps, short assignments, or assignments to multicultural project teams (Forster, 2000). Issues of expatriate adjustment have been highlighted in recent research in central and eastern Europe (CEE) which shows that local managers in these countries often resent the attitude of Western expatriate managers who are seen as unwilling to take into account the views of local people (Cyr and Schneider, 1996). Morley et al. (1997) address the extent to which frameworks of international adjustment, developed primarily in the North American context, are applicable to the transition economies of the CEE. They suggest that a detailed understanding of the context of adjustment in each case is therefore seen to be important in determining which variables are likely to cause problems. The whole question of performance measurement and management in multinational companies involves a complex range of issues, and research to date suggests that rigorous performance appraisal systems for expatriates are far from universal (Schuler et al., 1991; Brewster and Harris, 1999). This is perhaps surprising given the high costs of expatriate underperformance and the growing tendency to see expatriates as key strategic human assets (Black and Gregerson, 1999). Research suggests that European multinationals are more likely to pay close attention to this aspect of expatriation and tend to evaluate managers more on the achievement of long term goals than the short term measures used by US multinationals (Lindholm et al., 1999). In part this reflects the growing use of international assignments for developmental purposes in European multinationals and the greater integration of expatriation into the overall career development process (Scullion, 2001). However, recent research highlights the considerable differences in the way the appraisal process is actually handled in different countries. Tahvanainen (1998) found that in Sweden and Germany, for example, it is normal for staff to participate in the setting of job goals, whereas in the USA setting job goals is the priority of management. Also, problems in cultural adjustment which may have an impact on work performance should be considered when assessing an expatriate’s performance in a new role (Lindholm et al., 1999). The repatriation of expatriates has been identified as a major problem for MNCs in Europe and North America (Black et al., 1999; Linehan and Scullion, 2002). A recent study showed that a majority of US managers were satisfied with expatriation, while a majority were unhappy with repatriation (Tung, 1998). Indeed, concern over re-entry was cited as a significant reason affecting expatriate performance (Scullion, 2001) and North American academics have made a major contribution to our understanding of repatriate adjustment (see Black et al., 1999). Many expatriates leave their company on return with the consequent loss of investment and expertise. This loss of investment and

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international knowledge has led to calls for a more strategic approach to repatriation (Linehan and Scullion, 2002). Yet, while it is widely accepted that the costs of expatriate turnover are high, very few firms have effective repatriation programmes. Recent research shows that the management of repatriation is more complex in decentralised multinational companies and yields some insights into how the repatriation process can be used to develop the internationalisation of organisations (Scullion and Starkey, 2000). Research evidence suggests that between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of all expatriates resign – a significantly higher percentage than among non-repatriate executives (Black and Gregerson, 1998). In practice, many organisations continue to adopt an ad hoc, sink or swim attitude in relation to repatriation for employees and their families, and many expatriate managers continue to experience the repatriation process as falling far short of expectations (Stroh et al., 1998). Finally, the handling of expatriation issues is a crucial role in the competitiveness of organisations. The traditional parameters of human resource management may prove insufficient to deal with mobility needs or with the willingness of managers to accept transfers. Vanderbroeck (1992) emphasises the possible effects on international mobility because of changing value systems in western countries. In most western societies the percentage of two-career families is high, and particularly when a transfer means that a partner must sacrifice a personal career, this can make recruitment quite difficult. The recent fashion for “quality of life” issues over materialistic values means that organisations that make career success conditional on acceptance of overseas assignments might find it difficult to retain good talent. Similarly, when home-country organisations do not value expatriate experience and fail to make positive use of repatriated employees, this can discourage new candidates from accepting expatriate assignments. This special issue of the Journal of Managerial Psychology presents five selected papers that, in various ways, investigate aspects of expatriate management that have been part of the mainstay of research in this area heretofore, along with more recent developments that may acquire a pedigree in the field into the future. In our first paper, Vesa Suutari from the University of Vaasa in Finland focuses on global managers who are committed to international careers over the longer term. The author starts from the premise that much extant research does not provide empirical evidence on the careers of those who relocate internationally on a relatively frequent basis. He notes from his trawl of the literature that the focus of much of the research on international careers has been on those expatriates who decide to repatriate permanently back to their home country following a period on foreign assignment. The central research question being addressed here is what are positive and negative implications of what are described as “aspatial” careers for expatriates and their families.

Through detailed semi-structured interviews with 24 Finnish managers, the author presents new empirical evidence on the career orientation, career traits, life-style implications and the career commitment of these managers. In the career orientation sphere, the author identifies two different kinds of managers, namely those among whom internationalisation has played an important role in their career orientation and a separate group who in their early careers demonstrated no clear intention to seek out an international career. Common among both of these types however, was a generally positive experience on their first assignment. With respect to their career tracks, the data demonstrate that assignees operate across several countries during their careers, depending on emerging company needs. International careers among this sample were typically of two types, namely a group who alternate between international and home assignments and another group who typically move from one international assignment directly on to another international move. In terms of the impact of these international careers on personal and family life, the author notes that those in this sample typically report that personal relationships are more difficult to maintain. So too, is striking the correct balance between work and family/personal life and an ongoing requirement for adjustment by both the assignee and his/her family was nominated as an important issue. Finally, in terms of their commitment to their international career, the majority of interviewees in this sample indicated that they would not abandon the international dimension to their work and career. Rather they demonstrated a high commitment to this international element of their careers and to its value as a means of securing organisational success into the future. The focus of our second paper in this issue switches from the international assignee to that of the local employee working for the international firm. Drawing on data gathered among 317 local managers at the Indian and Pakistani subsidiaries of a British MNC, Carol Reade of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in Sri Lanka focuses on what it takes to motivate such local employees. The author examines the extent to which a number of variables enhance the inclination of local managers to exert effort for the benefit of the MNC as a global entity, as well as for their local company. Here organisational identification, described as the psychological bonding between the individual and the organisation, is viewed as being of primary importance. Other variables that are seen to buttress this are both supervisory support for the local employee and local employees’ perceived access to the organisational hierarchy, regardless of nationality. From her review of the extant literature, the author notes that identification with the organisation has long been posited as an important determinant of the effort that one exhibits in the workplace to the point where a perceived oneness with the organisation suggests a merging of organisational and individual identities. This, the author notes, is in contrast to the situation where pragmatism or instrumental motivation are the order of the day. Despite its importance as a central tenet of organisational success,

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understanding the nature of the identity one has with the organisation in the MNC context is not straightforward. Indeed the author notes that research in organisational identification is relatively sparse and applications to the MNC context are particularly rare. Here, Reade draws on social identify theory to illustrate whether local managers make a distinction between what they will do for the “local subsidiary” and what they will do for the “global organisation” and she advances a set of antecedents of organisational identification in MNCs. The results of the investigation show a clear distinction between “effort for the local company” and “effort for the global organisation” with local managers perceiving a difference between their local company and the global organisation in terms of their willingness to exert effort. While in general, local managers were more willing to expend effort for the local company than for the global organisation, those at the Pakistani subsidiary did not appear to make this distinction. A multiple regression reveals that organisational identification did have a significant impact of effort, with local identification having a significant impact on local effort and global identification being significant in the context of global effort. Beyond identification, the analysis reveals that local effort is positively influenced by, among other things, the prestige and distinctiveness of the local company and negatively impacted by a preference for cultural similarity in the workplace. Concomitantly, global effort is positively impacted by support of superiors at the MNC headquarters and nationality not acting as a barrier to promotion at the global level, while interpersonal relations with peers at the global level emerges as having a potential negative impact on global effort. The author concludes by identifying the implications of this work for expatriate managers and for international human resource management more broadly. Our third contribution by Guthrie, Ash and Stevens, is one of two papers in this issue to focus specifically on female international assignees. Drawing on data from 1,080 university students through the administration of the NEO-PIR or the Hogan personality inventory, both of which measure the “big-five” personality dimensions, Guthrie et al. focus on personality differences and expatriate selection and ask whether “women are better than men?”. The authors note that gender in global assignments has attracted increasing attention in the extant academic literature in recent years and, drawing on Caligiuri et al., they outline three particular types of studies as follows: (1) those that focus on gender differences in the procurement of global assignments; (2) those that focus on gender differences in the outcome of global assignments; and (3) those that focus on gender differences and the predictors of global assignee success.

The contribution in this volume falls into the latter category and provides an assessment of gender-based personality differences and their likely implications for hiring international assignees. The authors offer a focused review of literature in the areas of personality assessment and work performance, personality characteristics and expatriate success and gender differences and international assignments. The authors apply both a top-down and minimum competency selection approach to the data and generate 32 different selection outcomes in which to examine gender. They create an “expatriate composite score” and select individuals from four different applicant pools for a hypothetical expatriate assignment. With respect to the results, in all the 32 scenarios examined, regardless of which personality instrument is deployed, the proportion of females selected is greater than the proportion of males selected and statistical results confirm that the use of personality criteria do result in gender being significantly associated with selection outcomes. While acknowledging the limitations which attach to the research effort here, the authors note that, derived from a personality approach to selection, the results support the argument that women as a group, may be somewhat better suited to foreign assignments than their male counterparts. Selmer and Leung also focus on female expatriates and offer new data on western female business expatriates in Hong Kong (n ¼ 343). They note that, despite the acknowledged necessity to broaden the talent pool, the share of women sent on foreign assignment remains far less than their male counterparts and, in support of Guthrie et al. in the previous paper, they note that women must be very determined to overcome preconceived ideas of decision-makers at headquarters to become selected for an expatriate assignment. Here the authors focus on how the career intentions of female expatriates are related to their international adjustment. Following from a review of literature in the area of expatriate careers and international adjustment, two core hypotheses are advanced, namely: H1. Expatriate career intentions have a positive association with sociocultural adjustment H2. Expatriate career intentions have no associations with psychological adjustment Both are subsequently investigated using hierarchical regression analysis. In this investigation career intentions were measured by a five-item selfdeveloped scale, sociocultural adjustment based on previous work and psychological adjustment through the General Health Questionnaire. The results first suggest that the female expatriates in this study score well on the “general adjustment” scale and the “interaction adjustment” scale. Their work adjustment scores are also high. Combined, the authors suggest that this may indicate that these female expatriates were quite comfortable with their sociocultural environment. Along the psychological adjustment dimension, the

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scores were also above the mid-point and the career intentions scores suggested that assignees intended to pursue their international career. The results from the subsequent regression analysis provide partial support for H1 and do support H2. Thus, the more determined the women are to pursue an expatriate career, the better is their interaction adjustment. However, as indicated, determination to pursue such a career was not associated with the psychological adjustment of the expatriates in this sample. Importantly, by way of implications, Selmer and Leung note that female employees with international career plans can be reassured that it is possible for determined women to succeed in their foreign assignment and their career intentions, combined with an “interactive” approach to the host culture, may, the authors suggest, be a valuable asset in the struggle to ensure success abroad. The authors conclude by offering a number of directions for future research, which could prove fruitful in unravelling aspects of the female international career area. The final paper in this issue focuses on expatriate stories and their use as a potential vehicle for processional development. Here Lyn Glanz draws on narrative to examine expatriate experience and suggests that such an approach can prove valuable to the expatriate in his/her efforts to understand the novelty of their host environment. The author draws on “sensemaking” as a theoretical framework for the investigation and the subsequent reportage. Sensemaking, viewed as the process whereby we use conscious rational thought to re-analyse and bring order to confusion and surprise, is offered by the author as a workable framework for understanding aspects of the expatriate experience and the use of narrative or storytelling may be thought of as a lens through which we can observe sensemaking in action. In this regard the author notes that conventional quantitative measures are difficult to employ when investigating sensemaking and suggests that narrative may offer an alternative way forward in our attempts to map the fluidity of sensemaking. In this paper the author draws on 11 narratives collected from four different sources between 1995 and 2002 and which are designed to illustrate the properties of sensemaking. Importantly, all are drawn from actual expatriate experience in an attempt to provide “narrative of the actual” and provide different insights into a variety of environments encountered. The author concludes by reiterating the value of understanding the informal and alerting the reader to the potential value of this approach as a window into both the actual expatriate experience and as a mechanism for the professional development of assignees more generally. Michael J. Morley, Margaret Linehan and Hugh Scullion References Adler, N.J. (1997), International Dimensions of Organizational Behaviour, PWS-Kent, Boston, MA.

Adler, N.J. (2002), “Global managers: no longer men alone”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 13 No. 5, pp. 743-60. Baruch, Y. and Altman, Y. (1999), “Expatriation and repatriation in MNCs: a taxonomy”, paper presented at Academy of Management Conference, Chicago, IL, 6-11 August. Black, J.S. and Gregerson, H.B. (1998), So You’re Going Overseas: A Handbook for Personal and Professional Success, Global Business Publishers, San Diego, CA. Black, J.S. and Gregerson, H.B. (1999), “The right way to manage expats”, Harvard Business Review, March/April, pp. 52-63. Black, J.S., Gregerson, H.B., Mendenhall, M.E. and Stroh, L.K. (1999), Globalizing People through International Assignments, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA. Brewster, C. and Harris, H. (Eds) (1999), International HRM: Contemporary Issues in Europe, Routledge, London. Brewster, C. and Scullion, H. (1997), “A review and agenda for expatriate HRM”, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 32-41. Cyr, D. and Schneider, S. (1996), “Implications for learning: human resource management in eastwest joint ventures”, Organization Studies, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 201-26. Dowling, P., Schuler, R. and Welch, D. (1994), International Dimensions of Human Resource Management, Wadsworth, Belmont, CA. Fisher, A.B. (1992), “When will women get to the top?”, Fortune, Vol. 21, pp. 44-56. Forster, N. (2000), “The myth of the international manager”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 126-42. Harris, H. (1995), “Women’s role in (international) management”, in Harzing, A.W. and Van Ruysseveldt, J. (Eds), International Human Resource Management: An Integrated Approach, Sage, London, pp. 229-51. Harzing, A.W.K. (1999), Managing the Multinationals: An International Study of Control Mechanisms, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham. Lindholm, N., Tahvanainen, M. and Bjorkman, I. (1999), “Performance appraisal of host country employees: Western MNEs in China”, in Brewster, C. and Harris, H. (Eds), International HRM: Contemporary Issues in Europe, Routledge, London. Linehan, M. (2000), Senior Female International Managers: Why So Few?, Ashgate, Aldershot. Linehan, M. and Scullion, H. (2002), “Repatriation of European female corporate executives: an empirical study”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 254-67. Mayrhofer, W. and Scullion, H. (2002), “All equal? The importance of context – empirical evidence about male and female expatriates from the German clothing industry”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 3 No. 5, pp. 815-36. Morley, M., Burke, C. and Flynn, G. (1997), “The Irish in Moscow: a question of adjustment”, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 53-66. Petrovic, J., Harris, H. and Brewster, C. (2000), “New forms of international working”, Cre`me Research report, 1/00, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University, Cranfield. Price Waterhouse Europe (1997/1998), International Assignments: European Policy and Practice, Price Waterhouse International Assignment Services Europe. Schuler, R.S., Fulkerson, J.R. and Dowling, P.J. (1991), “Strategic performance measurement and management in multinational corporations”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 30, pp. 365-92.

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Scullion, H. (2001), “International human resource management”, in Storey, J. (Ed.), Human Resource Management: A Critical Text, International Thompson, London. Scullion, H. and Brewster, C. (2001), “The management of expatriates; messages from Europe”, Journal of World Business, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 346-65. Scullion, H. and Starkey, K. (2000), “The changing role of the corporate human resource function in the international firm”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 11, pp. 1061-81. Stroh, L., Gregersen, H.B. and Black, J.S. (1998), “Closing the gap: expectations versus reality among repatriates”, Journal of World Business, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 111-24. Tahvanainen, M. (1998), “Expatriate performance management. The case of Nokia Telecommunications”, Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki. Tung, R.L. (1998), “American expatriates abroad: from neophytes to cosmopolitans”, Journal of World Business, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 125-44. Vanderbroeck, P. (1992), “Long-term human resource development in multinational organizations”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 33, pp. 95-9.

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Global managers: career orientation, career tracks, life-style implications and career commitment

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Vesa Suutari Department of Management and Organisation, University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland Keywords Careers, Management, International business, Commitment, Lifestyles Abstract The need for developing a cadre of global managers who are capable of working in international key positions wherever the needs of companies require it, has been widely stressed. Typically, the literature on international careers still deals with international assignments as “once-in-a-lifetime” experiences and thus as a continuum from selecting the right candidates to repatriating them back to the home country. Less attention has been devoted to so-called global managers who are committed to international careers for a longer term. In the present study, career orientations, career tracks, career commitment and life-style implications of global managers are analysed. The results indicate that the majority of managers were originally interested in an international career. In their career they typically vary between positions abroad and in the home country instead of moving from one international assignment to another. Typically they consider the positive implications to override the negative implications of such a career with respect to both themselves and their families. As a result, they are often firmly committed to working in international environments in the future.

Introduction The globalisation of business is changing the nature of business in many fields. The benefits of developing global strategies aiming at global integration have been recognised. Overall, an approach of global strategy is evident in the literature, i.e. the term global strategy implies a focus on similarities, standardisation, homogenisation, concentration, and co-ordination on a world wide basis (Svensson, 2001). On the other hand, it has been stated that although companies have globalised their strategies and functions, human resource management (HRM) is one of the less developed functions in this respect. For example, Adler and Bartholomew (1992) have reported that in their survey of North American companies all of them had taken a global approach to overall business strategy, financial systems, production operations and marketing. Human resource systems were found to be the least globally developed functional area within the firms. According to Black and Ulrich (1999), the role of the HR professional in delivering global strategy is to raise, define, and clarify the capabilities required to win globally and invest, design, and deliver HR-practices that ensure these capabilities. In a study involving HR managers,

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three et al., (1) (2)

major challenges concerning the global HRM were identified (Roberts 1998): easily getting the right skills to where they are needed; spreading up-to-date knowledge and practices throughout the organisation regardless of where they originate; and (3) identifying and developing talent on a global basis.

Linked to these, the need to develop globally competent managers has been ranked among the top development priorities in the future (Allredge and Nilan, 2000; Black et al., 1999a, b; Brake, 1997; Connor, 2000; Crotty and Soule, 1997; Morrison, 2000; Oddou et al., 2000; Roberts et al., 1998; Suutari, 2002). In line with this, a 1998 conference board study among senior managers and HR executives identified developing leaders as the most important HR goal for global business success (Csoka and Hackett, 1998; Connor, 2000). The key idea is that companies need a group of global managers who will be able to handle the necessary global integration and co-ordination activities within companies – either in headquarters, area headquarters or in top positions in foreign affiliates. It has been recognised that limitations in human resources, not inadequate sources of capital, have become the biggest constraint in most globalisation efforts (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1992). The lack of competent global managers is even expected to increase in the future (Harvey et al., 1999; Gregersen et al., 1998). In order to respond to this challenge, the HRM function must be able to create a set of development activities and programmes through which global leaders are developed (Morrison, 2000). This includes necessary career planning and related career guidance and support practices. In order to be successful in such activities, the specific features and challenges concerning international careers need to be understood. The existing literature can offer only limited help in this challenge since the specifics of international careers have not been studied intensively. When international career issues have been studied, the focus has been on the effect of one separate international assignment on the career after repatriation to the home country. Still, even in this area it has been largely argued that further research is needed before the connection between international assignments and future career is understood (Harvey, 1989; Mendenhall et al., 1987; Feldman and Thomas, 1992; Naumann, 1992; Fish and Wood, 1997; Stahl et al., 2002; Suutari and Brewster, 2002; Tung, 1998; Welch, 1998). Research concerning global managers, who typically have careers including various international positions and assignments, is even more scarce. Such careers have been called aspatial careers (Roberts et al., 1998). It has even been claimed that the existence of global managers with frequent international relocations is a myth since the requirements for individuals in such careers are so tough that hardly anyone can fulfil them (Forster, 2000). Forster points out that only 13 per cent of expatriates reported that they would definitely accept

further international assignments in the future. Furthermore, he concludes that Global managers his research also showed that few, if any, employees and their dependants are psychologically capable of becoming “globe-trotting nomads”, moving from region to region at regular intervals. On the other hand, the literature on global leader development frequently calls for the development of such managers. There is also some counter-evidence that such managers are not so rare 187 everywhere, although this may be true in the UK. Such groups appear to be more extensive in the Nordic context than in the UK: in one study 17 per cent of expatriates had three or more international assignments behind them (Riusala and Suutari, 2000). Similarly, 91 per cent of the surveyed expatriates would be ready to consider new international assignments in the future and 59 per cent would be ready to consider a more permanent stay abroad. Expatriates were also typically very satisfied with their international assignments as a whole. Similarly, in a study among expatriates in Japan, it appeared that 96.5 per cent of expatriates would be ready to consider another international assignment after their repatriation (The Japan Institute of Labour, 2002). The situation was very similar no matter where the expatriates came from. For example, the situation was about the same among expatriates from North America and Europe. On these conditions, the plans to build global leader groups would not be impossible. In the light of these facts, the present study aims to increase our understanding of specific features related to these aspatial careers involving international responsibilities and various transfers across borders. The managers on such career tracks will be called global managers. The goals of the study are to analyse: . early career orientation of global managers; . the career tracks of such managers; . effects of such a career on individuals and their families; and . commitment of global managers to international careers.

International assignments and careers After a long-term research tradition on early phases of the international assignment cycle including issues such as selection, cross-cultural adjustment, and pre-departure training and development, the focus of expatriation research has turned to the final phases of the cycle (see, for example, Bonache et al., 2001). Here the focus is typically on issues such as repatriation adjustment and related training and support needs (Black, 1994; Gregersen and Stroh, 1997; Forster 1994; Hammer et al., 1998). An important related theme is the connection between international assignments and career considerations after the assignment (see, for example, Gregersen and Black, 1996; Kamoche, 1997; Selmer, 1999; Stahl et al., 2002; Stroh et al., 1998; Suutari and Brewster, 2002).

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From the organisational point of view, the traditional reasons for sending people abroad have concerned the needs of companies to control their international operations, to co-ordinate and integrate their operations worldwide, and to transfer knowledge and organisational practices across units. More recently, the role of individual development has been raised among the major reasons, as can be seen in recent discussions of global leader development. There, the international assignment is seen as the major tool for developing global leaders (Carpenter et al., 2000; Gregersen et al., 1998; Roberts et al., 1998; Seibert et al., 1995; Oddou et al., 2000). From an individual angle international assignments are accepted for several key reasons (see, for example, Miller and Cheng, 1978; Stahl et al., 2002; Suutari and Brewster, 2000; Tung, 1988). Personal interest in internationalisation and a related search for new experiences and challenges often play an important role. Such assignments are considered to be due to economic motives as well, i.e. companies typically provide some sort of reward (e.g. an assignment allowance) to individuals. In addition, cost-of-living and taxation differences across countries may have an important impact on the standard of living. The economic factors appear to be more central among US managers than among Europan ones (Stahl et al., 2002; Suutari and Brewster, 2000). Personal development through the availability of challenging jobs in different contexts and related learning and career progression possibilities are often considered as very important too. Still, relatively little is known about what motivates expatriates to accept an international assignment (Stahl et al., 2002) Thanks to existing research, the key challenges related to international assignments such as adjustment problems of expatriates and their families, compensation difficulties and high costs, dual-career challenges, are fairly well understood. In addition, through the repatriation research we are starting to understand the factors related to repatriation adjustment (Black, 1994; Gregersen and Stroh, 1997; Forster 1994; Hammer et al., 1998; Suutari and Va¨limaa, 2002). In this context, the central role of expectations has been recently stressed (Black, 1992; Forster, 1994; Pickard, 1999; Riusala and Suutari, 2000; Solomon, 1995; Stroh et al., 1998; Suutari and Brewster, 2002; Welch, 1998). From the career point of view, repatriates often find themselves in a “holding pattern” with no sufficiently challenging jobs with adequate level of authority and possibilities of utilising their developed competencies (GomezMejı´a and Balkin, 1987; Harvey, 1989; Feldman, 1991; Welch, 1994; Gregersen and Black, 1996; Kamoche, 1997; Pickard and Brewster 1995; Pickard, 1999; Stahl et al., 2002; Stroh et al., 1998; Selmer, 1999). This is in striking contrast to their typically over-optimistic expectations concerning their future career. Thus, the importance of discussing repatriation issues including the career impacts of international assignments with the expatriates in good time before the assignment has been stressed. In that way, the expatriates do not have such unrealistic expectations concerning life after repatriation.

The existing evidence does not promise very optimistic future career Global managers insights. Findings among US repatriates indicate that around one-quarter were promoted while one-fifth faced downward career mobility (Derr and Oddou, 1991; Oddou and Mendenhall, 1991). Of British repatriates 46 per cent reported positive effects on their career prospects, while 54 per cent reported negative effects (Forster, 1994). In a survey among US companies, 65 per cent of HR 189 executives thought an international assignment had a positive career impact while 77 per cent of the expatriates felt it had a negative effect on their careers (Black et al., 1999a, b). On the other hand, Suutari and Brewster (2002) in a longitudinal follow-up study of Finnish expatriates have reported that 68 per cent of repatriates worked on an higher organisational level than before the international assignment while only 12 per cent reported negative career effects. Even the basis of the repatriation arrangements and related career considerations is quite different from one expatriate to another since the contract may or may not include guarantee for a re-entry position. Only 40 per cent of US expatriates (Tung, 1998) had such agreement while much higher figures have been reported in Germany (83 per cent; Stahl et al., 2002) and Finland (70 per cent; Suutari and Brewster, 2002). Owing to repatriation challenges, 10-25 per cent of the expatriates leave their company within one year after repatriation (Black, 1992; Solomon, 1995; Black and Gregersen, 1999), and the figures have risen up to about half of the expatriate population in some companies within three years after repatriation (Black et al., 1999a, b). A good external job market situation among experienced international managers makes such career moves easy for repatriates (Caligiuri and Lazarova, 2001; Suutari and Brewster, 2002). The existing empirical evidence indicates that the majority of expatriates are willing to leave their company for a better job in another firm after repatriation (Stahl et al., 2002) and that a clear majority of repatriates have seriously considered such change after coming back to their home country (Suutari and Brewster, 2002). In successful repatriation, the difficulty of identifying suitable tasks and creating interesting career tracks for individuals after repatriation thus plays a key role (Caligiuri and Lazarova, 2001). For example, in one study 86 per cent of the variance in repatriates’ overall satisfaction with their repatriation could be accounted for by one factor: the impact of the international assignment on their career (Stroh, 1995). Similarly, 78 per cent of expected repatriation challenges concerned factors related to job and career after repatriation (Riusala and Suutari, 2000). Owing to the repatriation challenges, related support mechanisms have been recommended (Bennett, 1993; Handler and Lane, 1997). Aspatial careers as a career alternative As stated above, the focus of recent research on international careers has been on the group of people who decide to repatriate permanently back to the home country after the assignment. Less attention has been devoted to those people

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who decide to commit themselves for a longer term to international tasks. This kind of career may involve new international assignment(s) one immediately after another or assignments at intervals, in the home country and abroad. From an organisational viewpoint, we are talking about such competent global managers as companies can use wherever their staffing needs appear as a result of new business activities or due to the development and integration needs within the existing business units. From an individual point of view, not much is known about the careers of global leaders with aspatial careers. As discussed earlier, the evidence for expatriates’ willingness to accept new international assignments has led to quite different findings: from 13 per cent to 91 per cent. Thus, further evidence is needed to find out whether such variation is related to different survey contexts or to different sample characteristics. Since existing research indicates that international transfers are very challenging experiences for the persons concerned and at least as challenging for their families, it would be important to understand the career orientation and motives of managers who select international career tracks. On the basis of the literature on expatriation (e.g. Torbio¨rn, 1982), it can be expected that behind such decisions there are both pull factors (i.e. positive factors such as specific features of international tasks, learning and development possibilities, economic factors and career possibilities) and push factors (i.e. negative factors such as lack of suitable tasks and career possibilities in the home country). Finding the balance between such factors in decision-making situations needs further empirical analysis. From the literature one easily gets the impression that negative factors could play a very central role, i.e. people end up in new assignments since they cannot find suitable tasks in the home country. In addition to career orientation and motives, it would be important to understand better the typical career tracks of global leaders. One alternative is the international career in which one travels regularly from one assignment to another, a track type that is argued to be too challenging a type of career for most individuals and their families (Forster, 2000). The toughness is of course modified by the extent to which the host countries offer similar environmental and cultural conditions. In this perspective one could expect that global leaders having such a career track typically operate in certain cultural areas which gives them the benefit of gaining context-related competencies also. The alternative career type is a combination of domestic and international assignments. Benefits of such a career could be that one remains in closer contact with the home country and the developments in the home-country units. This helps to avoid the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” phenomenon and would make the possible repatriation, for example in a late career phase, less difficult. Between the assignments, the company could benefit from the individual’s knowledge of an international business environment that is necessary in the headquarters. Similarly, it has been stated that the number of

inpatriates, i.e. host-country employees transferred to headquarters, will be Global managers expanding due to the increasing integration and knowledge transfer needs within the global companies (Harvey et al., 1999; Roberts et al., 1998; Torbio¨rn, 1997). In the light of the discussion in the literature, it would be useful to understand what kind of negative and positive implications aspatial careers 191 have both for expatriates and for their families. In contrast to samples including expatriates on their first assignment and repatriates, the picture of international careers should again be balanced with the experiences of those who have selected more permanent international careers. One could again predict that there are both positive and negative implications, though the literature has mainly emphasised the negative side of international careers. As long as the understanding of how expatriates develop during their international assignments is still limited (Bonache et al., 2001), it is not surprising that not much research can be found on the extent to which such development is useful for the individual in different tasks in new and different locations. On the basis of their study of global leader competencies, Black et al. (1999a, b) have estimated that about two-thirds of competencies of global leaders would be general, while one-third would be context related. In light of this, those with earlier international experience would have a clear advantage over those on their first assignment. According to Roberts et al. (1998), the most in-depth learning takes place among those who go through an aspatial career in the course of their working lives. Such managers develop the understanding of global organisations and acquire globally applicable skills. The existence of this kind of internationally experienced group of global managers within the company would thus create a clear competitive advantage for globally operating companies. After living through careers in an international environment, and experiencing both negative and positive life-style influences, managers have formed certain attitudes towards international jobs. This can be approached from the standpoint of career commitment, i.e. how committed the global managers are to this kind of aspatial career. It can be expected that if managers have rather drifted into international positions than actively aimed at such a career, and if their experiences are fairly negative after facing the various challenges discussed in expatriation literature, they are not at all committed to international careers. In that way, they would be very interested in applying for jobs in domestic settings whenever available. On the other hand, managers with a high personal interest in an international work environment and with mainly positive international career experiences would be highly committed to working in international positions also in the future. All in all, the review of literature indicated that existing research does not provide much empirical evidence concerning aspatial careers involving

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frequent relocations internationally. In light of this, new empirical evidence will be sought concerning early career orientation, career tracks, life-style implications, and the career commitment of global managers. Methods In the present study a qualitative research approach is applied in order to get a view in greater depth of this relatively little studied group of global managers with aspatial careers. In total, 24 managers were interviewed. The group was selected from a bigger sample of Finnish expatriates who were surveyed in 1996 and 2001 in co-operation with the Finnish union of MScs in Economics. This database made it possible to identify such managers as had several periods of international working experience behind them. Their new contact information was received from the union register. Such persons were first contacted by telephone and/or e-mail in order for them to agree about the interview. Of the respondents, 21 were male and three were female. The interviews can be classified as semi-structured interviews. The interviews were made by telephone since the respondents were located in various countries. The data were collected during spring 2001. The interviews lasted from 40 minutes to over an hour. They were structured into four sections in line with the objectives of the study: (1) early career orientation (e.g. early personal career plans, type of jobs that were seen as interesting, personal activity concerning international issues, motives for accepting international assignments); (2) career steps assignment by assignment after the first international experience (e.g. location, task type, length of the assignment, general experiences); (3) career implications (i.e. both positive and negative impacts of the aspatial career on both expatriates and their families); and (4) commitment to aspatial careers (e.g. future career plans, recent attitudes to international career and readiness to operate in domestic settings in the future). The interviews were tape-recorded. The interview transcripts formed the raw data of the analysis. Each interview provided about 15 pages of written data and thus a relatively extensive interview database was available for analysis. In the present study the content analysis began with an intensive reading of interview reports section by section to get an overview of them. Then the coding of data was begun. By coding, the data are more organised, which is necessary as a basis for drawing conclusions (Gro¨nfors, 1982). The data were analysed by looking for common themes appearing from the data concerning each of the interview sections. Typically the common themes appeared very clearly from the data. After identifying the themes, all the comments concerning each theme were collected together in order to get a total picture of

aspects involved. Direct quotations of such comments are used in the report in Global managers order to describe the identified key themes. Transcribed interviews were sent back to the respondents as an e-mail attachment in order to increase the quality of the measurement. The interviewees were asked to read through their interviews and complement those whenever necessary. In addition, some clarifying further questions were 193 asked when necessary to complement the impression created by the interviews. There are several key limitations in the study. First, the sample includes only Finnish managers with university-level business education and thus they may not represent typical global managers. Second, owing to the qualitative nature of the study, the sample size is fairly limited. These issues should be kept in mind in the interpretation of the results. Results Early career orientation The first observation based on the interviews concerning early career orientations was that there are two different types of managers. Among the first ones (n ¼ 13), internationalisation had played an important role in their career orientation even at the beginning of their career. Such expatriates state, for example, “I worked actively in order to get a chance to go on an international assignment”, “I definitely wanted to go abroad – I left for Switzerland immediately after my graduation”, and “after a few years of work I set myself a goal to go abroad, or actually I have had such an intention always”. Thus, such respondents commonly stated that they had actively searched for possibilities of leaving on international assignments and had been interested in international issues over a long period. One of them described his early activity by saying that “I wrote to 20 European companies and offered myself as an employee to them. All replied and I received two offers”. Such managers had after their first international experience perceived their assignment as a very positive and challenging experience. Managers commented, for example, “yes, the first assignment was successful and actually we have already extended it by one additional year. We also considered a more permanent stay there” and “professionally this was very successful. I have never in my life learned so much in a few years”. This kind of experience naturally strengthened their interest in international positions. On the other hand, it was also stated that “I thought that I could as well work in Finland but in that case my tasks had to be strongly focused on international business”.Thus, some of them stressed the nature of international tasks rather than the necessity of working abroad. The second group of global managers (n ¼ 11) have not been so clear in their early decision to aim for an international career; the first decision was rather made on the basis of needs appearing within the company. Such expatriates commented, for example: “It was not such a clear goal for me (to go

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abroad), it was rather so that there was a suitable post in a suitable place at a suitable time and that was how this all started”, “One day my boss came to me and asked whether I would be interested in going to Poland. I just agreed by saying: All right, why not, I have never been there”, and “I was incidentally present when the company started to make foreign acquisitions and as nobody else knew any more than I did about such things, I was selected”. After such a start on an international career, managers had noticed that they were capable of operating in such an environment and had found it inspiring and challenging. Also their early international experiences were typically positive, which again increased their willingness to accept further international tasks. Such tasks were typically available within companies with limited amounts of internationally experienced human resources but with an increased role of international business operations. Afterwards, these managers had thus become motivated to work in an international job environment as their later career steps and future aims indicate. For example, one of them commented that: “I was not particularly searching for international tasks in the early phase, but later I have often thought that work in domestic settings would now be very different. An international environment is like a special spice in your work. It makes the work more challenging and demanding”. Another way of approaching this early international orientation is to analyse the more specific major motives for accepting the first international assignment. The interviewees indicated that the emerging key theme (mentioned by 11 managers) was their personal interest in internationalisation and thus a search for international experience. This supports the interpretations made above about the early career orientations of the respondents. In a few cases this was connected with an interest in some specific attractive host country, e.g. “The location of this first assignment was a very positive factor so it influenced pretty much the final decision”. As a second typical theme (n ¼ 11) appeared comments concerning a search for new challenges and learning experiences and thus advancing future career possibilities. International tasks were seen to be more challenging than purely domestic tasks. The interviewees state for example that “This job looked interesting, it was in a different function, in a different country, it was a little bit different as a task and thus involved different and new challenges”, and “As a work merit it is always a good thing to have experience of foreign countries and to learn to understand the foreign culture and language and internationalism in general. I believed that it would be a very positive merit in one’s career”. The economic benefits were not stressed as much as one might expect. Still, a few international managers stated that monetary issues were at least a secondary factor in the decision making, e.g. “Money earning was also in my mind” and “Partly the salary level also influenced my decision since I knew that the level was higher abroad”.

In line with the earlier findings on career orientations, clear company-related Global managers factors were also pointed out in addition to personal motives although the question concerned individual motives for accepting an international assignment. For example “I already visited there earlier for a fairly short period since we saw that the local problems could be solved in that way. Later we came to the conclusion that it does not go that easily and that it would be 195 better to stay there for a longer period”. Another manager stated that “The company really needed a person for that affiliate – I felt being important in that job”. In addition to positive pull factors, it could be expected that sometimes there are also negative push factors behind career decisions. As discussed earlier, the most common issue concerning the influences of an international assignment on future careers is the lack of suitable tasks in the home country after the assignment. In the present sample there were however only four respondents who stated that they would have repatriated to Finland in some phase of their career instead of accepting a new international assignment if good enough job offers had been made in that phase. Thus, these negative factors do not typically play an important role in the selection of international careers when we take into account the total number of decision-making situations that this group of managers had been faced with during their careers. Career tracks Next, the career tracks of international managers are analysed starting from their first international experience. The research findings are presented below as career tracks starting from the first international experience (countries and years; note that a represents several separate international assignments in the same country): (1) USA (2) – Finland (0,3) – UK (2) – Finland (3) – Italy (3) – Finland. (2) Poland (1) – Hungary (2) – Austria (1,5) – Singapore (1,5) – Finland. (3) Germany (1) – Finland (4) – Switzerland (1) – Finland (5) – Germany (1) – Finland (4) – Germany (2,5) – Finland. (4) USA (1) – Finland (3) – USA/USAa (5) – Finland. (5) Germany (1,5) – England (1,5) – Finland (6) – Norway (2,5) – UK (4,5) – Finland (5,5) – Switzerland (7) – Finland. (6) Norway (2,5) – Taiwan (0,5) – Finland (0,5) – China (0,5) – Finland. (7) USA (4) – Finland (6) – USA (6,5) – Finland (1) – Norway (5,5) – Finland. (8) USA (1) – Finland (4) – Singapore (4) – Finland (6) – USA (3) – Austria (1) – Finland. (9) Belgium (1) – France (3) – USA (3) – Finland. (10) Australia (3,5) – Singapore (2) – Finland.

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(11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24)

Sweden (2) – Finland (12) – Germany (2) – Finland. UK (2,5) – Finland (2,5) – Hungary. France (7) – Switzerland (3,5) – UK. UK (3) – Finland (9) – UK (2) – The Netherlands (3) – UK. Greece (0,3) – Finland (2,5) – UK (2,5) – Finland (10) – UK (3,5) – Greece. Belgium (4) – Finland (4) – UK (3) – Finland (9) – Switzerland (4) – Germany. USA (3) – The Netherlands (1,5) – Hong Kong (1) – Portugal (2) – Finland (0,5) – The Netherlands. Germany (3) – Finland (5) – Germany/Germanya (10) – Poland (3) – Germany /Poland. Singapore (3,5) – Australia (1) – Denmark (2) – Italy. Switzerland (3) – Finland (3) – Singapore (1,5) – Switzerland. Sweden/Swedena (7) – Finland (4) – Germany (5) – Finland. Sweden (1) – South Korea (3) – Japan (4) – France. Germany (0.5) – Germany/Germany/Germanya (9) – USA (3) – Sweden. France (1,5) – Finland (1,5) – Portugal (1,5) – South Africa (1).

The first observation these tracks suggest is that typically the global managers operate across several countries during their career, i.e. they do not focus on some specific country or even some specific cultural area, as might be expected. Rather, they are devoted to working in an international environment and move across different locations depending on emerging company needs. A second observation appearing from career follow-up data is that one could differentiate international careers into two types. The majority of international managers (n ¼ 16) had alternated between international assignments and assignments in the home country during their career. Thus, it was less typical (n ¼ 8) among the interviewees to change from one international assignment directly to another more regularly or to stay in one host country more permanently. During domestic periods the nature of tasks was still often international although the location was in the home country. The interviewees described their domestic tasks for example in the following manner: “In my domestic position I was responsible for England, Ireland and Scandinavia and thus it included a lot of regular travelling internationally”. Thus, it can be seen that they often continued in an international career although they worked in the home country. Sometimes the interviewees stated that they had already in the repatriation phase considered new international assignments or an extended stay abroad, but had decided to come back to Finland at least for a while. It was commented for example that “We discussed different possibilities in the repatriation phase but decided to come back. Later a new international

assignment possibility appeared after only a few months in Finland and we Global managers decided to accept it”. In line with the above observation, there were 12 interviewees who were again in their home country at the time of the interview. Seven of these thought that they might consider international assignment(s) in the future. In those five cases where such a decision was not considered very possible, reasons such as 197 the advanced age of the respondent and family reasons were pointed out. In the latter case it appeared that typically the interviewees themselves would have been willing to go abroad again. It was commented that “If I should be asked this personally, I would most definitely say I would leave again at some stage”. Of the respondents, 12 were again on international assignments. Six of them thought that they might not return to the home country: four of them had no plans to repatriate at all and two of them would do so only if a very good job opportunity would be offered to them in the future. This is in line with the reported findings about the willingness of Finnish expatriates to consider seriously an even more permanent stay abroad (Riusala and Suutari, 2000). The rest of the group thought that they would probably again repatriate back to Finland at some stage of their career. Implications for personal and family life Starting from the typical personal challenges related to international careers, the managers clearly had identified some key areas of difficulty. First, the respondents often experienced that personal relationships were more difficult to keep up when one regularly travels from location to location during one’s life. It was commented for example that “Personal relationships are definitely the key issue. It is difficult to keep up contacts in the home country . . . always when you go to a new location you have to get to know new people. When you get to know them you leave. For that reason personal relationships become fairly short and superficial”. In addition to personal relationships, it was also pointed out that “You are not any more within the business networks in the home country, but on the other hand you have an international network”. As a related theme the balance between personal life and working life, and thus family relationships, appeared. The managers stated that “I think that the biggest challenges are how to relate your working life and personal life. It depends on the job but it is difficult to find time for personal matters when the job is so challenging”, and “It is not easy to start family life in this kind of circumstance. If you succeed, it is not easy to keep the family together in this kind of rumba. You see a lot of families break up and often the difficulties start abroad. On the other hand, so big a proportion of marriages break up in the home country anyway”. Thus it was stressed that one should actively take into account the family needs to avoid problems. It was also reported that “If you do not have a family to balance your life, your life easily centres too much on your work. There is the danger that you burn yourself out”.

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In addition to friendship and family relations, the constant requirement to adjust to new and different circumstances is one of the key themes appearing in the interviews. One manager says that “The on-going adjustment to new environments is challenging. It is always quite an adventure. On the other hand, it gives you a lot of satisfaction when you have been able to handle the issues and have again learnt a lot”. Although the adjustment capabilities of individuals develop through their international experiences, as will be discussed later, it was also stressed that “It is always very challenging to really understand how organisations function and people think in some countries. It is so different across countries”, and that “You have to be ready to start from zero in each location – you don’t have anything when you start”. In that way the importance of context-related learning and adjustment is emphasised no matter how experienced you are. The nature of an international work environment was perceived to be fairly challenging and risky for individuals and companies. The managers stated that “One has to have the courage to take risks, to leave for the unknown. Often companies that are acquired and started are not profitable and thus, one has to fix them into good shape. If you do not succeed in this risky environment, it can be difficult to get on your feet again”. Similarly, another manager reported that “You have to put yourself at stake . . . you are under pretty close evaluation over there as a foreigner with not too good language skills – you must therefore have some very good advantages to offer in order to make them understand why you are there”. Several managers stressed that during frequent international relocations one may become restless and also feel rootless. As some managers described it: “When you have been on many assignments you are not actually totally satisfied in any location any more. You become a little bit restless”, and “One feels nowhere like at home, one is always a little bit on the road again. That kind of rootlessness is a somewhat negative feeling”. There were also several managers who thought that there are no big problem areas linked to international careers. Such managers stated that “I really can’t say that an international career has any negative implications for oneself” and “There are really no negative sides to this career type”. This just indicates that some respondents had adjusted to the international environment so well that they didn’t recognise the challenges some other respondents face in such a context. In addition to these challenges that one has to learn to deal with, the respondents stressed the benefits that this kind of career offers. Good examples of such positive experiences are the following statements: “When you get a good start on this track you realise that in this way you get to see and experience so much more during your life”, and that “It has really given me a rich experience of life and I have been really happy to have had the luck to see

so much of life and the world. In that way I have learnt so much about myself – Global managers I would not give up these experiences at any price”. The key theme appearing from the interviews is the personal learning and development that take place during international assignments. This again supports the relevance of international assignments as a development method. The respondents stressed that “If you like challenges, this kind of job is one 199 where you get them”, and “An international career automatically includes new and interesting tasks. Ongoing learning and development are also guaranteed from a career point of view”. This not concerns not only the job but it was also stated that “This has developed my personality and broadened my mind . . . not only at work, but it has given a lot of meaning to my spare time”. International experiences were typically seen to broaden one’s mind and to give new expanded perspectives on things: “It increases self-confidence when you realise that you can survive in places other than just in a ‘safe’ home-country environment. You become more liberal – things are not so simple or ‘black and white’ as we think at home. Our way is not necessarily the best way”. The typical personality aspects which had developed were for instance humbleness, flexibility, patience and self-confidence. While in the literature the negative career implications have been much discussed, in the present sample different comments also appeared. Managers commented for example, that “The international career gives you better possibilities when you have shown that you are capable of this kind of task. You also get more external job offers than just by staying in your home country”. The existence of such external job offers naturally stresses the importance of careful career planning and support of global managers in case the company is trying to build an internationally experienced global leader group for itself. With regard to the family circumstances related to aspatial careers, several key challenge areas emerged from the interviews. One such factor, the importance of finding the right balance between working life and family life, was already discussed above. Not very surprisingly, the cross-cultural adjustment challenges concerning the family members were pointed out. As discussed in the literature, the family adjustment is a more common source of premature repatriations than the adjustment of the expatriate himself or herself. The respondents commented for example, “Everything depends on whether the family can start to live a normal family life in a new country – everyone must have good adjustment capabilities”, and “There are different kinds of adjustment challenges, everyone has to adjust to the idea that it is different to live there and has to accept the fact that one can not create similar living conditions as in Finland”. The age of the children was also pointed out as an important factor when considering family issues, e.g. “From my experience I would not recommend taking teenagers abroad – it is very tough to get torn away from your friends

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at that age. We wanted to broaden our child’s mind but negative school experiences led to a very negative attitude to international issues”. In a few cases it was pointed out that the children had actually adjusted very well abroad, but the difficulties had rather appeared in the repatriation phase. It was commented for example that “Our child has taken quite a negative attitude to the home culture on the basis of his experience – he has shown a preference for the host culture”, and “The younger daughter was not willing to study in Finland any longer”. Thus long life experiences abroad in early life easily decrease one’s socialisation with regard to the original home culture. This is easy to understand, particularly if the move abroad has taken place at a very early age before real socialisation takes place and has lasted for the major part of one’s life. Similarly, as reported above, the challenges concerning personal relationships both with relatives and friends were considered to be a difficult area to handle well for the whole family. For example, one manager stated that “The most difficult family issue is to keep up personal connections with the home country. One also has to be able to create new friendship circles frequently . . . On the other hand, there are friends all around the world afterwards”. In addition to challenges concerning an aspatial career, the respondents stressed that there are a lot of positive family implications. One of the respondents commented that “I would say that if one has the possibility of staying abroad with the children one should use it. Multiculturalism is a richness. There, the children learn languages and become familiar with different cultures. Through minor difficulties one gets enormous opportunities. There are many more positive effects than negative ones”. Such comments indicate clearly that again in addition to difficulties widely discussed in the literature, such discussion should be balanced by an analysis of what kind of possibilities such new experiences offer and how family members develop as persons through such international experiences. Although the international environment is seen to differ from the home country settings, the difference may also be an enrichment in one’s life, e.g. “Both my wife and I have enjoyed living in an international environment”. The areas in which personal development has taken place were very similar to those discussed above concerning the global managers themselves, i.e. adjustment capability, broadmindedness, self-confidence and tolerance. It was stated that “My wife has got used to living in very different situations, cultures and circumstances. Her self-confidence has increased. Her capability to adjust increases dramatically”, and “There have been positive family implications – the family members are much more tolerant now and have a much more positive attitude towards foreign people and different cultures and languages”. Similar comments appeared concerning the children. One of the respondents described the developments that had taken place in the following manner: “My

son approaches foreign people, different cultures and changes in general in Global managers such a free and easy way. He has no problem in changing schools or getting new friends. He is very independent and has a high power of initiative”. In a similar manner, another stated that “Our daughter now speaks English and Finnish as well. She has seen a lot of different things and this has broadened her world-view a lot. In that way she is a lot more mature as a person now”.

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Commitment to an international managerial career Next it was analysed how central a role the international element was considered to play in the career of managers after these experiences. The key theme appearing in the interviews was that almost all of the respondents (n ¼ 21) said that they were not willing to abandon the international element in their work. Managers stated that “Internationalism is of very great importance. It is probably what I would give up last. If I had to consider a job change, an international atmosphere and international connections would be decisive elements”, “It is mentally important . . . I would not in any circumstances want to abandon it” and “Internationalisation has been an integral part of my career . . . I would have afterwards considered it to be a catastrophe if I had pursued my career just in Finland”. Several of them shared the opinion of one expatriate: “I don’t think that I would enjoy a job without any international aspect”. It should be recognised again that having international tasks does not necessarily require living abroad. In addition to the personal motivation point of view, a business point of view was often stressed as another factor increasing commitment. Such expatriates commented for example that “International issues are of great importance to the company since this is a very big international company . . . I really can’t think about any other kind of tasks any more” and “Internationalism is very central in the sense that we are just planning new business processes and support arrangements for the whole concern, and we have affiliates in many European countries, the USA and China”. Thus, these managers considered their jobs very important for the company, which naturally influences the commitment positively. There were only three international managers who thought that after having already experienced so much in international contexts they might work in purely domestic settings in the future. Conclusions The present study aimed at increasing our understanding of global managers with aspatial careers. Several key conclusions can be drawn. Concerning the first objective of the study, the results indicated that the early career orientations of global managers can be divided into two groups. First, the majority of such managers had very clear international orientation with regard to their career and they actively aimed for such a career. On the other hand, there was also a noticeable group of managers who were not originally so

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internationally oriented themselves but for whom the company requirements had opened a possibility of working abroad and they had accepted it. In line with earlier research findings, the major motives for accepting the first assignment were for instance personal interest in internationalism and a related search for new experiences, learning and career possibilities. Economic factors played rather a secondary role after these key concerns. In addition, the company needs and related initiatives of employers sometimes played a key role. What is common to the experiences of both these groups of managers is the fact that their first international assignment was successful and managers had found the international working environment interesting and inspiring but also demanding and challenging. Thus, international assignment was perceived to be an excellent learning and development experience. The second objective was to analyse the career tracks of managers after their first international work experience. The results indicated that the most typical career track involved assignments in the home country and abroad periodically. A clear minority of managers had gone directly from one international assignment to another. The second observation was that managers are not typically committed to working in some specific country or cultural context but rather operate wherever the business needs of companies offer job possibilities within their field of expertise. The third objective was to analyse the implications of aspatial careers for individuals and their families. The first key observation was that managers typically perceived the positive implications as overriding the negative factors. This indicates that in addition to challenges concerning international assignments stressed in the literature, an aspatial career offers an enjoyable and inspiring working environment to certain groups of managers. From this point of view, the first goal of global leader initiatives should be to identify managers with both interest in international careers and the required personalities. In the present study, the global managers pointed out the benefits offered by certain characteristics such as flexibility, adjustment capabilities, open-mindedness, extroversion, humbleness and personal interest in learning and development. On the other hand, they felt that their personal development had taken place in these same areas. In addition, it should be recognised that all managers did not have a clear preference for, nor a negative attitude to an international career before any international experience. The experienced challenges such as constant adjustment needs and problems in creating long-term personal connections when moving regularly from one location to another were in line with the discussion in the literature. On the other hand, the negative career outcomes were not very typical in the present sample. Only in very few cases did managers report that they personally had had difficulty in finding suitable jobs in their home country or

abroad. This supports the findings according to which there is rather a lack of Global managers experienced global leaders within companies. On the other hand, the respondents typically reported that they had been successful in their international jobs, which naturally made their situation much better in both internal or external job markets. Some of them also stated that in case one does not perform well in one’s international assignment, the situation may be much 203 more difficult to deal with. Similarly, the respondents reported that international careers had both positive and negative implications for the family. An international environment is not an easy environment in which to start family life or keep family life and working life in balance. Managers also pointed out the adjustment challenges of repatriation. Each environment and culture has its own strengths and weaknesses, and if early experiences are of different cultures, one may experience the home country as a very strange place and thus adopt negative attitudes to the home culture. On the other hand, the positive factors were also stressed very much. International experiences were perceived to offer a lot of similar development possibilities to family members as to the expatriates themselves. As a limitation to these research findings, it should be recognised that interviews with family members would be necessary to capture fully the family experiences. The fourth objective was to analyse the level of commitment of managers to international careers after these reported experiences. The key observation was that the managers were typically strongly committed to working in international positions and would not be ready to consider jobs in domestic settings only. Only very few of them perceived that after experiencing so much in international contexts they could consider domestic positions also. All in all, the basic picture one gets from these experiences is that global managers were typically very satisfied with their careers and lives though they also recognised that the international environment is a very challenging working environment. Thus, the present literature may over-emphasise the negative effects related to international careers. As an implication, the positive side of the expatriate experiences should be emphasised when recruiting people for international careers. It should also be taken into account that not all promising leaders have an international career in their mind, although after having international experience, they might find such a career very attractive. Since the global managers regarded the international element as so important in their work, HR managers should take this into account when making job arrangements for repatriation phase. By including international responsibilities in their job descriptions and by making longer-term career plans involving different international career steps, the risk of losing such managers after repatriation could be minimised. This requires careful integration of international assignments into career paths within companies. In addition, the findings indicated that international assignments were

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experienced as rich and challenging learning experiences. As an implication, this supports the use of international assignments as a development method when developing future global leaders. At the same time, it stresses the importance of providing enough training and support for expatriates and their families before and during the assignment. The managers also stressed that each context brings new adjustment challenges even though one may have earlier expatriate experiences. Thus, at least context-related training would be useful with regard to more experienced expatriates also.

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Global managers

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Going the extra mile: local managers and global effort Carol Reade Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Colombo, Sri Lanka Keywords International business, Human resource management, Multinationals, India, Pakistan Abstract The competitive international environment of the twenty-first century is said to require greater collaboration between the multinational corporation (MNC) units, where local employees work toward global as well as local goals. What does it take to motivate local employees to go the extra mile for the sake of the MNC as a whole? This article reports the results of a study conducted among 317 local managers at the Indian and Pakistani subsidiaries of a British MNC in the consumer products industry. Organisational identification, or a psychological bonding with the organisation, was one of several factors contributing to the willingness of local managers to exert extra effort toward organisational goals. Implications of the findings are drawn for expatriate managers who work alongside local managers, and for international human resource management.

Introduction The crucial role of human resources in the success of multinational corporate strategies has been well acknowledged (Doz, 1986; Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989, 1994; Scullion, 1995). This role is likely to become even more critical for the multinational corporation (MNC) if international competitive pressures continue to mount as foreseen by management practitioners and scholars alike. Greater collaboration between MNC units is considered to be an effective way to cope with the competitive pressures faced by the MNC, in that it allows headquarters to “capture skills and expertise from different parts of the corporation and disseminate the benefits throughout the organisation” (Ferner and Edwards, 1995, p. 240). Such collaboration is thought to become more possible when MNC units and their employees worldwide focus on the MNC’s global objectives as well as local objectives (Perlmutter and Heenan, 1986; Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989). The corresponding human resource management challenge is to motivate local employees to exert effort toward global as well as local corporate goals. It is widely recognised that the level of effort expended toward a goal is an important ingredient of corporate success. Extra effort, or performing “above and beyond the call of duty for the benefit of the organisation” (Mowday et al., Journal of Managerial Psychology Vol. 18 No. 3, 2003 pp. 208-228 q MCB UP Limited 0268-3946 DOI 10.1108/02683940310465234

The author would like to thank Riccardo Peccei, Birgit Benkhoff, Ray Richardson, Michael Poole, Mark Reade McKenna, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. The Suntory-Toyota Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines is gratefully acknowledged for the partial funding of this research.

1982, p. 15), is associated with high individual performance, customer satisfaction, repeat business, and ultimately corporate competitiveness (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1994; Kuczmarski and Kuczmarski, 1995; McCarthy, 1997). McCarthy (1997) notes, for instance, that customer loyalty is driven by discretionary or extra effort that underlies exemplary customer experiences. In short, human resources are coming to be valued not only for the knowledge and expertise that they embody, but for the quality of effort they can exert, if they are so inclined, in applying their knowledge and expertise (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1994). This paper examines a set of variables proposed to enhance the inclination of local managers to exert effort for the benefit of the MNC as a global entity as well as for their local company. A primary variable explored is organisational identification, which refers to the psychological bonding between the individual and the organisation. An individual who identifies with the organisation is assumed to work instinctively to benefit the organisation. The current study builds on the author’s previously reported work on identification with the local subsidiary versus the global organisation, and the antecedents of identification with these two levels of the organisation (Reade, 2001a, b). Other variables investigated for their effect on work effort include supervisory support and perceived access to the organisational hierarchy regardless of nationality. The setting for the study is the Indian and Pakistani subsidiaries of a British MNC in the consumer products industry. The geographical location chosen for the study is significant given the recent investment trends of MNCs. Over the past decade there has been a relative decline in home country investment by European, US, and Japanese MNCs, and a relative increase in investment in developing countries, particularly in Asia (UNCTAD, 1996, 2000). These trends indicate that a growing percentage of MNC employees are likely to be nonhome-country nationals, and to be from developing countries in Asia. This has implications for the management of human resources in the MNC. What motivates home-country nationals to exert extra effort toward organisational goals may not be the same in developing countries in Asia. An increasing amount of research has been done on human resource management issues in MNCs, including in developing economies such as India (e.g. Lawler et al., 1995; Venkata Ratnam, 1998). While our body of knowledge is rapidly expanding, little appears to be known about the willingness of local managers to put in effort, not only for their local subsidiary, but for the benefit of the MNC as a whole. Work effort and identification Work effort is construed here to mean both intrarole and extrarole behaviours. Intrarole behaviours refer to work that falls within the purview of an employee’s job description, while extrarole behaviours refer to work that exceeds role requirements (Van Dyne et al., 1995). It is extrarole behaviours, or

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extra effort, that has captured the attention of managers, since performing “above and beyond the call of duty” is associated with the high corporate performance referred to earlier. Porter et al. (1974, p. 604) define extra effort as “a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organisation”. What motivates effort, especially extra effort? Identification has long been associated with motivating behaviour, including effort (Tolman, 1943; Foote, 1951). Foote (1951) introduced the notion that identification with a group is the key to initiating and sustaining lines of activity. He posited that identification “unlocks the physiological resources of the human organism” and releases the energy to perform actions (Foote, 1951, pp. 1819). In his view, identification imbues an individual’s activity with value, or meaning. Without identification activity is empty behaviour. When activity is drained of its meaning, the mobilisation of the energy required to perform actions is limited, and activity may become “paralysed” altogether (Foote, 1951, pp. 18-19). Brown (1969) continues this line of thought with regard to work organisations. He suggests that an individual who identifies with his or her employing organisation attaches value to his or her work activity. The implication is that the individual is likely to sustain such activity which is intrinsically rewarding. Organisational identification is defined as a psychological attachment to the organisation experienced by employees (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986; O’Reilly, 1989). A psychological bonding is thought to occur when organisational members take the defining characteristics of the organisation as defining characteristics of themselves (Brown, 1969; Dutton et al., 1994). The implication is that individuals “come to see the organisation as part of themselves” (Dutton et al., 1994, p. 242), and in so doing come to perceive a “oneness” with the organisation (Ashforth and Mael, 1989). Organisational identification is commonly construed in terms of shared values and goals between the individual and the organisation and pride in organisational membership (Schneider et al., 1971; Hall and Schneider, 1972; Porter et al., 1974; Buchanan, 1974; Cook and Wall, 1980). A perceived oneness with the organisation suggests a merging of organisational and individual identities. Burke and Reitzes (1991) note that individuals pursue lines of activity which sustain and support their identities. According to these writers, individuals are thought to work hard to maintain an image which supports their identities. Working hard to maintain a particular image, especially if organisational and individual identities are merged, has at least two implications. One implication is consistent behaviour, so long as the individual “clings” to the identity (Foote, 1951, p. 18). Consistency, or dependability, of behaviour was pinpointed by Katz (1964) as a behavioural requirement for an organisation. This is because consistency of action, as opposed to “one-off” acts, lends a modicum of predictability to organisational performance. Working hard to maintain a particular image also

implies the likelihood of exerting extra effort, or performing “above and beyond the call of duty”, to maintain the desired image. Effort arising from identification is seen to contrast with effort arising from pragmatic, or instrumental, motivation, “where the result rather than the activity performed is valuable to the individual” (Brown, 1969, p. 347). It has been generally considered that instrumental motivation for activity that benefits only the self (for instance, rewards) is not part of the concept of organisational identification (Brown, 1969; Buchanan, 1974; Tajfel and Turner, 1979). A number of writers have highlighted the importance of having organisational members whose psychological attachment is based on more than simple compliance or instrumentality (Katz, 1964; Mowday et al., 1982; O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986). Others, such as Lincoln and Kalleberg (1989) believe that some degree of instrumentality is natural. Instrumentality as a potential source of motivation for effort will be explored in a later section. To summarise, work effort, including extra effort, is thought to flow from identification, or a perceived oneness, with the work organisation. Employees who share organisational values and goals, who are proud to be affiliated with the organisation, and who display a positive attitude toward the organisation are likely to want to work harder on behalf of the organisation (Van Dyne et al., 1994; Benkhoff, 1997). Work effort: local/global dimensions? Social identity theory and dual identification It cannot be assumed that local managers will be equally inclined to exert effort for the benefit of the local subsidiary and the MNC as a whole. Social identity theory (SIT) provides a theoretical framework for examining whether local managers might draw a distinction between what they are willing to do for the local subsidiary and what they are willing to do for the global organisation. SIT posits that the individual derives a social identity, and hence a selfidentity, through group membership (Tajfel, 1978; Tajfel and Turner, 1979). This view rests on two main assumptions. One is that individuals are motivated to enhance their own self-esteem; the other is that individuals use categories and comparison to structure their environment and define their place in it. In essence, SIT proposes that individuals wish to belong to groups that compare favourably with, and are distinct from, other groups, because this leads to positive evaluations of themselves. Applied to work organisations, the individual gains a self-identity through membership in the organisation. When employees associate with an organisation which they perceive to be attractive, especially in comparison with other organisations, it enhances their self-esteem since they acquire a more positive evaluation of self. According to SIT, an individual can simultaneously belong to different groups and derive an identity from each group. Identification with some groups may have greater salience for the individual, depending on circumstance and

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the nature of the group. This is consistent with empirical studies conducted in a single-country context which have shown that there are multiple bases for psychological attachment related to the organisation. Examples include nested bases for psychological attachment, such as an organisational sub-unit versus the wider organisation (Friedkin and Simpson, 1985; Becker, 1992; Becker and Billings, 1993). In other words, an employee can simultaneously identify with the sub-unit and with the wider organisation of which the sub-unit is a part, and the salience of identification may differ between the two. In the context of a MNC, empirical evidence shows that managerial employees draw a distinction between the local subsidiary and the global organisation in a way similar to that drawn between the sub-unit and the wider organisation in a domestic context. Gregersen and Black (1992) found that expatriate managers drew a distinction, in terms of identification and commitment, between the parent company from which they came and the overseas subsidiary to which they had been posted. Similarly, the author found that local managerial employees drew a distinction between their local subsidiary and the MNC as a global entity in terms of psychological attachment measured by shared values and goals and pride in affiliation (Reade, 2001a). These studies reveal the existence of local and global bases of psychological attachment in MNCs. Both expatriate and local managers were found to draw a distinction between the local subsidiary (local identification) and the global organisation (global identification) as manifest is separate group identifications. SIT, with its treatment of intergroup distinctions, is highly relevant for explaining these findings. Managerial employees belong to a number of nested groups within the MNC and seemingly derive social identities from different levels of the organisation, levels which include ultimately the MNC as a global entity. If identification fosters effort as theory suggests, and given the evidence of dual local and global identification in MNCs, it is possible that local managers might draw a distinction between the local subsidiary and the MNC as a global entity in terms of effort they are willing to expend. The following section examines factors in addition to organisational identification which may contribute to effort expended for the local subsidiary and for the MNC as a whole. These include a proposed set of antecedents of local and global identification in MNCs. Antecedents of local and global identification Research in organisational identification is relatively sparse, and applications to the MNC are particularly rare. As such, there is not an established set of antecedents of identification in the MNC. The author has proposed a general set of antecedents of organisational identification in MNCs (Reade, 2001b). This set, which is exploratory and by no means exhaustive, will be included in the present study for the following reasons. First, the antecedents of identification

would have an indirect influence on work effort, assuming that a link between identification and effort is found. Second, it is possible that the antecedents of identification could have a direct impact on work effort. The antecedents, which are described briefly below, are based primarily on empirical work conducted in a single-country context (Lee, 1971; Ashforth and Mael, 1989; Mael and Ashforth, 1992; Benkhoff, 1997). They reflect issues concerned with enhancing self-esteem and group belongingness, central themes of SIT (Tajfel, 1978). In line with SIT’s treatment of intergroup distinctions, most of the antecedents were measured with a local and global dimension. Unless otherwise specified, the antecedents registered a statistically significant relationship with identification in a multiple regression analysis (Reade, 2001b). All of the antecedents will be included in the present study in order to assess their possible direct influence on work effort. Prestige and distinctiveness of the organisation. SIT posits that individuals aspire to belong to groups that are prestigious and distinctive because such groups raise self-esteem (Tajfel, 1978). Prestige and distinctiveness of the local company and the global organisation was measured in terms of reputation and leadership in the market. Support and appreciation of superiors. According to SIT, an individual needs to feel part of the group in order to identify with it (Tajfel, 1978). Support and appreciation of one’s immediate boss at the local company and superiors at global headquarters was measured in terms of recognition, trust, guidance, and encouragement to voice opinions. Opportunity for career advancement and fulfilment. This variable taps into individual development, which is thought to help link the individual to the organisation through identification (Brown, 1969). It was measured in terms of opportunity to fulfill one’s career potential and opportunity for career advancement through promotion, at the local company and within the MNC’s global network. No nationality barrier to the organisational hierarchy. Access to the organisational hierarchy implies greater political opportunity within the organisation, which is presumed to foster attachment to the group (Lawler, 1992). In the context of a MNC, this was measured in terms of perceived lack of nationality discrimination at the local company and within the MNC’s global network. Positive interpersonal relations. Good working relations among colleagues are thought to enhance organisational identification (Brown, 1969). This variable, measured in terms of how positive relationships were perceived at the local company and within the MNC’s global network, was not found to be statistically significant. Sense of shared fate. Shared fate implies mutual interdependence, and a linking of one’s own fate or fortune with that of the group (Brown, 1988). Measured in terms of linking personal success with the concerted efforts of all

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employees in the MNC, and by implication with the success of the MNC as a whole, this variable was hypothesised to be an antecedent of global identification. It was not found to be statistically significant. Cultural similarity preference. People with similar attitudes, beliefs, values and a common history tend to become friends and to form enduring groups (Ashforth and Mael, 1989). A preference to work with culturally similar others, measured in terms of a shared language and a shared social, cultural, and religious background, was hypothesised to foster local identification. It was not found to be statistically significant. Table I provides a summary of the statistically significant antecedents of local and global identification (Reade, 2001b). A complementarity of variables is readily discernable: local identification appears to be fostered mainly by factors pertaining to the local subsidiary, while global identification appears to be driven primarily by factors pertaining to the global organisation. Basic model and hypotheses Several hypotheses emerge from the foregoing discussion of theory and the results of previous research. First, identification and work effort are likely to be positively related. Second, local managers are likely to draw a distinction between their willingness to exert effort for their local company and for the global organisation. Third, work effort for the local company is likely to be more strongly related to local identification than to global identification; conversely, work effort for the global organisation is likely to be more strongly related to global identification than to local identification. These hypotheses are captured in a basic model of work effort in MNCs, as shown in Figure 1. Research methods Sample The research was conducted at the Indian and Pakistani subsidiaries of “Britcorp”, a large MNC in the consumer products industry. Following completion of a pilot questionnaire in Pakistan among Pakistani managers at various UK- and US-owned multinational organisations, data were collected

Antecedents

Table I. Antecedents of local and global identification

Prestige and distinctiveness of local company Support and appreciation of immediate boss Career opportunity at local company No nationality barrier to promotion at local company Prestige and distinctiveness of MNC Support from superiors at MNC headquarters Career opportunity within MNC No nationality barrier to promotion within MNC

Local identification

Global identification

U U U U

U

U U U U

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cross-sectionally by use of an English-language, structured questionnaire from 122 managers at Britcorp’s Pakistani subsidiary and 195 managers at Britcorp’s Indian subsidiary. These figures represent a response rate of 66 per cent and 61 per cent, respectively. The majority of respondents at both sites are male middle managers in their mid-30s, with a mean tenure of about 11 years. Nearly 70 per cent hold a master’s degree, 22 per cent have received some formal education abroad, 44 per cent have received job training abroad, and 16 per cent have been posted abroad. The analysis is based on the responses from the questionnaire. Measure for work effort In order to determine whether local managers are likely to draw a distinction between a willingness to exert effort for the local company and for the MNC as a whole, the work effort measure was designed with mirrored local/global variables. Respondents were informed on the questionnaire that “this company” refers to the company where they currently work, and that “Britcorp” refers to Britcorp as a global corporation. Items (1) and (2) below are taken from the “job involvement” component of Cook and Wall’s (1980) organisational commitment scale, which are intended to measure the willingness to invest personal effort as a member of the organisation, for the sake of the organisation (Cook et al., 1989, pp. 91-3). Items (3) and (4) are based on the “job involvement” component of Buchanan’s (1974) organisational commitment scale. Willingness to engage in overtime and in extra-job-description work activities was intended by Buchanan to measure “psychological immersion or absorption in the activities of one’s work role” (Cook et al., 1989, pp. 88-9). The items are measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 5 ¼ strongly agree to 1 ¼ strongly disagree. Local (1) In my work I like to feel that I am making some effort, not just for myself, but for this company as well. (2) I’m willing to put myself out to help this company.

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(3) Working overtime is OK with me if doing so benefits this company. (4) I don’t mind taking on additional duties and responsibilities to benefit this company. Global (1) It pleases me to think that my efforts benefit not only me, but Britcorp as a whole. (2) I’m willing to put myself out to help the Britcorp head office or another Britcorp company. (3) I don’t mind working overtime if I think it will contribute to Britcorp’s overall success. (4) Taking on additional duties and responsibilities is fine with me if doing so benefits Britcorp as a whole. Measure for instrumental motivation It has generally been considered that instrumental motivation for activity is not part of the concept of organisational identification (Brown, 1969; Buchanan, 1974). A number of writers, however, believe that there is always some calculation present, “however subliminal” (Brown et al., 1986, p. 56). Lincoln and Kalleberg (1989, p. 100), for instance, remind us that while intrinsic rewards are important motivators, “we can hardly forget that people take jobs in large measure to earn incomes and advance careers, and such extrinsic inducements (earnings and promotions) obviously play a fundamental role in motivating the decision to join, stay with and work for a firm”. For these reasons it was decided to control for a possible instrumental motivation to exert effort for the organisation. The following scale is based on the “compliance commitment” items used by O’Reilly and Chatman (1986), which tap the notion of behaviour engaged in to obtain specific rewards. The items are measured on the same five-point Likert scale mentioned above: (1) How hard I work for this company is directly linked to how much I am rewarded. (2) I only put extra effort into my job if I see an immediate reward. (3) The only reason I would take on additional work is if it got me ahead in this company. Results Validation of the measures Table II shows the results of factor analysis (principal components with varimax rotation) for the items measuring work effort. The items measuring work effort for the local company load on one factor while the items measuring work effort for the global organisation load on another. Internal reliability of the variables is found to be acceptable with the following alpha scores: 0.66 for

Effort for global organisation Taking on additional duties and responsibilities is fine with me . . . It pleases me to think that my efforts benefit not only me, but Britcorp . . . I don’t mind working overtime if I think it will contribute to Britcorp’s . . . I’m willing to put myself out to help the Britcorp head office . . . Effort for local company I’m willing to put myself out to help this company In my work I like to feel that I am making some effort, not just for myself . . . I don’t mind taking on additional duties and responsibilities to benefit this company Working overtime is OK with me if doing so benefits this company Eigenvalues % variance explained KMO ¼ 0:85 Note: Item loadings defining factors are in italic

Factor 1

Factor 2

0.86

0.16

0.84

0.11

0.82

0.23

0.69

0.31

0.09

0.78

0.13

0.75

0.37

0.55

0.47

0.50

3.78 47.30

1.10 13.75

local work effort and 0.86 for global work effort. The three items measuring instrumental motivation, while not shown for space considerations, load on one factor which indicates that they form a single construct. Reliability is acceptable with an alpha score of 0.62. In sum, the results of factor analysis and reliability analysis validate the measures. The results show a clear demarcation between effort for the local company and effort for the global organisation. This suggests that local managers perceive a difference between their local company and the global organisation in terms of their willingness to exert effort. t-test results This section investigates, with the use of a paired samples t-test, whether local managers report a difference between the level of effort they are willing to expend for the subsidiary (local effort) and for the MNC as a whole (global effort). Local and global effort are considered paired samples because the items used to measure these variables are composed of mirrored items. Table III shows the results. Local managers scored relatively highly on work effort for each organisational level, considering that 3.0 is the central point on the Likert scale used. Nevertheless, they did draw a distinction between local and global

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Table II. Factor analysis of items measuring work effort (total sample)

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effort. For the total sample there is a highly significant difference between local effort and global effort, and the direction of difference is towards work effort for the local company. In general, local managers are more willing to expend effort for the local company than for the global organisation. When the sub-samples are considered, however, it can be seen that the results for Pakistan vary from the total sample. The difference between local and global effort is not significant. The indication is that managerial employees at the Pakistani subsidiary do not distinguish between what they are willing to do for the local company and for the global organisation. Managerial employees at the Indian subsidiary do make a distinction, and their willingness to put in effort for the global organisation is significantly lower than their willingness to put in effort for their local company. Multiple regression analysis Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the relative effect of variables on work effort. The analysis proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, an examination is made of the basic impact of local and global identification on local and global work effort, controlling only for the standard set of demographic variables and the subsidiary[1]. The second stage represents a fuller testing in that the antecedents of organisational identification, together with the instrumental motivation variable, are added. Table IV shows the results of the first stage. Organisational identification has a significant impact on effort. As predicted, local identification has a significant effect on local effort, while global identification does not. Conversely, global identification has a significant influence on global identification, while local identification does not. Local effort

Table III. t-test difference in means between local and global effort (paired samples test)

Number of pairs t-value Total sample 309 6.35 India 190 6.78 Pakistan 122 1.31 Note: * t-test difference in means between local and

Mean 4.152* 4.171* 4.123 global effort

Local effort Table IV. Impact of identification on work effort (multiple regression analysis)

SD 0.455 0.433 0.489 significant

Global effort Mean 3.970 3.905 4.074 at , 0:001

SD 0.584 0.604 0.535 level

Global effort

Local identification 0.25* 2 0.08 Global identification 0.12 0.40** 0.09** 0.16** Adjusted R 2 (N) (286) (280) Notes: Standard set of control variables and subsidiary are included in the multiple regression analysis.
¼ p , 0:01;

¼ p , 0:001

The impact of organisational identification fades considerably when the antecedents of organisational identification and instrumental motivation are included in the test. Table V details the results. Global identification has a statistically significant effect on global effort. Local identification fails to reach a statistically significant level with regard to local effort, although seemingly by a small margin. In both cases, factors other than identification register a stronger influence. Local effort is positively influenced, in descending order of statistical significance, by the prestige and distinctiveness of the local company and by a sense of shared fate with the global organisation. There are also direct negative

Control variables Age Gender Tenure Middle management Senior management Master’s degree Formal education abroad Job training abroad Job posting abroad Subsidiary Antecedents of identification Local company Prestige and distinctiveness Support of superiors No nationality barrier Career opportunity Positive interpersonal Cultural similarity Global organisation Prestige and distinctiveness Support of superiors No nationality barrier Career opportunity Positive interpersonal Negative interpersonal Sense of shared fate Organisational identification Local identification Global identification

Local effort

Global effort

2 0.04 0.07 0.05 0.11 0.24** 0.01 0.01 2 0.04 0.04 0.20**

20.06 0.11* 0.07 20.10 20.09 0.04 20.06 20.09 0.01 0.17**

0.24*** 2 0.04 0.08 2 0.09 0.10 2 0.13*

0.20*** 20.15** 0.05 20.13 20.10* 20.06

2 0.12 0.13 0.02 2 0.08 2 0.23** 2 0.14 0.11*

20.09 0.28**** 0.15* 0.04 20.21** 20.15* 0.09

0.14 0.06

Instrumental motivation 2 0.10 Adjusted R 2 0.16**** (N) (240) Notes: *=p, 0.10; ** = p , 0.05; *** = p , 0.01; ****= p , 0.001

20.07 0.19** 20.04 0.25**** (238)

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Table V. Factors contributing to local and global work effort (multiple regression analysis)

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influences on local work effort: interpersonal relations with peers at the global level of the organisation, and a preference for cultural similarity in the workplace. Global effort is positively influenced, in descending order of statistical significance, by support of superiors at MNC headquarters, prestige and distinctiveness of the local company, identification with the global organisation, and lack of nationality barrier to promotion at the global level of the organisation. Wielding a direct negative influence on global effort is interpersonal relations with peers at the global level of the organisation[2]. Table V also shows a statistically significant difference between the two subsidiaries. Managerial employees in the Pakistan subsidiary are more willing than their colleagues in the India subsidiary to exert effort both for the local company and for the global organisation. In summary, the results of the study lend modest support to the research hypotheses: . there is a correlation, although not as robust as expected, between work effort and identification; . local managers appear to distinguish between their subsidiary and the MNC, and appear to be more willing to expend effort for the benefit of the subsidiary, although differences were found between the subsidiaries regarding the salience of the local/global distinction; . local effort appears to be more strongly related to local identification than to global identification, while global effort appears to be more strongly related to global identification than to local identification. Discussion and implications The aim of this paper was to investigate factors that contribute to the willingness of local managers to exert effort for the benefit of the global organisation, in addition to their local company. This section discusses those factors, and highlights the implications for expatriate managers and, more generally, for international human resource management. At the outset, mention should be made of the limitations of the study which have a bearing on how far the results can be generalised. One is the small number of subsidiaries included in the study. This raises the question as to whether the results may be country specific. The results would carry more weight if the research included a wider range of organisations. Another limitation is the small number of factors explored in relation to work effort, since the focus was on identification as the primary determinant of work effort. Additional factors need to be explored. A further limitation is the use of a crosssectional approach which cannot test causality. While a cross-sectional design may be appropriate for distinguishing between the local and global variables, a longitudinal approach may be more appropriate for determining causality between organisational identification and work effort.

Within the above-mentioned constraints, the results of the study underscore the potential value of examining employee perceptions of different organisational levels in the MNC. Different factors were found to contribute to a willingness to exert effort for the benefit of the two levels of the organisation. Such knowledge could be of strategic importance, in that it allows the pinpointing of the organisational level at which an intervention could be made. For instance, results show that support from management at global headquarters, rather than from one’s immediate boss, enhances a local manager’s willingness to put in extra effort for the overall benefit of the MNC. It follows that the appropriate locus for an intervention would be at the global rather than local level of the organisation. The factors contributing to local and global effort are discussed in turn.

Effort for the local company At the local company level, effort is mainly driven by the prestige and distinctiveness of the local company. It is also engendered to some extent by a sense of shared fate with the global organisation, which was a hypothesised albeit non-significant antecedent of organisational identification (Reade, 2001b). Managers, especially senior managers as compared to junior managers, are more willing to put in effort for their local company the more they perceive it to have a good reputation and to be a leader among other companies. This is also the case the more they link their personal success with the concerted efforts of all employees in the MNC, and by implication with the success of the MNC as a whole. Organisational identification does not appear to play a role in fostering effort for the local company, although local identification appears to hover on the verge of statistical significance. Two variables register a negative influence: a preference for cultural similarity in the workplace and interpersonal relations. Those who feel they work best with culturally similar others are less likely to be willing to work hard to benefit the local company. This result indicates that subsidiaries of the MNC may self-select to themselves employees of managerial calibre for whom there is little or no preference for cultural similarity in the workplace. Of course, the case-study subsidiary is predominantly foreign-owned; it stands to reason that an individual who prefers working with culturally similar others may not choose to work for such an organisation. The other variable that wields a negative influence is interpersonal relations. The more positive the interaction with colleagues from other units within the global organisation, as compared to no contact with them at all, the less willing local managers are to put in effort for the local company. This result is contrary to the expectation that, if positive interpersonal relations were to have a direct effect on local work effort, the direction would be positive rather than negative.

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Instrumental motivation does not appear to figure highly in a willingness to exert effort for the local company. Local managers do not seem to associate work effort with an expectation for a specific or immediate reward. Effort for the global organisation Identification with the global organisation has a significant influence on the willingness to expend effort on behalf of the MNC as a whole. While shared values and pride in affiliation with the MNC engender a spirit to exert global effort, other variables have more prominence. Management support from MNC headquarters has the greatest effect. In other words, local managers who feel recognised, respected and trusted by those at MNC headquarters are likely to put in effort on behalf of the MNC as a whole. The prestige and distinctiveness of the local company also goes a long way toward fostering global effort. Interestingly, the prestige and distinctiveness of the global organisation does not have an effect. This finding is unexpected, and may be due in part to the fact that the case-study MNC does not use the parent company name on its products; product names are conceived locally. Another variable that has a significant effect is access to the managerial hierarchy within the global organisation regardless of nationality. Managerial employees are more likely to exert effort for the MNC as a whole if they do not perceive a nationality barrier to career mobility within the global organisation. Several variables related to interpersonal relations have a significantly negative influence on work effort for the global organisation. As might be expected, the more negative the experience of interacting with colleagues from the global organisation, as opposed to no contact at all, the less employees are willing to put in effort for the global organisation. At the same time, however, the results show that the more positive the experience of interacting with colleagues from the global organisation, and to a lesser extent from the local company, as opposed to no contact at all, the less employees are willing to put in effort for the MNC. Also, the more employees feel supported by their immediate boss, the less they are willing to put in effort for the global organisation. The results suggest that, for the sake of global effort, it is better not to have any contact with either colleagues from the global organisation or one’s immediate boss. This indicates an underlying conflict between the subsidiary and headquarters from an interpersonal perspective. Instrumental motivation does not register a significant effect on global effort. Local managers do not appear to link their willingness to exert effort for the global organisation with expectation for a specific or immediate reward. Implications for expatriate managers Motivating local managers to put in effort for a MNC as a whole appears to depend on factors that pertain primarily to the global level of the organisation. Local managers are more likely to work for the benefit of the whole if they feel

supported by head office management, if they share the overarching values and goals of the MNC, if they feel pride in being associated with the MNC, and if they feel that their nationality will not keep them from climbing the corporate ladder beyond national boundaries. The prestige and distinctiveness of the local company is also a contributing factor. Motivating local managers to put in effort for the local company is also dependent on the prestige and distinctiveness of the local company, and to some extent on a sense of shared fate with the MNC as a global entity. What do these findings imply for the expatriate manager? In essence, they indicate the need to manage local perceptions and expectations, especially regarding the head office and wider organisation. This entails paying attention to how the head office is perceived among employees at the local company, and paying attention to people and their accomplishments. On the issue of supervisory support, the expatriate manager can play a role of communicating achievements to head office, and eliciting and sharing feedback from head office management. To foster shared values and goals and pride in affiliation with the MNC as a whole, one needs to consider the antecedents of global identification. Table I shows that supervisory support from head office, opportunity for career advancement and fulfilment within the global organisation and the prestige and distinctiveness of both the local company and the global organisation were found to enhance global identification. The antecedents of global identification may have an indirect effect on work effort for the global organisation. The issue of access to the organisational hierarchy, regardless of nationality, requires management of career expectations. Expectations regarding international assignments are likely to vary in different parts of the world. Among respondents in the case-study subsidiaries there was a desire to be assigned abroad, especially in Europe. In this regard, 19 per cent of respondents envisioned themselves sitting on the main board at London headquarters later in their career (Reade, 2001b). The prestige and distinctiveness of the local company is a factor contributing to both global and local work effort. Working toward enhancing the reputation and market leadership of the local company reaps benefits for both levels of the organisation. Maintaining employee perception of the prestige and distinctiveness of the firm can be managed through information disseminated at meetings or through magazines and circulars. In sum, expatriate managers have a number of means available to enhance the willingness of local managers to exert effort for the benefit of the MNC as a whole, as well as for the subsidiary. The pinpointing of local and global factors which contribute to the work effort of local managers should enable expatriate managers to better concentrate their motivational interventions.

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Implications for international human resource management The results of the study show that local managers generally have a greater willingness to work for the benefit of the local rather than the global level of the organisation. This is not surprising given empirical evidence from a singlecountry context. The findings of studies on commitment to two levels of an organisation generally indicate that psychological attachment tends to be more salient with the sub-unit than with the wider organisation (Zaccaro and Dobbins, 1989; Becker, 1992). This bears out the reported preference of individuals for identification with relatively small, distinctive social groups (e.g. Ashforth and Mael, 1989), such as what the MNC subsidiary represents. Yet, the present study produced an exception. Managers at the Pakistani subsidiary did not distinguish in a statistically significant way between what they are willing to do for the local company and what they are willing to do for the MNC as a whole. Such an exception underscores in a small way the variation that can occur cross-nationally among employees, and the concomitant complexity involved in international human resource management. The MNC, besides being a large organisation, is spread across the globe and operates in a multitude of socio-cultural, legal, political, and economic environments (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989). While the present study focussed on the individual level of analysis, the following highlights some of the organisational-, industry-, and environmental-level factors that may have a bearing on local/global identification and work effort. Britcorp is in the consumer products industry, and typically follows a multidomestic strategy where subsidiaries are given autonomy to develop products that cater to local tastes. Such strategy is often associated with what Perlmutter (1969) refers to as a polycentric staffing policy (units headed by local managers), as opposed to an ethnocentric policy (units headed by parentcountry managers) or a geocentric policy (units headed by a mix of local, parent-country, and third-country managers). Britcorp pursues a geocentric staffing policy, which supports Kobrin’s (1994) proposition that a geocentric international human resource management policy is not necessarily linked to corporate strategy or structure. Kobrin (1994) further suggests that within the same firm there may exist an ethnocentric, polycentric and geocentric profile. In the present study, the Indian subsidiary was characterised by a polycentric staffing profile while the Pakistani subsidiary was characterised by an ethnocentric staffing profile, apparently influenced by environmental factors. Local managers headed the Indian subsidiary in line with relatively strict national laws limiting the use of expatriate managers. Parent-country managers headed the Pakistani subsidiary in an attempt to control a mounting external threat posed by the black market. Scullion (1995) cites a number of studies that indicate a positive correlation between expatriate management of a subsidiary and identification with global objectives by local employees. In other words, expatriate managers act as

vehicles of global values and objectives, and play a role in the socialisation of local employees into the organisational culture of global headquarters. Accordingly, this may help to explain why respondents at the expatriatemanaged Pakistani subsidiary showed an undifferentiated willingness to exert effort for both levels of the organisation, while respondents at the locallymanaged Indian subsidiary were more willing to expend effort for the local company than for the global organisation. It is generally accepted that some degree of cohesion, through shared values and objectives, is important to facilitate coordinated action toward common goals, especially in large, complex organisations like MNCs (e.g. Scullion, 1995). At the same time, the lifeblood of global competition is said to spring from local sources. Das (1993, p. 197) put it well: “Think global and act local”, goes the saying, but that’s only half a truth. International managers must also think local and then apply their local insights on a global scale.

Going the extra mile ultimately means having a strong willingness to put in effort for the benefit of both levels of the organisation; local effort for the nourishment of local insights and global effort for the leveraging of local ideas and expertise throughout the MNC’s global network. The international human resource management challenge is to support local managers and expatriates in going the extra mile together.

Notes 1. The control variables include age (continuous), gender (1 ¼ male, 2 ¼ female), tenure (continuous), management level (0 ¼ junior management, 1 ¼ middle management, 2 ¼ senior management), master’s degree (1 ¼ yes, 2 ¼ no), formal education abroad (1 ¼ yes, 2 ¼ no), job training abroad (1 ¼ yes, 2 ¼ no), and job posting abroad (1 ¼ yes, 2 ¼ no). Gender differences are controlled for, even though females comprise only 10 per cent of the total sample. A master’s degree (69.4 per cent) was selected over a university first degree (90 per cent) to control for educational level because the former comprises a smaller percentage of the total sample and may therefore contribute to variation in the results. The final three control variables were selected to control for a possible positive effect on identification with the global organisation. The subsidiary (India ¼ 1; Pakistan ¼ 2) is included as a variable in the model in order to assess differences between the two case-study subsidiaries. 2. A dummy variable was created for positive interpersonal relations to separate out the 24 per cent of those who reported no contact with colleagues at the global level of the organisation. The dummy was constructed as follows. The positive interpersonal relations variable is comprised of those respondents who reported positive and very positive contact (coded 2), while the negative interpersonal relations variable is comprised of those who reported negative and very negative contact (coded 1). Those who reported no contact serve as the reference category (coded 0). A corresponding dummy variable was not created for the local company because only 1.3 per cent of the respondents reported no contact with colleagues at the local company.

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Katz, D. (1964), “The motivational basis of organizational behaviour”, Behavioural Science, Vol. 9, pp. 131-46. Kobrin, S. (1994), “Is there a relationship between a geocentric mind-set and multinational strategy?”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 493-511. Kuczmarski, S. and Kuczmarski, T. (1995), Values-Based Leadership: Rebuilding Employee Commitment Performance, and Productivity, Prentice-Hall, Paramus, NJ. Lawler, E. (1992), “Affective attachments to nested groups: a choice-process theory”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 57, pp. 327-39. Lawler, J., Jain, H., Venkata Ratnam, C. and Atmiyananda, V. (1995), “Human resource management in developing economies: a comparison of India and Thailand”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 319-46. Lee, S.M. (1971), “An empirical analysis of organisational identification”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 14, pp. 213-26. Lincoln, J. and Kalleberg, A. (1989), Culture, Control and Commitment: A Study of Work Organisation and Work Attitudes in the United States and Japan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. McCarthy, D. (1997), The Loyalty Link: How Loyal Employees Create Loyal Customers, John Wiley, New York, NY. Mael, F. and Ashforth, B. (1992), “Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organisational identification”, Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Vol. 13, pp. 103-23. Mowday, R.T., Porter, L.W. and Steers, R.M. (1982), Employee-Organisation Linkages: The Psychology of Commitment, Absenteeism, and Turnover, Academic Press, New York, NY. O’Reilly, C. (1989), “Corporations, culture and commitment: motivation and social control in organisations”, California Management Review, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 9-25. O’Reilly, C. III and Chatman, J. (1986), “Organisational commitment and psychological attachment: the effects of compliance, identification, and internalisation on prosocial behaviour”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 71 No. 3, pp. 492-9. Perlmutter, H. (1969), “The tortuous evolution of the multinational corporation”, Columbia Journal of World Business, January-February (Reprinted in Bartlett, C. and Ghoshal, S. (1995), Transnational Management, 2nd ed., Irwin, Boston, MA, pp. 92-101). Perlmutter, H. and Heenan, D. (1986), “Cooperate to compete globally”, Harvard Business Review, March-April, (Reprinted in Global Strategies (1994), Harvard Business Review Book Series, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, pp. 129-41. Porter, L.W., Steers, R.M., Mowday, R.T. and Boulian, P.V. (1974), “Organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric technicians”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 59 No. 5, pp. 603-9. Reade, C. (2001a), “Dual identification in multinational corporations: local managers and their psychological attachment to the subsidiary versus the global organisation”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 405-24. Reade, C. (2001b), “Antecedents of organisational identification in multinational corporations: fostering identification with the local subsidiary and the global corporation”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 12 No. 8, pp. 1269-91. Schneider, B., Hall, D. and Nygren, H. (1971), “Self image and job characteristics as correlates of changing organisational identification”, Human Relations, Vol. 24, pp. 397-416. Scullion, H. (1995), “International human resource management”, in Storey, J. (Ed.), Human Resource Management: A Critical Text, Routledge, London, pp. 352-82.

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Tajfel, H. (1978), Differentiation between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Academic Press, London. Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. (1979), “An integrative theory of intergroup conflict”, in Austin, W. and Worchel, S. (Eds), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, Brooks/Cole, Monterey, CA, pp. 33-47. Tolman, E.C. (1943), “Identification and the post-war world”, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 38, pp. 141-8. UNCTAD (1996), World Investment Report: 1996, United Nations, Geneva. UNCTAD (2000), World Investment Report: 2000, United Nations, Geneva. Van Dyne, L., Graham, J.W. and Dienesch, R.M. (1994), “Organisational citizenship behaviour: construct redefinition, measurement, and validation”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 765-802. Van Dyne, L., Cummings, L.L. and Parks, J.M. (1995), “Extra-role behaviours: in pursuit of construct and definitional clarity (a bridge over muddied waters)”, Research in Organisational Behaviour, Vol. 17, pp. 215-85. Venkata Ratnam, C. (1998), “Multinational companies in India”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 567-89. Zaccaro, S. and Dobbins, G. (1989), “Contrasting group and organisational commitment: evidence for differences among multilevel attachments”, Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Vol. 10, pp. 267-73.

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Are women “better” than men? Personality differences and expatriate selection James P. Guthrie and Ronald A. Ash

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School of Business, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

Charles D. Stevens College of Business Administration, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota, USA Keywords Expatriates, Gender, Personality, Selection Abstract Using data from 1,080 study participants, this study simulates a hiring scenario in which personality measures are used to screen candidates for a hypothetical expatriate (expat) position. On the basis of recent research indicating that selected “big five” personality variables are related to expat assignment success, an expatriate composite score was computed-based on NEO personality inventory and Hogan personality inventory scale scores. Across these two personality instruments, four samples, and eight selection ratios, a greater proportion of women versus men are consistently “selected”. Statistical tests confirm that the use of personality criteria results in gender being significantly associated with selection outcomes. These results are consistent with arguments that women are dispositionally advantaged with respect to international assignments. These findings contrast sharply with extant evidence indicating that women hold relatively few expat positions.

I’ve led and worked on projects in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Tunisia, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. And I’ve found that international experience, decision-making authority, and sound judgment are valued everywhere – and far outweigh any consideration of gender when it comes to getting the deal done (Fisher, 1998).

Recent years have witnessed growth in the number of firms with multinational operations. International assignments play a major strategic role in the global operations of these firms, with surveys indicating an expansion of expatriate assignments in the future (Windham International and National Foreign Trade Council, Inc., 1998). Expatriates play important roles in joint venture negotiations, subsidiary management, new market development, technology transfer and, more generally, in developing a firm’s global competence (Caligiuri, 2000). Thus, the choice of an individual for an expatriate assignment looms large as a key, strategic selection decision. As such, an increasing number of researchers have focused their attention on these critical decisions. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the 16th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), 27-29 April, 2001, San Diego, CA (P.M. Caligiuri (Chair), “Female expatriates: new insights and trends”).

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As delineated by Caligiuri et al. (1999), one issue that has attracted increased scholarly attention in recent years is the role of gender in global assignments. Caligiuri et al. (1999) categorized this recent research into three separate streams. First is a set of studies relating to gender differences in the procurement of global assignments. The starting point for these studies is the fact that disproportionately few women hold expatriate assignments. For example, in a worldwide study of expatriates, Florkowski and Fogel (1995) found that only 11 per cent of their sample expats were female. In Tung’s (1997) study of over 400 expatriates and inpatriates in the USA, 13.9 per cent were female; a similar figure (14 per cent) for US expats was reported by Tyler (2001). While these proportions represent greater female participation relative to 10 or 15 years earlier (Black et al., 1992), it is still true that women are underrepresented in global assignments. A second set of studies on female global assignees focuses on gender differences on the outcome of global assignments. Studies within this category have examined whether or not men and women expats have different rates of success in international assignments. Despite persistent “myths” (Adler, 1987; Adler and Izraeli, 1995) to the contrary, the evidence to date suggests that women are frequently quite successful in expatriate assignments (e.g. Caligiuri and Tung, 1999; Taylor and Napier, 1996). A third set of studies has looked at gender differences and the predictors of global assignee success. In this category are studies looking at whether or not men and women differ in terms of predictors of overseas success factors. Included among these factors are individual/personality differences, company support, family support, and host country attitudes. Research and discussion in this stream focus on issues such as whether nation-based cultural values influence the success of men versus women expatriates (e.g. Adler, 1987; Caligiuri and Tung, 1999) or whether organizational support predicts expat success (e.g. Caligiuri et al., 1999). The present study most closely relates to the third category, gender differences and predictors of expat success. Our focus is on an assessment of gender-based personality differences and the implications of these for hiring individuals for foreign assignment. We first review recent developments in personality assessment and work performance. We next discuss the role of personality characteristics in expatriate success, followed by a review of the role of gender. We then describe a study in which data derived from 1,080 study participants is used to simulate a hiring scenario in which personality measures are used to screen candidates for a hypothetical expat position. This is followed by a discussion of these results and their implications. Personality: overview and recent developments A person’s personality (i.e. a set of psychological traits) is a relatively stable precursor of behavior; it underlies an enduring style of thinking, feeling and

acting (Hogan, 1991; McCrae and Costa, 1997). While it seems intuitive that the personality characteristics of individuals should relate to job and career outcomes, empirically establishing these relationships has proved difficult. A flurry of research activity on industrial applications of personality assessment during the 1950s and early 1960s was followed by a period of prolonged dormancy. This period of research inactivity was primarily due to inadequate psychometric evidence on the reliability and validity of available personality instruments (Guion, 1965). Two fundamental problems during this time were the absence of an accepted taxonomy for “normal” personality and the use of instruments designed to assess abnormal dispositional traits. Recent years have witnessed a rebirth of interest in the utility of personality testing in work settings. This resurgence is largely due to the emergence of a preferred taxonomy in personality classification. As discussed by Mount and Barrick (1995, p. 160), “it appears that many personality psychologists have reached a consensus that five personality constructs, referred to as the big five, are necessary and sufficient to describe the basic dimensions of normal personality”. Interest has also increased due to research documenting empirical linkages between the “big five” personality constructs and measures of individual performance and success in work organizations in both North America (Barrick and Mount, 1991; Hough et al., 1990; Tett et al., 1991) and Europe (Salgado, 1997). The personality dimensions comprising the “big five” are: (1) extroversion (e.g. being sociable, gregarious, assertive, etc.); (2) agreeableness (e.g. being empathic, good-natured, cooperative, etc.); (3) emotional stability (e.g. viewed from the negative pole, being anxious, depressed, emotional, nervous, etc.); (4) conscientiousness (e.g. dependable, reliable, careful, thorough, etc.); and (5) openness to experience (e.g. being imaginative, curious, original, broadminded, etc.). Personality characteristics and expatriate success As noted earlier, multinational firms often rely on expatriate managers to perform key functions in the context of their global operations. Unfortunately, the rate of failure for these expatriate assignments tends to be relatively high (Arthur and Bennett, 1995). These high failure rates, coupled with relatively high direct and indirect costs of failure, make the international staffing decision particularly critical. “Failure” is often operationalized as not completing the full length of the assignment and/or performing inadequately during the course of the assignment (Black and Gregerson, 1999). A primary determinant of expatriate success is social and psychological adjustment (Black et al., 1991). In their proposed model for international adjustment, Black et al. (1991) distinguish three dimensions of in-country adjustment: adjustment to work,

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adjustment to interacting with host nationals, and adjustment to the general non-work environment. Among a number of potentially important factors, many authors have discussed the central role played by personality characteristics in predicting or explaining expatriates’ successful adjustment (e.g. Arthur and Bennett, 1995; Black, 1990; Mendenhall and Oddou, 1985; Ones and Viswesvaran, 1997). A particularly informative study was conducted by Arthur and Bennett (1995) who obtained responses from 338 expatriate managers employed by companies incorporated in 20 different countries and on assignment in 43 different countries. Their study asked expatriate managers to provide their perceptions as to the factors contributing to international assignment success. Their factor analytic results identified five factors: (1) family situation; (2) job knowledge and motivation; (3) relational skills; (4) flexibility/adaptability; and (5) extra-cultural openness. After reviewing Arthur and Bennett (1995) and other relevant literature, Caligiuri (2000) concluded that while strong arguments support the role of personality in expatriate adjustment and success, true validity evidence supporting this claim was lacking. Her study helped to alleviate this deficiency. She conducted a concurrent validation study in which she collected big five personality and performance measures on 143 expatriate employees on assignment in 25 different countries for a US-based multinational. Her multivariate (i.e. regression) results indicated that two “big five” dimensions, extroversion and agreeableness, are negatively associated with a self-reported measure of desire to terminate the expat assignment. Her results also indicated that conscientiousness was positively associated with supervisor-rated expat performance. Thus, we now have empirical data supporting the belief that personality differences impact expatriate success. International assignees who are more extroverted (i.e. outgoing, gregarious, etc.) and more agreeable (i.e. empathetic, cooperative, etc.) are less likely to report a desire to terminate their assignment prematurely; those who are assessed as being more conscientious (i.e. reliable, careful, etc.) are more likely to have their expat job performance judged favorably by their supervisors. Gender, personality and expatriate success While there is debate as to their origins, there is little debate in the psychological community as to the existence of gender-based personality differences. In their comprehensive review, Sackett and Wilk (1994, p. 944) state that: “It has long been known that gender differences exist for a variety of personality dimensions.” They reviewed several well-known personality

instruments and found “sizeable” gender differences in the various instruments and scales. While males and females may differ along personality dimensions in the general population, the existence and importance of gender-based personality differences within the general managerial ranks has generated a good deal of debate and discussion (Morrison and Von Glinow, 1990). This discussion has extended into the global arena where authors have speculated that genderbased differences in personality, managerial style and behavior may have significant implications in overseas assignments (Caligiuri and Cascio, 1998), and that, as a group, women may be better suited for expatriate success (Adler and Izraeli, 1995; Tung, 1997). Some of these latter perspectives follow. Westwood and Leung (1994), for example, reported that in their qualitative results, a number of female expatriate respondents perceived that women benefitted from being more sensitive, interpersonally aware, empathetic and sociable than men. “[This] is interesting since it implies that women are naturally better suited to cross-cultural situations and may be more appropriate candidates for overseas assignments than men” (Westwood and Leung, 1994, p. 69). In another perspective, Harris (1993, p. 11) notes that: Managerial qualities/skills highlighting the need for “relational” or interpersonal abilities, have been outlined as predictive criteria for success in expatriate positions. These correlate with current research findings on women’s management styles. However, it has been shown already that technical competence is still used as the main criterion in expatriate selection procedures by many organizations. Growing criticism of reliance on the “hard skills” of management both within the domestic and international business environment may well provide the impetus for a more balanced procedure . . . revision of selection procedures to encompass broader “feeder” channels and to emphasize skills related to international assignment success could trigger a substantial increase in the number of women being offered foreign postings.

Further, Feltes and Steinhaus (1998, p. 14) argue that “Women have shown themselves to be flexible and inclusive managers with the very skills required for international positions.” Finally, Adler and Izraeli (1995, p. 182) note that arguments have been made that “. . . the increasing emphasis on international and transnational management, and with it the heightened importance of relationship-building skills, again put a premium on the very characteristics that have been thought to be women’s strengths.” As indicated in the above excerpts, there is a general, albeit tentative, suggestion in the literature that gender-based dispositional differences may lead to better performance by females in international assignments. In this study, we draw on the empirical results of Caligiuri (2000) to test this proposition. We examine the following research question: If potential managers are screened for personality characteristics associated with expatriate success, what is the gender composition of the resulting pool? More specifically, do a disproportionate number of females pass the personality-based screen? We describe the method used to explore this research question below.

Are women “better” than men? 233

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Method Sample As part of another study, personality data were collected from four different student pools. The first group was comprised of 371 general undergraduate students from “University A”, a large university located near the geographic center of the USA. This group was 52.5 per cent female with a mean age of 20.1 years (SD ¼ 3.14; range ¼ 17-44). The second group consisted of 192 working adults enrolled in an evening MBA program at University A. This group was 34.3 per cent female with a mean age of 30.0 years (SD ¼ 6.42; range ¼ 21-55). The third group of subjects were 221 undergraduate (primarily business) students from “University B”, a large university located in northern USA. This group was 46.2 per cent female with a mean age of 22.38 years (SD ¼ 3.22; range ¼ 19-47). The fourth and final group was composed of 296 undergraduate pre-business students enrolled in “University A”. This group was 35.1 per cent female with a mean age of 20.49 years (SD ¼ 2.75; range ¼ 18-47). The first three subject groups completed the NEO-PI-R (Costa and McCrae, 1992), while the latter group completed the Hogan personality inventory (Hogan and Hogan, 1995). Both instruments are designed to assess the “big five” personality dimensions. Measures The NEO-PI-R consists of 240 statements on which respondents are asked to indicate their relative agreement on five-point scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. This personality inventory was specifically designed to measure personality according to the five factor model. A six-year study showed test-retest reliability of the neuroticism, extroversion, and openness scales ranging from 0.68 to 0.83 in both spouse ratings and selfreports. Three-year test-retest reliabilities for the agreeableness and conscientiousness scales were 0.63 and 0.79 respectfully. A seven-year testretest reliability study found reliabilities ranging from 0.63 to 0.81 for the five dimensions in men and women (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Like the NEO-PI-R, the Hogan personality inventory was developed using the five-factor model of personality. However, although it is based on the five-factor model, the HPI actually measures seven personality dimensions. The HPI dimensions and their corresponding dimensions on the NEO-PI-R are: adjustment (neuroticism), likability (agreeableness), prudence (conscientiousness), ambition (extroversion), sociability (extroversion), intellectance (openness to experience), and school success (openness to experience). Note that the HPI divides both extroversion and openness to experience into two components. The HPI manual (Hogan and Hogan, 1995) reports the following reliability data: For adjustment, Cronbach’s a ¼ 0:89 and rtt (test-retest reliabilityÞ ¼ 0:86; for ambition, Cronbach’s a ¼ 0:86 and rtt ¼ 0:83; for sociability, Cronbach’s a ¼ 0:76 and rtt ¼ 0:81; for likeability, Cronbach’s a ¼

0:71 and rtt ¼ 0:80; for prudence, Cronbach’s a ¼ 0:78 and rtt ¼ 0:74; for intellectance, Cronbach’s a ¼ 0:78 and rtt ¼ 0:83; for school success, Cronbach’s a ¼ 0:75 and rtt ¼ 0:86. As noted earlier, results from Caligiuri (2000) indicate that extroversion and agreeableness are negatively related to the desire to terminate the expat assignment, while conscientiousness is positively related to supervisor-rated expat performance. Using these results as a guide, we created “expatriate composite scores” (ECS) designed to predict expats’ performance outcomes by equally weighting and averaging extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness scale scores from either the Hogan or the NEO inventories[1].

Results Two basic approaches to selection are the top down and minimum competency strategies (Heneman et al., 2000). The top down approach assumes that “more is better” with respect to selection predictors; candidates are arrayed from top to bottom with applicants selected in rank order until the number of desired candidates is obtained. Under the minimum competency approach, a cut score on a predictor is set on the basis of the minimum qualifications deemed necessary to perform the job. This approach is often employed as one (early) step in a multi-stage selection procedure. With respect to personality assessment in the international arena, some recommend (e.g. Cornelius Grove & Associates, LLC) using this approach in identifying candidates who are most “at risk” of failure (Grove and Hallowell, 1998). The present study adopts both approaches. We impose our personality-based ECS criteria on the four different sample groups across eight different selection ratios. The first four selection ratios (5 per cent, 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 30 per cent) represent a traditional top down hiring strategy, where candidates are screened in on the basis of high rankings on their predictor scores, in this instance their ECS scores. The second set of four selection ratios (70 per cent, 80 per cent, 90 per cent, 95 per cent) represents a minimum competency approach to hiring, where candidates are screened out based on their low score on the ECS predictor. Thus, we have 32 different selection outcomes in which to examine gender composition (i.e. four samples, eight selection ratios). Results are presented in Tables I-IV. In each table, the four top down selection ratios appear in the first four rows followed by the four minimum competency selection ratios. For each selection ratio, the tables present columns containing the percentage of males selected, the percentage of females selected, the absolute differences between these percentages, phi coefficients and associated significance tests. Phi coefficients are based on the chi-square statistic, adjusted for sample size, and indicate the degree of association between two nominal variables (i.e. male/female and selected/not selected)[2].

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In all 32 scenarios, the proportion of females selected is greater than the proportion of males selected. In some instances the difference in proportions is fairly small, whereas in others the percentage of females selected is more than twice that of the males (e.g. 41.5 per cent vs 18.2 per cent from Table I results for 30 per cent selection ratio). In terms of the statistical tests, gender displays a consistent pattern with respect to selection outcomes. Based on the phi coefficients, in 18 of the 32 selection outcomes the association is strong enough to reject the null hypothesis of no association at conventional (p , 0:05) levels. At p , 0:10 significance levels, the null hypothesis of no association is rejected in 25 of 32 instances. Another approach to assessing demographic group outcome differences is from a legal perspective. Although somewhat of a parochial perspective, since these samples are drawn from the USA, it is appropriate to examine them from the perspective of the US equal employment opportunity (EEO) legal environment. A first step in employment discrimination court cases in the USA is establishing whether or not evidence supports a prima facie (i.e. initial)

Selection approach

Table I. Selection percentages of males and females using the NEObased expatriate composite score

Selection ratio

Males (n ¼ 176)

Females (n ¼ 195)

Top down % 5 2.8 7.2 n 19 5 14 Top down % 10 4.5 14.9 n 37 8 29 Top down % 20 10.8 27.7 n 73 19 54 Top down % 30 18.2 41.5 n 113 32 81 Minimum competency % 70 54.0 83.6 n 258 95 163 Minimum competency % 80 67.0 90.3 n 294 118 176 Minimum competency % 90 84.1 95.9 n 335 148 187 Minimum competency % 95 90.9 99.0 n 353 160 193 Notes: Sample 1: University A undergraduate students; n ¼ 371

Percentage difference (%)

Phi coeff.

Sig. level

4.4

0.098

0.058

10.4

0.172

0.001

16.9

0.212

0.000

23.3

0.253

0.000

29.6

0.321

0.000

23.3

0.286

0.000

11.8

0.199

0.000

8.1

0.187

0.000

Selection approach

Selection ratio

Males n ¼ 126

Top down % 5 n 10 Top down % 10 n 19 Top down % 20 n 37 Top down % 30 n 58 Minimum competency % 70 n 132 Minimum competency % 80 n 152 Minimum competency % 90 n 173 Minimum competency % 95 n 183 Notes: Sample 2: University A evening

Females n ¼ 66

Percentage difference

Phi coeff.

Sig. level

3.2 4

9.1 6

5.9

0.126

0.080

7.1 9

15.2 10

8.1

0.127

0.078

13.5 17

30.3 20

16.8

0.202

0.005

23.8 30

42.4 28

18.6

0.193

0.008

62.7 79

80.3 53

17.6

0.180

0.012

74.6 94

87.9 58

13.3

0.155

0.031

87.3 110

95.5 63

94.4 97.0 119 64 MBA students; n ¼ 192

8.2

0.130

0.072

2.6

0.057

0.432

finding of adverse impact in group outcomes. While the outcomes can be compared in a number of ways, one of the more common methods is to compare group selection ratios through the application of the four-fifths or 80 per cent rule (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Civil Service Commission, Department of Labor, and Department of Justice, 1978). If the selection ratio of any group is less than 80 per cent of the ratio of the most favorably treated group, then a prima facie finding of inequality exists. For example, in the case of the 20 per cent selection ratio in Table I, 10.8 per cent of the males and 27.7 per cent of the females are selected. To determine if the 80 per cent (four-fifths) rule indicates unequal outcomes, the smallest proportion is divided by the largest proportion (10:8 4 27:7) and examined to see if the result exceeds 0.80. If less than 0.80, a prima facie case of group outcome differences (i.e. adverse impact) is established. In the example above, since 0.38 (10:8 4 27:7) is less than 0.80, we would conclude that adverse impact exists. Applying the 80 per cent rule to the group outcomes in this simulation, unequal group outcomes favoring females are indicated in 21 of the 32 instances[3].

Are women “better” than men? 237

Table II. Selection percentages of males and females using the NEObased expatriate composite score

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Table III. Selection percentages of males and females using the NEObased expatriate composite score

Selection approach

Selection ratio

Males n ¼ 119

Females n ¼ 102

Percentage difference

Top down % 5 4.2 5.9 n 11 5 6 Top down % 10 7.6 12.7 n 22 9 13 Top down % 20 15.1 25.5 n 44 18 26 Top down % 30 22.7 38.2 n 66 27 39 Minimum competency % 70 56.3 86.3 n 155 67 88 Minimum competency % 80 68.9 93.1 n 177 82 95 Minimum competency % 90 83.2 98.0 n 199 99 100 Minimum competency % 95 92.4 98.0 n 210 110 100 Notes: Sample 3: University B undergraduate students; n ¼ 221

Phi coeff.

Sig. level

1.7

0.039

0.567

5.1

0.086

0.200

10.4

0.129

0.054

15.5

0.169

0.012

20.0

0.326

0.000

24.2

0.302

0.000

14.8

0.247

0.000

5.6

0.128

0.056

Discussion Personality and psycho-social factors have often been discussed as particularly important factors affecting expatriate success. Despite this speculation, relatively little research has directly explored these issues. Caligiuri’s (2000) study of the “big five” and expat performance supported a role for personality in explaining international success. She found that more extroverted and agreeable individuals on foreign assignment were less likely to want to terminate their assignments prematurely. Caligiuri believes that these personality dimensions may relate to the ability to interact with and form social alliances with host nationals and other expatriates. Her research also suggests that expatriates with higher levels of conscientiousness are judged to be superior performers. Other literature discussing international assignment success has suggested that gender-based dispositional differences may, in fact, favor women (e.g. Adler and Izraeli, 1995; Harris, 1993; Tung, 1997). The present study used “big five” personality data to explore this issue. Guided by Caligiuri’s (2000) results, we created an expatriate composite score (from

Selection approach

Selection ratio

Males n ¼ 192

Females n ¼ 104

Percentage difference

Top down % 5 4.2 6.7 n 15 8 7 Top down % 10 8.3 13.5 n 30 16 14 Top down % 20 18.2 23.1 n 59 35 24 Top down % 30 24.5 40.4 n 89 47 42 Minimum competency % 70 66.1 77.9 n 208 127 81 Minimum competency % 80 75.5 88.5 n 237 145 92 Minimum competency % 90 88.0 94.2 n 267 169 98 Minimum competency % 95 94.8 95.2 n 281 182 99 Notes: Sample 4: University A undergraduate students; n ¼ 296

Phi coeff.

Sig. level

2.5

0.056

0.337

5.2

0.081

0.163

4.9

0.058

0.319

15.9

0.166

0.004

11.8

0.123

0.035

13.0

0.155

0.008

6.2

0.100

0.086

0.4

0.009

0.881

agreeableness, extroversion and conscientiousness scores) and “selected” individuals from four different “applicant” pools for a hypothetical expat assignment. Results indicated a consistent trend – regardless of personality instrument (NEO or HPI), sample, or selection ratio, a greater proportion of women versus men are “selected”. In some instances, the differences in the male and female proportions are dramatic. Statistical and legal tests of these outcomes support the conclusion that the use of personality assessment in expat selection may favor women. Clearly, there are a number of limitations inherent to this study. First, while our research question centers on personality and gender among candidates for expatriate positions, we collect data on students. While our results are consistent across two different personality inventories, two universities, four different samples, and across undergraduates and full-time working graduate students, there is no guarantee that the personality profiles of these student groups would mirror and generalize to those of aspiring international managers. However, given that firms are increasingly seeking university

Are women “better” than men? 239

Table IV. Selection percentages of males and females using the HPI-based expatriate composite score

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graduates who will be comfortable and successful in global careers, the use of university students as study participants is not without merit (Laabs, 1993). Second, in using Caligiuri’s (2000) results we are assuming that her results are not specific to her particular sample. While there is reason to believe that her results should generalize outside of her study domain and to individuals of different nationalities and country assignment (Caligiuri, 2000), this remains an empirical question. Third, although designed to supplement the statistical test, our use of a “legal test” in analysing group outcomes is obviously specific to the US context. The legal basis for assessing the equality of group outcomes would vary across national boundaries. Despite these limitations, our results are fairly robust in supporting the argument that women, as a group, may be somewhat better suited for foreign assignments than their male counterparts. If this is true, then why are they under-represented in these roles? Adler (1987) and Adler and Izraeli (1995) discuss a number of factors that may serve to limit women’s opportunities with respect to these assignments. The first possibility is that women may not be as interested as males in international postings. Pointing to studies of graduating MBAs from top management schools from the USA, Canada and Europe, which indicate no gender-based differences in the desire for international assignments, Adler and Izraeli (1995) dismiss this possibility. Another possibility is that foreigners’ prejudice against women may render them ineffective as expats which, in turn, diminishes their prevalence in these roles. In fact, the opposite may be true – many female expats report that being a woman is more of an advantage than a disadvantage (Adler and Izraeli, 1995). Another factor which may play a role is corporate resistance; firms may be reluctant to send women “over there”. According to Adler and Izraeli (1995), the evidence suggests that this reluctance is, in fact, a major limiting factor. Expressing concern that women may have greater difficulties than their male counterparts in achieving success, many firms report caution in selecting women for international assignments. Contrary to this prevalent corporate view and practice, however, results of the current study suggest that in terms of disposition, women may often be better suited for expat assignments than men. Although much further study of these issues is required, greater use of personality assessment during the staffing process, either as an aid to self-selection or as a selection tool, may have several positive outcomes. First, firms may benefit from more valid selection decisions, better expat placement outcomes and associated cost savings (Caligiuri, 2000). Second, greater use of personality assessment and feedback may help guide individuals in making better career decisions, leading to better experiences for expats and their families. Third, based on the preliminary results of this study and other arguments (e.g. Harris, 1993), greater use of dispositional criteria during the selection process may inevitably lead to increased numbers of women being offered foreign assignments.

Although there are many factors beyond personality affecting success on international assignments, our study underscores the belief that: . . . in a ferociously competitive global economy, no company can afford to waste valuable brainpower simply because it’s wearing a skirt (Fisher, 1992, p. 56).

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Notes 1. As noted, the HPI uses seven scales to measure the “big five” personality factors. Extroversion is measured by two scales, ambition and sociability. According to R. Hogan (personal communication, December, 1997) scores for extroversion can be obtained by combining these components. We follow this guidance in creating our ECS measure. 2. An alternative test statistic for assessing the association between two nominal variables is Goodman and Kruskal’s tau, which is based on the proportional reduction in error. The use of tau instead of phi does not change our results or conclusions. 3. As indicated above, in the USA, EEO legal proceedings, a prima facie finding is only the first step in establishing employment discrimination. Following a prima facie finding, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant (e.g. hiring organization) who can justify their selection procedure by showing “job-relatedness” (Gatewood and Feild, 1998). In the case of using personality data as selection criteria for international assignments, one approach would be to present validity evidence such as that generated by Caligiuri (2000).

References Adler, N.J. (1987), “Pacific basin managers: a Gaijin, not a woman”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 26, pp. 169-92. Adler, N.J. and Izraeli, D.N. (1995), “Women managers: moving up and across borders”, in Shenkar, O. (Ed.), Global Perspectives of Human Resource Management, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 165-93. Arthur, W. and Bennett, W. (1995), “The international assignee: the relative importance of factors perceived to contribute to success”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 8, pp. 99-114. Barrick, M.R. and Mount, M.K. (1991), “The big five personality dimensions and job performance: a meta-analysis”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 44, pp. 1-26. Black, J.S. (1990), “The relationship of personal characteristics with adjustment of Japanese expatriate managers”, Management International Review, Vol. 19, pp. 119-34. Black, J.S. and Gregerson, H.B. (1999), “The right way to manage expats”, Harvard Business Review, March-April, pp. 52-62. Black, J.S., Gregerson, H.B. and Mendenhall, M.E. (1992), Global Assignments, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Black, J.S., Mendenhall, M.E. and Oddou, G. (1991), “Toward a comprehensive model of international adjustment: an integration of multiple theoretical perspectives”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 16, pp. 291-317. Caligiuri, P.M. (2000), “The big five personality characteristics as predictors of expatriates? Desire to terminate the assignment and supervisor-rated performance”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 53, pp. 67-88. Caligiuri, P.M. and Cascio, W.F. (1998), “Can we send her there? Maximizing the success of Western women on global assignments”, Journal of World Business, Vol. 33, pp. 394-416.

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Caligiuri, P.M. and Tung, R.L. (1999), “Comparing the success of male and female expatriates from a US-based multinational company”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 10, pp. 763-82. Caligiuri, P.M., Joshi, A. and Lazarova, M. (1999), “Factors influencing the adjustment of women on global assignments”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 10, pp. 163-79.

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Costa, P.T. Jr and McCrae, R.R. (1992), Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R), Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc., Odessa, FL. Feltes, P. and Steinhaus, C. (1998), “Wanted: international managers, women should apply”, Business Forum, Vol. 23, pp. 13-16. Fisher, A. (1992), “When will women get to the top”, Fortune, Vol. 21, September, pp. 44-56. Fisher, A. (1998), “Overseas, US businesswomen may have the edge”, Fortune, Vol. 28, September, p. 304. Florkowski, G.W. and Fogel, D.S. (1995), “Perceived host ethnocentrism as a determinant of expatriate adjustment and organizational commitment”, paper presented at the National Academy of Management Meetings, Vancouver, Canada, 6-9 August. Gatewood, R.D. and Feild, H.S. (1998), Human Resource Selection, 4th ed., Dryden, Fort Worth, TX. Grove, C. and Hallowell, W. (1998), “The ideal expatriate”, originally published in Benefits and Compensation Solutions, May, available at: www.grovewell.com/pub-expat-assess.html Guion, R.M. (1965), Personnel Testing, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Harris, H. (1993), “Women in international management: opportunity or threat?”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 8, pp. 9-14. Heneman, H.G. III, Judge, T.A. and Heneman, R.L. (2000), Staffing Organizations, 3rd ed., Irwin/McGraw-Hill, Boston, MA. Hogan, R. (1991), “Personality and personality measurement”, in Dunnette, M.C. and Hough, L.M. (Eds), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2nd ed., Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 873-919. Hogan, R.T. and Hogan, J. (1995), Hogan Personality Inventory Manual, 2nd ed., Hogan Assessment Systems, Tulsa, OK. Hough, L.M., Eaton, N.K., Dunnette, M.D., Kamp, J.D. and McCloy, R.A. (1990), “Criterion-related validities of personality constructs and the effect of response distortion on those validities”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 75, pp. 581-95. Laabs, J.L. (1993), “How Gillette grooms global talent”, Personnel Journal, Vol. 72, pp. 64-76. McCrae, R.R. and Costa, P.T. (1997), “Personality trait structure as a human universal”, American Psychologist, Vol. 52, pp. 509-16. Mendenhall, M. and Oddou, G. (1985), “The dimensions of expatriate acculturation”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 10, pp. 39-47. Morrison, A.M. and Von Glinow, M.A. (1990), “Women and minorities in management”, American Psychologist, Vol. 45, pp. 200-8. Mount, M.K. and Barrick, M.R. (1995), “The big five personality dimensions: implications for research and practice in human resources management”, in Ferris, G.R. (Ed.), Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, Vol. 13, pp. 153-200.

Ones, D.S. and Viswesvaran, C. (1997), “Personality determinants in the prediction of aspects of expatriate job success”, in Aycan, Z. (Ed.), Expatriate Management: Theory and Practice, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 63-92. Sackett, P.R. and Wilk, S.L. (1994), “Within-group norming and other forms of score adjustment in preemployment testing”, American Psychologist, Vol. 49, pp. 929-54. Salgado, J.F. (1997), “The five factor model of personality and job performance in the European community”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 82, pp. 30-43. Taylor, S. and Napier, N. (1996), “Working in Japan: lessons from western expatriates”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 37, pp. 76-84. Tett, R.P., Jackson, D.N. and Rothstein, M. (1991), “Personality measures as predictors of job performance: a meta-analytic review”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 44, pp. 703-42. Tung, R.L. (1997), “Canadian expatriates in Asia-Pacific: an analysis of their attitude toward and experience in international assignments”, paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, St Louis, MO, 11-13 April. Tyler, K. (2001), “Don’t fence her in”, HRMagazine, Vol. 46, pp. 69-77. US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Civil Service Commission, Department of Labor, and Department of Justice (1978), “Uniform guidelines on employee selection procedures”, Federal Register, Vol. 43, pp. 38290-315. Westwood, R.I. and Leung, S.M. (1994), “The female expatriate manager experience: coping with gender and culture”, International Studies of Management and Organization, Vol. 24, pp. 64-85. Windham International and National Foreign Trade Council, Inc. (1998), Global Relocation Trends: 1998 Survey Report, Windham International, New York, NY, June. .

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Expatriate career intentions of women on foreign assignments and their adjustment Jan Selmer and Alicia S.M. Leung Department of Management, School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong Keywords Expatriates, Career planning, Interaction, Hong Kong Abstract Despite an increasing demand for international executives, only the most determined women may get assigned abroad. Will this resolve for a career abroad also help them to become successful in their foreign assignment? To answer this question, Western female business expatriates in Hong Kong responded to a mail survey about their expatriate career intentions and their international adjustment. Controlling for the time they had been assigned to Hong Kong, the results show that the more determined the women are to pursue an expatriate career, the better is their interaction adjustment. This is a fundamental finding, as both the other two dimensions of sociocultural adjustment, general adjustment and work adjustment, are based on interpersonal interactions. Implications of these findings for globalizing firms as well as for their female employees are discussed.

Journal of Managerial Psychology Vol. 18 No. 3, 2003 pp. 244-258 q MCB UP Limited 0268-3946 DOI 10.1108/02683940310465252

Introduction It has frequently been argued that people are the key to obtaining a global competitive advantage for any business firm (Bennis, 1989; Black et al., 1992; Pfeffer, 1994) and that expatriation is an important step toward becoming a global leader (Aycan, 2001; Black et al., 1999; Boyacigiller, 1990). Hence, internationalizing companies send executives abroad in increasing numbers (Black and Gregersen, 1999). Unfortunately, the supply of individuals who are willing to accept expatriate assignments is not following this trend. Many companies report that finding enough people with the necessary skills for foreign assignments is one of their greatest human resource challenges (Caligiuri and Cascio, 1998). Despite the need to broaden their talent pool, the share of women companies sent on expatriate assignments is far less than that of their male counterparts. In the early 1980s only about 3 percent of international assignments were occupied by women (Adler, 1984). However, more recent research indicate figures of about 12-15 percent (Florakowski and Fogel, 1999; Windham International and NFTC, 1997; Tung, 1997). Although not the only reason, contributing to the under-representation of female expatriates is the consistent popular belief among MNC decision makers that women do not want international assignments (Adler, 1987, 1993; Stroh et al., 2000). Although this myth has been repeatedly dispelled by empirical research This study was partly supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council, Hong Kong.

(Adler, 1984; Hill and Tillery, 1992; Tung, 1998), a women must be very Career intentions determined to overcome preconceived ideas of decision makers at headquarters of women to become selected for an expatriate assignment (Stroh et al., 2000). However, such a determination to become an expatriate may also facilitate a successful outcome of the foreign assignment. Women nurturing expatriate career intentions may be highly motivated to adjust well in the foreign location to 245 prove their suitability. Consequently, this study explores how the expatriate career intentions of female expatriates are related to their international adjustment. Although the latter is not a performance indicator per se, if expatriates are unable to adjust to work and life at the host location, they are likely to perform poorly (Ones and Viswesvaran, 1997). As this is a first attempt to relate expatriate career intentions of women with outcomes of their assignments, it is an important step in exploring the situation of this increasing group of international business expatriates. It is essential to control the host location since previous research has established that female expatriates typically encounter different host national attitudes in different locations (Adler, 1987; Caligiuri et al., 1999; Stone, 1991) that may affect their extent of international adjustment. Therefore, the survey included female expatriates in the same host location: the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). It covers an area of 1,075 square kilometres south of the PRC mainland and Hong Kong and comprises a modern, mostly urban society. It epitomizes a prosperous and vibrant capitalist modern metropolis. The Hong Kong SAR has 6.2 million inhabitants, of whom 60 percent were born there and more than 30 percent were born on the Chinese mainland (Roberts, 1992). Hong Kong is predominantly Chinese, with an overwhelming majority belonging to the Cantonese dialect group (Roberts, 1992). Although the Hong Kong SAR society has adopted a modern, deceptively Western outlook, Western values are merely superficially embraced, more as skin deep cosmetics than a fundamental basis for thought and conduct (Kirkbride and Westwood, 1993). It has been argued that the Hong Kong Chinese cognitively and emotionally separate modernization from Westernization. Remaining Sino-centric, they are able to regard themselves as modern without losing their Chineseness (Bond and King, 1985). Hence, most of the Western female business expatriates in our study will experience a degree of cultural novelty in Hong Kong indicating the need for adjustment. Expatriate careers A career has been defined as a sequence of related work experiences and activities, directed at personal and organizational goals, through which a person passes during his or her lifetime, that are partly under their own control and partly under that of others (Hall, 1986, 1990). Companies may have some

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interest in promoting careers, realizing that improved efficiency, profitability, corporate growth and, maybe even the survival of the firm, depend on better use and development of employee talent (Walker, 1973). Multinationals need an increasing pool of business expatriates during the process of continued rapid globalization (Shackleton and Newell, 1997) as they use parent country nationals (PCNs) expatriates to transfer headquarter’s philosophy, culture and strategy from the parent to the foreign operations (Downes and Thomas, 1997). They do this by creating international informal personal networks between managers in the corporate organizational structure (Edstro¨m and Galbraith, 1977; Prahalad and Doz, 1981). Control is established by assigning a trusted PCN manager from the parent organization to the foreign operations. Through the process of organizational acculturation, the PCN expatriate transfers the parent organizational culture to the foreign subsidiary (Selmer and de Leon, 1996). In that way, the parent company could identify and promote the careers of such internationally mobile managers who have proved themselves trustworthy and successful in handling relationships with head office, host country relations, and the management of foreign operations. Such a group of capable international managers is selected, self-selected and developed over a number of previous foreign assignments. This emerging category of managers with expatriate careers has been described as a unique group of individuals rising to leadership positions in their organizations by discovering global commonalities, spreading universal ideas and adjusting to the specific requirements of diverse locations. Through the experience gained from their expatriate careers, these executives can “think globally, but act locally” (Kanter, 1995). Consequently, the promotion of expatriate careers leads to a strategic competitive advantage in creating a pool of globally experienced business managers. Such competence cannot be gained in any classroom (Boyacigiller, 1991). Experiences acquired from expatriate careers would fit into the strategic mission and goals of globalizing firms. Hence, international experience should be considered a prerequisite for advancement to higher management positions of globalizing firms (Aryee, 1997) and individuals with experience from expatriate careers may become the leaders of the globalization efforts. However, the acquisition of such useful competence may be contingent on how well the expatriates are adjusted to the foreign context. International adjustment In the literature on international adjustment a distinction between psychological and sociocultural adjustment has been suggested (Searle and Ward, 1990; Ward and Kennedy, 1992; Ward and Searle, 1991). Sociocultural adjustment relates to the ability to “fit in” or to negotiate interactive aspects of the host culture as measured by the amount of difficulty experienced in the management of everyday situations in the host culture (Ward and Kennedy, 1996). Psychological adjustment deals with subjective well-being or mood

states (e.g. depression, anxiety, tension, and fatigue). The former concept is Career intentions based on cultural learning theory and highlights social behavior and practical of women social skills underlying attitudinal factors (Black and Mendenhall, 1991; Furnham, 1993; Klineberg, 1982). The latter notion is based on a problemoriented view, focusing on attitudinal factors of the adjustment process (Grove and Torbio¨rn, 1985; Juffer, 1986; Oberg, 1960). This distinction is consistent 247 with the separation of behavioral from attitudinal acculturation as discussed by Jun et al. (1997). International adjustment was previously regarded as a unitary phenomenon (Gullahorn and Gullahorn, 1962; Oberg, 1960). However, Black et al. (1991) argued that the international adjustment should be treated as a multidimensional concept. They made a distinction between three dimensions of in-country adjustment: (1) adjustment to the general non-work environment; (2) adjustment to interacting with host nationals outside work; and (3) adjustment to work. This three-dimensional model concerns sociocultural aspects of international adjustment. A series of investigations have empirically supported this model (Black and Gregersen, 1990, 1991a, b; Black and Stephens, 1989; McEvoy and Parker, 1995). The concept of subjective well-being coincides with psychological adjustment. This concept has been well developed, especially in relation to work and work environment characteristics (Caplan et al., 1975; Karasek, 1979; Kornhauser, 1965) and has been applied on several occasions in connection with adjustment of business expatriates (Anderzen and Arnetz, 1997, 1999; Aryee and Stone, 1996; Nicholson and Imaizumi, 1993). It was proposed that behavioral changes of sociocultural adjustment could be dictated by certain environmental circumstances while the attitudinal changes of psychological adjustment would be more voluntary and not determined by surrounding conditions (Jun et al., 1997). Psychological adjustment as a mental modification is not directly observable by others, but expatriates may feel compelled to acquire new patterns of behavior to “fit in at the host location”. Thus, learning new social and cultural skills may be unavoidable but there may be less of a need to undergo any major change in deeply held values. And, on repatriation or when meeting fellow-nationals, much like a foreign language, there is no need to use these skills anymore (Furnham and Bochner, 1986). Hypotheses One of the factors limiting the number of female business expatriates seems to involve unfavorable perceptions at headquarters regarding female candidates’ potential to succeed on foreign assignments. Primary reasons stated for

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preferring males over females seem to be to avoid costly failures and to promote the competitive viability of business operations abroad (Adler, 1993). Men make most selection decisions for foreign assignments and they often hold traditional views and stereotypes about women in international leadership positions. Such sex-role stereotyping may result in a “self-fulfilling prophecy” in that qualified female candidates may form negative attitudes about the probability of being selected for going abroad and may therefore not actively seek expatriate assignments (Chusmir and Frontczak, 1990). Therefore, once a female employee, against all odds, has been assigned to a foreign location, the importance of succeeding in that expatriate assignment may take significant proportions. Trying to prove her critics and detractors wrong, she may make a considerable effort to secure a successful outcome of her foreign assignment. Research evidence suggests that women managers are motivated by organizational goals rather than by the promise of promotion; they are tempted by posts that are challenging and involve personal development (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995). In addition, women managers tend to have more goals, wanting to succeed, but also wanting to make the work environment more fulfilling for everyone involved in the business (McLoughlin, 1992). Probably, the outcome of the current expatriate assignment will influence headquarters’ decision as to whether she will be regarded as eligible and suitable for another foreign posting and, eventually, an expatriate career. Hence, it can be presumed that the more determined she is to have an expatriate career, the harder she will try to acquire the appropriate social skills to become adjusted to the sociocultural environment in the host location. This supposition is explored in H1: H1. Expatriate career intentions have a positive association with sociocultural adjustment. Since individual core values are mainly formed during adolescence ending at one’s late teens (Thompson and Thompson, 1990), expatriates on foreign assignments do not necessarily have to undergo a basic shift in deeply-held values and attitudes to conform to a new set of cultural norms (Furnham and Bochner, 1986). Hence, a relatively short stay of a few years is unlikely to result in much attitudinal change (psychological adjustment) of adult women. Therefore, the determination of women to enter an expatriate career may have little impact on their psychological adjustment. H2 examines this presumption: H2. Expatriate career intentions have no association with psychological adjustment. Method Sample The data were from a larger study of business expatriates in Hong Kong. The same questionnaire was used on two different occasions. Only individuals in

the targeted group of business expatriates completed the questionnaire, others Career intentions were screened out. One mail survey was directed toward Western male and of women female business expatriates. Of the 1,713 mailed questionnaires, 343 were returned for a response rate of 20.0 percent. Another mailing targeted female Western business expatriates only. Questionnaires were sent to 321 respondents. After removing 211 respondents from our target group for not 249 being expatriates, having left Hong Kong, etc., the remaining 46 responses constituted a response rate of 28.8 percent. These response rates are comparable to those of other mail surveys of business expatriates (Birdseye and Hill, 1995; Gregersen and Black, 1990; Naumann, 1993). This can also be considered a high response rate for Hong Kong since a large-scale study comparing response rates in international mail surveys in 22 countries reported that the Hong Kong SAR had the lowest rate of 7.1 percent (Harzing, 1997). These two surveys resulted in two samples of female business expatriates (n ¼ 33 and n ¼ 46). As Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) verified that there were no differences between the two samples of women on any of the background variables, the samples were merged forming a single sample of female business expatriates (n ¼ 79). A check for duplicate respondents was negative. The respondents had spent an average of 5.4 years in Hong Kong (SD ¼ 4:1) on the current assignment. On the average, they had been expatriates for 6.7 years (SD ¼ 5:5), including Hong Kong. The average age was 37.7 years (SD ¼ 7:6). As displayed by Table I, the majority of the respondents were not married. The most frequently represented nationality was British. Smaller groups of respondents were from France, the USA, Sweden, The Netherlands and Italy. Although almost all of the female expatriates were managers, only a minority were CEOs. The most common place of work was wholly owned subsidiaries, closely followed by branches.

Instrument Expatriate career intentions were measured by a five-item, self-developed scale with response options ranging from (1) “strongly disagree” to (5) “strongly agree”; sample item: “I would like to spend most of my working life taking up foreign assignments”. The three dimensions of expatriate sociocultural adjustment were measured using scales developed by Black (1988) and Black and Stephens (1989). Respondents were asked to respond to 14 items regarding how well they were or were not adjusting to their life in Hong Kong (sample item: “Speaking with host nationals”). The range of responses varied from (1) “very unadjusted” to (7) “completely adjusted”. Except for one item that was deleted to improve the reliability of work adjustment, the three subscales of expatriate sociocultural adjustment had the originally intended item distribution: general adjustment

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Table I. Background variables (n ¼ 79)

Frequency

Percent

Married

32

40

Nationality British French Swedish US Dutch Italian Other Western

22 11 8 8 5 4 21

28 14 10 10 6 5 27

Position CEO Manager Non-managerial

33 42 4

42 53 5

Organization in Hong Kong Wholly owned subsidiary Branch Representative office Joint venture

31 26 16 2

41 35 21 3

(seven items), interaction adjustment (four items), and work adjustment (two items). Expatriate psychological adjustment was measured using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) developed by Goldberg (1972). Although this instrument is commonly used to measure minor psychiatric symptoms, it has been used extensively to monitor levels of well-being in community and organizational samples (Forster, 2000), as well as to measure expatriates’ subjective well-being (Anderzen and Arnetz, 1997, 1999). Containing a number of questions concerning how people have been feeling recently, it includes sleeping difficulties, feelings of unhappiness, and respondents’ ability to enjoy everyday experiences. Respondents were asked to think about how they have been feeling over the past few weeks (sample item: “Have you recently felt that you are playing a useful part in things?”). Responses ranged from (1) “not at all” to (4) “much more than usual”. Results Descriptive statistics, correlations and reliability estimates are provided in Table II. All alpha scores of the instrument are acceptable (Nunnally, 1978, p. 245). It is notable that the female business expatriates have a mean score for both general adjustment and interaction adjustment above what is depicted as “somewhat adjusted”, well above the mid-level point. For work adjustment, it was even higher, exactly coinciding with the scale point “adjusted”. This may indicate that they were quite comfortable with the sociocultural environment in

Hong Kong. The mean score of psychological adjustment, as measured by Career intentions subjective well-being, was also above the mid-level point of its scale. of women Furthermore, the mean score of the respondents for expatriate career intentions was 3.53, with the nearest scale point of “agree”, indicating an affirmation of their plans of pursuing an expatriate career. The hypotheses were tested by means of hierarchical regression analysis. 251 Since sociocultural adjustment is a process over time (Black et al., 1991; Furnham and Bochner, 1986), the time the expatriates had spent in Hong Kong was used as a control variable in the data analysis and entered first. As displayed in Table III, the control variable was significant for all sociocultural variables explaining 3 percent of general adjustment (beta ¼ 0:22; p , 0:10), 4 percent of interaction adjustment (beta ¼ 0:24; p , 0:05), and 10 percent of work adjustment (beta ¼ 0:33; p , 0:01) of the female business expatriates. All F values for the sociocultural variables were statistically significant, implying a good data fit. However, no significant effect was detected for psychological adjustment which also had a non-significant F value. Adding the predictor variable, expatriate career intentions, did have a significant effect (beta ¼ 0:22; p , 0:10), explaining 10 percent of interaction adjustment of the respondents. Again, all F values were statistically significant indicating a proper fit between the regression model and the data. The addition of the predictor variable did not produce any significant effect on psychological adjustment, neither was the F value significant. These findings support H2 and provide partial support for H1. Conclusion and discussion Controlling for the time they had been assigned to Hong Kong, the results show that the more determined the women are to pursue an expatriate career, the better is their interaction adjustment. Although that positive association is relatively weak in statistical terms, which could be caused by the modest sample size (Haire et al., 1995), this finding may nevertheless be more essential than it initially appears. Interaction adjustment may be the most fundamental of the three dimensions as both work adjustment and general adjustment are based on interpersonal interactions (Bell and Harrison, 1996). At the same time, Variable

Mean SD

1

2

3

4

5

General adjustment 5.62 0.99 (0.81) Interaction adjustment 5.28 1.20 0.43**** (0.83) Work adjustment 6.00 0.94 0.55**** 0.51****(0.74) Subjective well-being 2.72 0.50 0.06 0.07 0.29 (0.89) Expatriate career intentions 3.53 0.82 0.16 0.25** 0.15 0.14 (0.81) Time in Hong Kong (years) (Control) 5.39 4.12 0.22* 0.24** 0.33*** 0.07 0.11 Notes: * p , 0:10; ** p , 0:05; *** p , 0:01; **** p , 0:001

6

Table II. Descriptive statistics, zero-order correlation coefficients, and reliability estimates (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients are in parentheses on the diagonal)

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Black et al. (1992, p. 119) also argue that adjustment to interacting with host country nationals (HCNs) generally is the most difficult of the three adjustment dimensions. In Hong Kong, that contention takes on special proportions. The Hong Kong SAR has two official languages, English and Chinese. However, English language skills are deteriorating (Littlewood and Liu, 1996; Stone, 1999; Stone et al., 2000) and in daily life, Hong Kong Chinese people prefer to use the spoken dialect of Cantonese. This dialect is, for Westerners, an almost impregnable idiom based on a high degree of tonality, typically impeding personal interactions between HCNs and outsiders. Somehow, the female expatriates seem to have been able to overcome this language barrier. Generally, interactions with HCNs in social settings is one way for expatriate newcomers to become aware of appropriate behaviors in the host country since HCNs may act as sources of information and help in understanding (Bochner, 1981). Expatriates with frequent such interactions, exhibit appropriate behaviors. Feldman and Thomas (1992) observed that effective expatriates frequently interacted with HCNs. The finding is also important for the suitability of assigning female expatriates to the Asian region. Interacting with host country nationals can enhance a better understanding of the host country culture. As Furnham and Bochner (1986) point out, deeper relationships with host country nationals help bridge the gap between the two cultures. It facilitates an appreciation and sensitivity of cultural differences, and fosters adjustment (Shaffer and Harrison, 2001). Such relationships create a climate of mutual respect and understanding, thus increasing the likelihood of success of global assignments (Aycan, 1997). Rosener (1990), for example, argues that women adopt an interactive leadership style, particularly suitable to the versatile and dynamic business environment of today. Moreover, as opposed to many Western

Variables

Table III. Results of hierarchical regression analysis for effects of expatriate career intentions on sociocultural and psychological adjustment

Step 1 Time in Hong Kong (control) R R 2 (adjusted) F Step 2 Expatriate career intentions R DR 2 R 2 (adjusted) F Notes: * p , 0:10; ** p , 0:05;

Dependent variables Sociocultural adjustment Psychological adjustment General Interaction Work Subjective well-being b b b b 0.22* 0.22 0.03 3.37*

0.24** 0.24 0.04 4.15**

0.16 0.22* 0.27 0.32 0.07 0.10 0.05 0.08 2.64* 3.92** *** p , 0:01

0.33*** 0.33 0.10 8.30*** 0.09 0.34 0.12 0.09 4.43**

0.07 0.07 2 0.01 0.38 0.16 0.17 0.03 0.00 1.02

countries, much of business in Asia is based on personal relations. The Chinese Career intentions term guanxi, literally relationship, is a well-known concept indicating how of women business can be promoted through interpersonal relationships. Comparable concepts can be found in other parts of Asia (Engholm, 1991, p. 67). In Japan, the term nemwashi (“binding the roots of trees”) means that you circle around issues, getting a feel for relationships and people, before coming to the point. 253 Therefore, in a cultural context where business can be promoted through interpersonal interactions, regardless of other cultural and social circumstances, female business expatriates may perform well. As presumed, increasing determination to pursue an expatriate career was not associated with the psychological adjustment of the female expatriates, as measured by their subjective well-being. As argued, the usually short period of a foreign assignment is not likely to result in much attitudinal change. There may be some limitations to be considered in evaluating the findings of this study. Single-method variance could have biased the results, since the data were collected through a self-report questionnaire. Although the general condemnations of self-report methods have recently been found exaggerated (Crampton and Wagner, 1994), to lessen any potential problem of method bias, all items were assigned to the instrument in random order. Additionally, some of the items had reverse-polarity, to make it more difficult for the respondents to give uniform answers. This may generate more reliable responses as it avoids the problem of respondents depending on a cognitive set of rules in evaluating items intended to measure constructs that are supposed to be conceptually different (Lord and Maher, 1991). Besides these precautionary steps, we assessed the data for the presence of single method variance bias. The social desirability aspect of single method bias often leads to compressed response range (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). Our data did not depict compression of response range. Another limitation is the cross-sectional nature of the study. While our findings, which seem to imply that the more determined the women are to pursue an expatriate career, the better is their interaction adjustment are perfectly plausible, the reverse interpretation is also possible. The more successful the female expatriates are in interacting with host nationals, the more they may feel internationally competent, increasing their determination to pursue an expatriate career. Although this may be considered a limitation in theoretical terms, it is irrelevant in practice since either of the two alternative interpretations will strengthen the career prospects of female business expatriates. The implications are quite straightforward. Female employees with international career plans can be reassured that it is possible for determined women to succeed in their foreign assignments. Their expatriate career intentions, together with their “interactive” approach to foreign culture, may be a valuable asset in their struggle to ensure success abroad. And, the more determination, the higher the likelihood of achieving that goal. Pursuing the

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strategic competitive advantage of creating a pool of globally experienced male and female managers, international firms may benefit from lessening or removing some of the difficulties women experience trying to gain access to expatriate careers. The end result may be an enhanced process of internationalization. As the increasing demand for international business talent will be satisfied by involving more women as expatriates, their acquired international experience may promote their own upward organizational mobility, and at the same time speed up the overall globalization of international business firms. Future research could try to replicate and extend this exploratory study. Other, preferably non-Asian locations, may be selected to corroborate the validity of the results. Furthermore, examining other samples of male and female business expatriates may also further test our findings. Adding performance to the dependent variables as well as avoiding self-assessment of such variables would be a useful extension for future studies of female business expatriates. References Adler, N.J. (1984), “Expecting international success: female managers overseas”, Columbia Journal of World Business, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 79-85. Adler, N.J. (1987), “Pacific Basin managers: a Gaijin, not a woman”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 169-91. Adler, N.J. (1993), “Women managers in a global economy”, HR Magazine, Vol. 38 No. 9, pp. 52-5. Alimo-Metcalfe, B. (1995), “Female and male constructs of leadership and empowerment”, Women in Management, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 3-8. Anderzen, I. and Arnetz, B.B. (1997), “Psychophysiological reactions during the first year of foreign assignment: results from a controlled longitudinal study”, Work and Stress, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 304-18. Anderzen, I. and Arnetz, B.B. (1999), “Psychophysiological reactions to international adjustment: results from a controlled, longitudinal study”, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Vol. 68, pp. 67-75. Aryee, S. (1997), “Selection and training of expatriate employees”, in Anderson, N. and Herriot, P. (Eds), Handbook of Selection and Appraisal, John Wiley & Sons, London. Aryee, S. and Stone, R. (1996), “Work experiences, work adjustment and psychological well-being of expatriate employees in Hong Kong”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 150-64. Aycan, Z. (1997), “Acculturation of expatriate managers: a process model of adjustment and performance”, New Approaches to Employee Management, Vol. 4, pp. 1-40. Aycan, Z. (2001), “Expatriation: a critical step toward developing global leaders”, in Mendenhall, M.E., Ku¨hlmann, T.M. and Stahl, G.K. (Eds), Developing Global Leaders: Policies, Processes, and Innovations, Quorum Books, Westport, CT. Bell, M.P. and Harrison, D.A. (1996), “Using intra-national diversity for international assignments: a model of bicultural competence and expatriate adjustment”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 47-74. Bennis, S.M. (1989), On Becoming a Leader, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.

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Expatriate stories: a vehicle of professional development abroad?

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Lyn Glanz Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam, The Netherlands and IHTC, Cham, Zug, Switzerland Keywords Expatriates, Narratives, Professionals, Development Abstract Two-thirds of European organisations are using informal briefings for expatriates. Why should expatriates place a heavy premium on such input, even when given in the stories of complete strangers? This article uses narrative method to examine expatriate experience, considering how stories enable expatriate understanding of novel environments. It considers briefly the importance of surprise in these situations and Weick’s seven properties of sensemaking are used as a guideline for placing such expatriate stories in a sensemaking context. It further questions whether such stories might contribute to professional development by helping to bestow meaning for expatriates reflecting on their experiences.

Introduction There has been criticism of the failure of organisations to implement formal preparation for expatriation within the growing body of research on expatriation (summarized by Furnham and Bochner, 1986; Black et al., 1991; Brewster and Scullion, 1997). A substantial body of research concentrating on the importance of careful selection and training programmes for optimizing the success of expatriate managers (Tung, 1981; Gregersen and Black, 1992; Brewster and Pickard, 1994) now exists. Such studies generally recommend cross-cultural training programmes that include language, customs, and other relevant information about a host country. Common approaches to predeparture expatriate training emphasise generic principles of managerial effectiveness and cross-cultural awareness, or familiarity with general characteristics of a particular ethnic culture based on models of social learning and cross-cultural adjustment (Oberg, 1960). Recently there has been some suggestion that such approaches fail to address the complexity of present day expatriate experience. Investigating the input of the host country workforce, Vance and Paik (2002) suggest “. . . both ethnocentrism and the universal/generic nature of past approaches may have led to the design of expatriate pre-departure training that does not adequately address the specific and unique workforce demands present in a particular Support for research resulting in this paper has been provided in part by the Foundation for Corporate Education (Stichting Opleidingskunde), Maliebaan 45,3581 CD Utrecht.Nl. E-mail: [email protected]

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assigned country”. Some resistance to formal expatriate training comes from executives themselves. One survey suggests that 70 per cent of companies surveyed provided cross-cultural preparation of at least one day, but of these 33 per cent of eligible employees declined this form of assistance (Windham International, 1998). Suutari and Brewster (1998) have suggested the shortfall in take-up of formal preparation may be due in part to time pressures and other organisational commitments. Mendenhall and Stahl (2000, p. 252) propose “Expatriates need training in ‘real time’; they need cross-cultural training – or some other form of personal assistance ‘on the fly’”. Vance and Paik (2002) advise “Perhaps it is not pre-departure training per se, but rather the faulty, non-customized nature of past approaches to this training that recently has led to the conclusion that on-site, real time learning for expatriate managers is much more important and effective than pre-departure training (Bird et al., 1999)”. Contrasting with the take-up of formal preparation, Harris and Brewster (1999) cite two-thirds of European organisations as using informal briefings for expatriates: Arguably, the chance to meet and discuss the host country with people who know it well, perhaps other employees of the company from there or who have just returned, is among the cheapest and best forms of preparation . . . Many expatriates make their own arrangements of this sort (Harris and Brewster 1999, p. 226).

This informal preparation, hard to track and quantify, has been underemphasized in both theory and mainstream human resources practice. We have very little understanding of why expatriates place a heavy premium on the informal, voluntary input that may be given in the stories of complete strangers. In this article, using narrative, we turn to sensemaking (Weick, 1995) to offer a theoretical framework to investigate this informal input. Sensemaking theory Sensemaking is the process whereby we use conscious rational thought to reanalyse and bring order to confusion and surprise. This seems to be a concept that provides a workable framework for uncertainty and unstable environments encountered in international expatriate experience. Black et al. (1991) noted the relevance of the concept of sensemaking to expatriation in their review of expatriate research, and sensemaking in expatriation has since been examined in more detail (Hippler, 2000; Glanz et al., 2001). Essentially an internal process, the quicksilver nature of sensemaking has meant that sensemaking studies in other areas have concentrated on selfreporting techniques, critical incident analysis and storytelling. Sensemaking as a process using quantitative methods may be elusive, and alternative qualitative methods or combinations of quantitative and qualitative methods may prove more appropriate. Weick (1995) advocates storytelling and its analysis. Expatriation is a special case. Alongside increasing academic

research literature (including academic narrative input) there is a growing body of handbooks, biographies and “eyewitness” documentary evidence seeking to offer advice and information regarding the expatriation process to interested parties. Such input constitutes “narrative” – “a representation of past events in any medium: narratives can be oral, written, filmed or drawn” (Linde, 2001). This parallel literature provides a source material for examining sensemaking in expatriation. Of major importance in this field is the growth of information, advice and recollection of experience available via the Internet. It has always been open to expatriates to pursue information from colleagues and informal contacts prior to departure. In the past, informal expatriate organisations acted as knowledge archives of expatriate experience. The difference the Internet has made to this is in terms of cost, availability and breadth of information on offer across geographical boundaries. It also removes the need for initial introduction from a personal intermediary and hence opens such opportunities to new or “naı¨ve” expatriates. New expatriate resources available via the Internet (e.g. expatexchange.com and iAgora.com) regularly ask for expatriate stories and anecdotes as reference material for other expatriates. These narratives and anecdotes provide the opportunity to use a network of contacts as a free or cheap source of informed knowledge. Their academic relevance with regard to expatriation has not yet been fully explored. Yet they offer something that is hard to access in other ways . . . on the spot, actual material from potential expatriates and expatriates at the time when they are making crucial decisions. Further, the advice offered back by other expatriates offers insight into how people have processed past information and experience to make sense of their own expatriate experience. Narrative method The use of narrative method in organisation and management, particularly relating to expatriation, is comparatively new. Peltonen (1998) has considered the use of narrative, building on research methods he says were first explored in the semiotic analysis of language and culture in anthropology (Le´vi-Strauss, 1963). Peltonen’s (1998, p. 877) work “focuses on meaning structures current or former expatriate employees themselves draw on when describing the unfolding and experiences of an international career”. Such interpretive research does not predefine dependent and independent variables, but focuses on the full complexity of human sense making as the situation emerges. In this way the difference between storytelling and narrative is defined. Boje (2000) splits the concepts of story and narrative thus: “Story is an account of incidents or events, but narrative comes after and adds “plot” and “coherence” to the story line”. For individuals, this is sensemaking at work. As events unfold, so long as they are conforming to our programmed scripts, they are precisely that, a story. It is the narrative we add or perceive in such events that provides sensemaking.

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Conventional quantitative measures are hard to employ in investigating sensemaking where apparently random moments of revelation can overturn well established belief and behaviour in a very short time frame and as a result of an infinite number of variables. Weick (1995) accepts the methodological problems this causes but suggests noticing, manipulation, interpretation and framing are all legitimate ways of helping others understand the actions of people in everyday life. Referents and accounts are given when a moment in the process of evolving is “frozen”. Hannabuss (2000) asserts “. . . narrative is a natural and intuitive methodological instrument for eliciting and examining the events and states of mind and outcomes in management” because of its chronological, teleological (an ends-means logic in which people decide to do things and their decisions have consequences) and reflexive characteristics. These characteristics are helpful because of their fit with the characteristics of sensemaking to be examined in this article. Data and method It is important that the origin of narratives can be determined though reference to an individual or published source. The general concept of reliability in quantitative research is similar to the concepts of dependability or consistency in qualitative research. Meyers (1997) suggests to establish the concept of “trustworthiness” (Guba and Lincoln, 1994) in qualitative methodology, attention must be given to the concepts of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability, which have parallel conceptual counterparts in the tenets of classical research design: objectivity, reliability and validity. We have attempted to apply these concepts to the collection of our material with the understanding that each of these concepts are subject to a continuing, ongoing debate as to how far they can be applied to qualitative method. Given that narrative method allows for differential interpretation, it is extremely important that researchers using this method ensure narratives and accounts are properly charted and traceable, not least to allow examination of alternative interpretations. The narratives in this article were originally collected for a story database to help illustrate a quantitative study into sensemaking in expatriation (Glanz et al., 2001). The quantitative study was concerned with the impact of intermediaries – “socio-cultural brokers” (Glanz et al., 2002) and sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1987) in the acculturation of expatriates. Narratives were collected that gave insight into the suggested presence or absence of “sensemaking elements” (Glanz et al., 2001). Initial narratives for the story database arose from anecdotes and instances used regularly by the author and both volunteer and professional colleagues for the purposes of acculturating individuals and families into The Netherlands. Subsequent narratives involving other cultures and differing types of overseas assignments, which were seen to represent sensemaking properties, were added over time.

Documentation of narratives came from a variety of sources: online postings, published material, letters and personal mail from expatriates, interviews, written accounts of personal experiences solicited by e-mail, a written record of the author’s own personal experiences and summaries of verbal accounts that were written up by the author and e-mailed to participants for verification as an accurate record of events. We used purposeful and non-probabilistic sampling strategies in collecting narratives for our study (Goetz and LeCompte, 1984) in that we deliberately selected material or participants for the insights they could provide in investigating the research problem. The 11 narratives in this article were drawn from four sources: (1) input on the Web posted online by expatriates about their own circumstances (three); (2) the author’s personal experience (two); (3) the experiences of contacts given verbally that were checked and verified by e-mail with persons directly involved (four); (4) stories drawn from the press and expatriation eyewitness accounts using named individuals and companies (two). These narratives were collected between 1995 and 2000 but may refer to earlier events. We consider all materials published for academic purposes as secondary sources, but describe all stories and anecdotes published online or in other media (e.g. newspaper articles, biography) as primary sources when they occur in real time and for purposes other than academic study. Published material is accredited, while material from individuals is presented in such a way as to protect the privacy of individuals and organisations involved. The identity of informants and organisations has been coded for future reference. All examples are drawn from actual expatriate experience in an attempt to provide “narratives of the actual” and to avoid the construction of “normative and idealised knowledge” (Steyaert and Janssens, 1999, p. 193). It is accepted that while such narratives may be appropriate tools for mapping the fluidity of sensemaking, they are theoretically biased and that others will make alternative sense of these stories and interpret them differently. Indeed, several examples are drawn from existing “adjustment” literature. This differential interpretation is consistent with narrative theory. Peltonen (1998, p. 878) acknowledges it is “appropriate to assume many competing versions of the ‘same’ factual development in a person’s talk and situationally varying combinations of those meaning structures”. More than with other approaches, subjective, heterogeneous interpretations of texts are considered the norm. Expatriates facing overseas assignments and gathering information will make individual assessments of what such information represents to them. As an attempt to illustrate this, we include the online diary posting below from Thailand and consider what it might mean to expatriates facing a move there:

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12:11pm Nov 1, 2000. We are being battered by a storm that is the result of a typhoon in Taiwan. Winds are ripping coconuts and fronds off the trees, it is dangerous to go outside or it is possible to get bashed with a coconut . . . wow . . . I never was in such a storm. I come from tornado country but the sea is a new arena for me. The sea is at our balcony already. The bungalow is being put to the test, the tiles are holding. We expect to lose electricity very soon. The beach is gone. We are getting blasted from the sea by high winds and waves. The sea is iron-grey fury, and the waves are at our feet. The tide has hit the sea wall and our balcony ends half a meter away. It is wonderful and full of fury. Cool air (about 85F). We get our weather news online since there is no local newpaper and the Bangkok Time comes a day late . . . so we check the weather online, knowing that we’d be the last to know we were being blasted by a typhoon if one was anticipated (Heine, 2000).

It is impossible to judge the effect of such a posting on a potential expatriate and responses could range from an immediate decision to withdraw from moving abroad to one of enthusiasm for the potential challenges ahead. And yet powerful images of this sort help make up views and expectations of life abroad when people make decisions about overseas postings. Sensemaking properties In this paper, we place stories enabling expatriate understanding of novel environments and situations in a sensemaking context. Weick (1995) suggests there are seven properties of sensemaking. He says the process is: (1) grounded identity construction; (2) retrospective; (3) enactive of sensible environments; (4) social; (5) ongoing; (6) focussed on and by extracted clues; and (7) driven by plausibility rather than accuracy. We shall examine these properties with specific reference to the experience of expatriation, using expatriate stories from a variety of cultures to give an indication of how this process operates in reality. Weick (1995) speaks of the process of sensemaking being “grounded in identity construction”. He takes the view that we can call on a “parliament of selves” and the individual is constructed by shifting between definitions of self. “I make sense of whatever is happening around me by asking what implications do these events have for who I will be?” (Weick, 1995, p. 23). Weick (1995), Louis (1980) and Reason (1990) suggest the more selves to which we have access, the less likelihood that we will be surprised. The “selves” making up our core identity will affect the way we respond to certain inputs and can be illustrated by the experiences of children attempting to consolidate two cultures:

The daughter of a Hungarian refugee has related how as a child she ran to her parents in panic on hearing of the Beatles first tour to America, as in her home, the Beatles were associated with communism which in turn was identified with threat and aggression. The colour red was not allowed in the home. Growing up in small town USA she described how she would have to juggle what she knew of everyday American culture with the possibility that there would, for example, be red tablecloths at a school event that her parents might attend. The meaning of and her response to the Beatles and red tablecloths as she grew up were quite different according to her receiving “self” as daughter or pupil (SD2, 1999).

The person who has a variety of selves to call upon has flexibility in references and interpretation, allowing greater “goodness-of-fit” when facing potential dissonance between expectation and reality. Osland and Bird (2000) have suggested a cultural sensemaking model in which making attributions is seen as drawing inferences based on identity and experiences. They introduce the concept of people who can cope and interpret cultural paradoxes based on their ability to cope with multiple cultural identities. These people are able to act as “cultural mentors” to translate and explain such paradoxes in business settings. Some firms recruiting for international assignments may have a preference for the children of expatriates (Soloman, 1994). Here it may not be direct international experience that is valued but rather the perception of an international self, or even perhaps the recognition of different selves, that is of interest. The development of the recognition of different selves is given in the following example: A Japanese student approached a facilitator of an academic workshop covering different expatriation styles. The student thanked the facilitator and said that the workshop had explained a situation that had concerned him for some time. The son of a successful Japanese expatriate, until the workshop he could not reconcile the advice he’d received from his father about the conduct of international business with the Western (USA) style of management advocated by his present academic institution. A passing comment in the workshop had indicated how Japanese styles of expatriation tended to contain the advice to not draw attention to yourself, not make waves and not jeopardise the company in all endeavours overseas. This contrasted dramatically with the “make your mark”, “show what you can do”, “make a difference” style of management practice he had been exposed to on his course. The understanding arising out of reviewed experience gave him the chance to reassess his appreciation of the course (SD3, 1998).

It is in the nature of sensemaking to be retrospective. Meaning is attributed to that which has actually occurred. It may be possible to alter expectation of future experience, but to bestow meaning on an experience, that experience has to have happened. This retrospective nature is liable to reconstruct events in the light of known outcome, and so it may be that the past is never remembered with complete accuracy. According to Brown and Deguid (1991) individuals make decisions on a set of “justified beliefs”. Bradley et al. (1999, p. 133) explain this further “In order to construct a coherent sequence of events to relate to an interviewer as to how a decision has been made, in effect (individuals) provide a causal map of their experience”. Complex histories of events may lead to determinism in recollection that was not present at the time of occurrence.

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Kaufman (1999) describes how a certain employee was laid off following two years’ expatriation in Hong Kong with Bandag Inc. He records the employee’s interpretations of why the assignment ended in this way. In particular, he refers to behaviour during the assignment that was given a different interpretation when the assignment came to an end:

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Mr B had dealt with crises before, overseeing the downsizing and restructuring of a Bandag plant in California where the workforce was cut by 60 per cent. But this was different. Mr B felt himself falling out of touch. “You have to see people face-to-face, eyeball to eyeball”, says Mr B the former Bandag international executive. Mr B didn’t. He skipped meetings in Iowa that were to discuss the Asian crisis. “I looked at the agenda and there were only two hours that would have included me. It didn’t make sense to fly 18 hours for a two hour meeting”, he says, noting that no one in Muscadine said explicitly that he had to attend. “We thought e-mail would do. But e-mail didn’t get it done. We didn’t have a sense of urgency. We didn’t react quickly enough that sales weren’t coming in”.

This has implications for timing. Forster and Johnsen (1996) point to the emphasis in the management of expatriation being placed on preparation and arrival, while literature suggests that the most difficult times for expatriates occur some months after arrival. Pre-departure provision may help foster the concept that the employing organisation has the best interests of its expatriate workers at heart. However sensemaking theory would tend to suggest “anticipatory adjustment” may not be possible because of the retrospective nature of sensemaking. Reflection is required to bestow meaning. The process is enactive of sensible environments in that individuals manufacture part of the environment they face. The concept of enactment is a synthesis of self-fulfilling prophecy, retrospective sensemaking, commitment, and social information processing. Weick (1995) suggests that when people act, they are creating their environment and the situations inherent in those environments. This can be illustrated by the consideration of expatriates completing two years of a three-year assignment. What do they do to influence their future? Do they do nothing? Lobby for a return home? Apply for a further assignment in another country? The actions of individuals influence outcomes. Sometimes this appears most evident in retrospect as illustrated by this working spouse: Social life was not easy either. It was a major shock to leave my large circle of friends (in The Netherlands) for the restricted social life in our new location (South America). There was very little culture in the way of performances, cinemas or cafes and the opportunities to walk outside were limited. Most of the younger women had children, but since we did not want to start a family so soon, we fell outside that group. It seems as if I made a mistake by concentrating on learning Spanish and job-hunting and not joining in all the possible activities, which increased my isolation. Soon after I had been made redundant for the second time we heard that we would be transferred. I decided to stop looking for jobs, and to relax instead with everybody else. This was quite enjoyable for the winding down period as long as I did not think about how little I had achieved during the last two years (Destinations, 1998, p. 15).

But enacting those environments are subject to personal influences. This anonymous spouse continues: My upbringing defines my attitude towards life and work. In my country it is normal for women to have full-time careers at the same time as raising their children. For me it is essential to have professional work in order to feel that I am achieving something in my life and that my years of study have not been in vain (Destinations, 1998, p. 15).

In sensemaking, people are seen as very much part of their own environments. Through their actions, they create the materials that become the constraints and opportunities they face. Weick (1995, p. 20) suggests “the sensemaker is himself or herself an ongoing puzzle undergoing continual redefinition, coincident with presenting some self to others and trying to decide which ‘self’ is appropriate. Depending on who I am my definition of what is ‘out there’ will also change”. In this way the frameworks we employ serve to define and construct what happens to us. If expatriates regard themselves as, e.g. “global nomads”, “trailing spouses”, “dual career couples” or “third culture kids” this will affect future actions and colour recollections of past experience. But this general frame will be subject to further review when expectations are challenged by new input over the course of expatriate (or possibly repatriate) experience. Sensemaking allows for complex changes in adjustment and acculturation not just as more information, understanding or ease of living becomes available, but in response to the meaning given to such stimuli by the expatriate. An essentially social process, sensemaking is highly sensitive to the influence of others, whether real or imagined. When a person is considering a move abroad they will understand this move will have repercussions for others as well as themselves – their partner, family, parents, friends, colleagues. Their willingness to move will be affected by the input of these people, either stated or tacit, e.g. young managers whose promotion abroad is greeted by congratulations and envy from their peers may contrast this with some dismay and sadness on the part of their parents. They may eventually make the decision to go in the belief that this assignment will make them more attractive to an imagined and as yet unmet future employer. The following illustration (Means, 1999) shows how important the social process of sensemaking is in repatriation. He quotes an expatriate spouse who lived in Brazil with her husband and her three sons for several years, then lived in Taiwan, teaching school there for six months: When I returned home, I remember thinking what a foreign country America was – even though it was my home. I discarded my whole knowledge-base concerning Taiwan because no one, not even my family (other than my sons, who experienced it with me), was interested. It is as though a piece of your life is plucked away, because it is almost as though you were weird to have considered such a move, away from America, and no one wants to hear your stories because they can’t relate. I just returned from visiting one of my roommates from Taiwan. I lived there with three Chinese and one American. He is getting a PhD at Tulane and we talked a lot about Asia and

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Taiwan because of our similar experience. It felt so good to revive some of those memories and stories, to give some meaning to them, some value, and to realise that because I was able to move into the unknown of a strange environment and lifestyle, I have also been able to move more aggressively into challenging work here in America. However, almost no one is interested in your experience unless they are going overseas or coming home. As always, when someone asks about my repatriation I find it hard to verbalise (Means, 1999).

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Sensemaking is focussed on and by extracted clues. The following illustration shows how despite having an appreciation of the larger picture, an expatriate can fix on certain small factors as clues to try to gain some understanding of a developing situation: I was working on a project in the Far East to import latex in flexi-tanks to the Soviet Union. The project relied on the differential between the prices of drummed and container latex. In 1985, when safe sex was established as the only known defence against AIDS, this differential disappeared. For my last few months in the Far East I knew it was likely that I would be made redundant. On my return I requested the company car to which I was entitled, and when it was bought and given to me, I thought the threat of losing my job was substantially reduced. This proved unfounded . . . five weeks later I was made redundant (SD5, 1986).

Inevitably, human resource practices and occurences will themselves feed the development of stories, and the following illustrates the importance of the delivery of minor clues, even when based on good intentions: When a group of managers were being relocated to Switzerland, partners were invited to join employees in attending a meeting with HR about family issues. An initially apparently fruitful discussion about spouse employment was sabotaged at the end of the meeting when all male employees were given a Swiss army knife, and all partners and female staff were given teacloths as gifts (SD12, 2000).

The process of sensemaking is ongoing. We have some knowledge of why people become expatriates, e.g. Culpan and Culpan (1993) and Shell Outlook Survey (1993). Whatever reasons encouraged an expatriate to take up an assignment, this is not a static, once-and-for-all decision but will be open to review, particularly with regard to other significant relationships and systems outside of work. As an example, the way work and family are interlinked has been documented, particularly in attempts to measure “spillover” between the two (Aldous, 1969; Piotrkowski, 1979; Munton, 1990). Expatriation is a situation where all aspects of life have been affected by a move for work, and to some extent, work is affected by other aspects of life in an exaggerated way: A couple who could be described a “global nomads” felt that over 20 years away from the country of their nationality had left them undecided about where they called “home”. They had strong ties with a number of countries and felt their future plans could be centred on a country away from that of their birth. A return to The Netherlands, a country where their now adult child grew up, showed that their daughter had no automatic right of residence there. Their daughter found work in a third country, but the experience prompted the couple to buy property in their home country to establish roots where, should the occasion arise, all three had right of residence. Despite their daughter having her own independent employment and life in a third country, the couple made sense of the decision by reference to her

prospective involvement. The couple have now (apparently coincidentally, but see note on enactive environments above) been offered a return to their home country (SD6, 1997).

The fluidity of the ongoing sensemaking process brings with it considerable methodological problems. To study sensemaking, the researcher has to accept that they are essentially attempting to capture fleeting phenomena – constantly in “a state of becoming”. The following postings appeared within one week of an expatriate support group and maps one change in attitude and understanding: I’ve only moved to England, which is stressful enough! We’ve been here a year, and I still feel largely unadjusted. I’ve been working and involved in some things, and that definitely helps, but I still miss the comforts of home, and the rest of my family and friends. When we moved we were given a model that discusses expatriate adjustments. Apparently by six months people are supposed to be feeling adjusted. I’m really not on that schedule at all. It’s not that I regret the experience, or that I can’t cope, I just get “home-sick” much of the time. Has anyone else dealt with this? What has helped?” (SD10, 1999).

In this posting, it is clear that aside from any anticipation of cross-cultural difference to cover the unexpected happening, the adjustment course attended by this expatriate had stimulated an unmet anticipation of control regarding the timing of any adjustment. Through this, the course itself had produced the expectation of a time scale which did not proceed as expected. Input from the online group suggesting her reactions were not unusual and questioning the information on timing she’d received through the course prompted the following response: Thanks so much . . . Those were some great suggestions, and insights . . . To tell the truth, I feel better already knowing that this is all quite normal! (SD10, 1999).

This example suggests the input from the group directly helped bring about a conscious re-framing of the way this expatriate viewed their acculturation experience, from problematic to “normal”, resulting in a change in response. Finally the process endows plausibility with greater importance than accuracy. Within an expatriate milieu there is often, consciously or not, a smudging of the reasons as to why an employee is working as an expatriate. In some cases, organisations work to assess and inform employees regarding their status abroad but even within such a structure the basic rationale for an individual expatriate’s overseas assignment is often not explicit. Expatriates seek to organise the information in a way that makes sense of this information for them. This aspect of sensemaking can be crucial in retaining expatriates. It can be that a highly valued expatriate, requesting a further move for personal reasons cannot be immediately accommodated. If not kept in touch with possibly intricate moves on their behalf, the expatriate may interpret the situation as being that the company does not value their services and leave the concern:

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A well-qualified and loyal expatriate seeking information about his future moves with a large multinational was continually told a suitable placement was being investigated. After pursuing a number of approaches, constantly being told a placement was “around the corner” the expatriate took the unusual step of stopping work. While going to the place of work, he carried out no duties at all on the basis that this should at least provoke some reaction. When this failed to produce any response he applied for work elsewhere. He had formed the impression his current company did not value any contribution he might make. He was offered work with a competitor on the same day that his current employer offered him a new assignment involving promotion. He rejected the offer of promotion to move companies. When his old employer asked him to attend an exit interview he was eager to let them know why he had taken his decision. On attending for the interview he was told no one in the building knew why he was there and he left with no record of why he had reached his decision but a firm conviction that he had made the right one (SD7, 1996).

As far as sensemaking is concerned, plausibility is more important than accuracy in influencing action. In the absence of accurate information, sense will be made on the basis of available information. The accuracy of input for others is immaterial until such time as the knowledge of others becomes manifest to the individual. On becoming aware that the understanding of others is different, creating a dissonance in understanding, an individual’s process of sensemaking is triggered once more. How do expatriates filter the range of opinion and narrative available? Sensemaking would suggest that all that is required of input is that it provides meaning for the individual involved “. . . we are all socialized as to what is a reasonable and believable story”. Fisher (1984) suggests that “rationality is determined by the nature of persons as narrative beings – their inherent awareness of narrative probability, what constitutes a coherent story, and their constant habit of testing narrative fidelity, whether the stories they experience ring true with the stories they know to be true in their lives” (Bush et al., 1997). Effective informal input as narrative contains an intrinsic element of surprise. Llewellyn (1999) says convincing narratives balance credibility (or believability) with defamiliarization (or novelty): To be successful, authors must convince readers/listeners that a narrative is plausible within a given orienting context; and bring about a different way of viewing things, one which renews our perception of the world . . . Convincing narratives both confirm our prior expectations and surprise us by combining elements of the ordinary with the strange (Llewellyn, 1999).

Relevance to professional development Sensemaking differs from the way models of social learning and uncertainty reduction have been previously applied to expatriation. Expatriate experience is not seen as incremental, moving toward a distant ideal goal of adjustment. Rather it allows for both such incremental learning and for situations where all previous learning might be overturned in the face of new input. Weick (1995, p. 15) says “to talk about sensemaking is to talk about reality as an ongoing accomplishment”. An expatriate will constantly be building understanding of

reasons and implications of that experience, based on inputs that he or she can also influence. The expatriate extracts clues to build frameworks that explain their circumstances and may accelerate revelation. We know that expatriates are recruited first and foremost for their technical skills and expertise (Forster, 2000), but working overseas is also seen as a means of developing global competencies (NFTC et al., 2002). We still know relatively little about what it is about international experience that is formative . . . which aspects particularly stimulate the learning and enrichment that are seen as so desirable in international recruitment. McCauley et al. (1994) researched situations that were indicated by successful managers as developmental in character suggesting developmental job characteristics, like new responsibilities, tasks to create change, and challenging work, contributed to their personal development and growth. “The underlying assumption is that the actual learning depends on the extent in which challenges at work are available. In other words, a manager learns optimally in situations in which traditional behaviour and routines do not work any more” (Van der Sluis-den Dikken and Hoeksema, 2001). In their study of MBAs and young managers, Van der Sluis-den Dikken and Hoeksema (2001) examined developmental job characteristics associated with transitions, where characteristics are “proving yourself, novelty, disruption of routine”. They found such transition is positively related to meaning oriented learning – a retrospective learning approach that is characterised by a search for the deeper meaning of experiences. Expatriation provides transitional challenge in abundance, both inside and outside the work environment. So what might be the role of informal input on expatriate assignments contributing to search for the deeper meaning of experiences? Literature that supports the use of intermediaries, as elements that aid sensemaking, is relevant (Louis, 1980; Rogers, 1995; Osland and Bird, 2000). This literature is equally applicable to both professional and informal input. However, informal input, rather than offering the certainty of professional input, may have the advantage of providing the unexpected. Weick (1995) suggests that in a relationship, positive emotions are generated in two ways over time, either by the removal of interrupting negative stimuli or by the ability to accelerate completion of plans. In order to generate positive emotion, these interventions have to be unexpected. “The implications of these propositions about positive emotions for the development of relationships is sobering. As the other person (party) in the relationship becomes more predictable, and as a partner expects that person’s (party’s) help, there should be fewer occasions for positive emotion to occur” (Weick, 1995, p. 47). This implies some tension between the suggestion that constant, regular expatriate provision may well contribute to an expatriate’s comfort, but over time, the ability of this alone to produce positive emotion will reduce. In this

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way support, contacts and information that arise informally by surprise may be more powerful than expected and planned intervention. The advent of the Internet has seen dramatic changes in the way expatriates connect. This has thrown a potent and radical force into the way expatriate information is exchanged. Virtual resources offer a range of forums, discussion groups, expert advice and country-based information. These sites are often founded and staffed by volunteer current or former expatriates reflecting today’s demands for instant, and accurate, information in a rapidly changing world.The widespread ability of expatriates to access expatriate stories via the Web is a change that is creeping in without formal study, because these informal information systems largely fall outside of established research. Organisations may lose the ability to check and validate the expatriate experience of the organisations’ employees and families as a continuous twoway learning process. We suggest further study of the impact of informal narrative is required to establish its importance in the professional development of people living and working overseas. To ignore the informal linkages represented by expatriate storytelling as being outside organisational remit may be to ignore the real lubricant of knowledge, contacts and information processing. References Aldous, J. (1969), “Occupational characteristics and males’ performance in the family”, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 31, pp. 707-12. Antonovsky, A. (1987), Unravelling the Mystery of Health: How People Manage Stress and Stay Well, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Bird, A., Osland, J.S., Mendenhall, M. and Schneider, S.C. (1999), “Adapting and adjusting to other cultures: what we know but don’t always tell”, Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 8, pp. 152-65. Black, J.S., Mendenhall, M. and Oddou, G. (1991), “Towards a comprehensive model of international adjustment: an integration of multiple theoretical perspectives”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 291-317. Boje, D.M. (2000), “Narrative and antenarrative methods for organizational and communication research: introduction to narrative and antenarrative methods”, 19 April, revised 1 May 2000, available at: http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/ Bradley, P., Hendry, C. and Perkins, S. (1999), “Global or multi-local? The significance of international values in reward strategy”, in Brewster, C. and Harris, H. (Eds), International Resources Management – Contemporary Issues in Europe, Chapter 7, Routledge, London, pp. 120-43. Brewster, C. and Pickard, J. (1994), “Evaluating expatriate training”, International Studies in Management and Organisation, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 18-35. Brewster, C. and Scullion, H. (1997), “Expatriate HRM: an agenda and a review”, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 32-41. Brown, J.S. and Deguid, P. (1991), “Organisational learning and communities of practice towards a unified view of working learning and innovation”, Organisational Science, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 40-57.

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