Examining the Philosophy of Expatriate Return on Investment

Abstract

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. • DOI: 10.1002/tie.21656 Correspondence to: Miriam Moeller, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, Joyce Ackroyd #526, UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia, +61 7 3346 8175 (phone), +61 7 3346 8199 (fax), m.moeller@uq.edu.au foreign executives in local organizations [FELOs], expatriates of host-country origin [EHCOs]) will come to the forefront as new and supplementary staffing trends, each of which present their unique challenges to global firms. Because the reasons to go overseas are different for each type of expatriate, McNulty and Inkson strikingly remind us of these strategies’ implications for firms (in terms of cROI) as well as individuals (in terms of iROI). The sum of these “measures” makes up the proverbial eROI. Chapters 1 and 2 in effect set the stage to further explore the conundrum of eROI, given that it has— shockingly—made very limited progress in practice over the years. The “new forms” and “new generation” of expatriates McNulty and Inkson speak of take the planning, time, and technical and managerial support in articulating eROI to another level of complexity. McNulty and Inkson guide us through the mechanisms that create these complexities and prescribe a remedy to what appears to be an aimless chase of measuring return on investment or success. In this book, eROI is established as the cost-benefit analysis of financial and nonfinancial measures, as appropriate to the assignment’s purpose, across the corporate and individual levels of analysis. T he irony of sending expatriates abroad without explicitly understanding the expatriates’ return on investment (eROI) has existed for years. McNulty and Inkson acknowledge the difficulty in assessing eROI and explore the paradox by means of an approach to ROI that discerns the viewpoints of the corporation (cROI) and individual (iROI) and contemplate the actions global firms could take on eROI matters. The predominant if not sole focus, nonetheless, is not on metrics but on the philosophical nature of an eROI systems approach. With insights and reflections derived from their own studies and others, McNulty and Inkson take the reader on a journey of expatriates’ mentalities from yesterday, today and beyond, and, most importantly, a return on investment system allowing global firms a tailored approach to eROI. The book sets the stage for other, nontraditional assignment trends. Alternative trends are likely to dominate global staffing strategies for the coming decades; that is, our traditional understanding of expatriation is becoming a less dominant strategy (i.e., multinational corporations predict a drop from 80% to 40% by 2020) and other types (e.g., global careerists, inpatriates, Yvonne McNulty and Kerr Inkson. 2013. Managing Expatriates: A Return on Investment Approach. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 160 pages. ISBN: 9781606494820. By