Implications of Short-term International Assignments

Abstract

Increasingly, multinational companies, faced with cost issues and rising staff immobility, are substituting or complementing traditional expatriate assignments with other types of international assignments. These so-called non-standard international assignments include: short-term, commuter, rotational, contractual and virtual assignments. The most popular form of non-standard assignments continues to be the short-term assignment. However, this important organizational activity has received limited attention compared to the burgeoning literature on traditional expatriate assignments. In this paper, we use data from an exploratory study of 11 large Finnish multinationals to explore aspects relating to short-term international assignments. While there are similarities to traditional long-term assignments, the differences pose special HR challenges.