Global Mobility and Cross-Cultural Training

Abstract

Research has consistently shown that expatriates are regularly assigned to all parts of the world without much cross-cultural training. This is regrettable since cross-cultural training intends to train individuals from one culture to interact effectively with members of another culture and to predispose them to a quick adjustment to their foreign assignments. Without much choice, lacking adequate host cultural and institutional insight, expatriates may have to resort to the same behavioral repertoire as they used in their home country without adjusting to the local norms and practices. This could have negative, if not disastrous, consequences for the expatriates themselves as well as for the foreign operations to which they belong. This chapter uses China as a critical test case as an expatriate destination with possible implications for cross-cultural training in general and in particular for the training of expatriates for other culturally challenging host locations. Appropriately, there is an initial discussion of whether cross-cultural training works or not and the content of cross-cultural training. Succeeding that, based on a number of recent empirical investigations, new dimensions of cross-cultural training are discussed. This is done by applying a systems view of expatriates and various aspects that may affect their cross-cultural training. To begin with, individual dimensions that have to do with the expatriates themselves are discussed. Following that, organizational factors are examined. The succeeding subsection deals with situational circumstances and the section ends with country-level aspects. From the empirical observations and research results of the new dimensions of cross-cultural training, five major conclusions are drawn: cross-cultural training works, culture-specific cross-cultural training may be preferable, cross-cultural training could be custom-made, recurring cross-cultural training may be necessary, and everybody may need cross-cultural training.