Inpatriate managers: how to increase the probability of success

Abstract

Developing multicultural management teams has gained increasing importance in many global organizations. One global staffing option — inpatriate managers — has the potential to provide a more multicultural management frame-of-reference when developing global strategies. Inpatriates have social knowledge of global operations and countries facilitating the modification of organizational strategies to local competitive/market conditions while ensuring their consistency and coordination with the existing global strategic thrust. This paper addresses the need to provide an effective mechanism for increasing the success rate of inpatriate managers thus improving the global performance of the organization. To achieve enhanced organizational performance the need for a proactive inpatriate program is critical to engender long-term commitment and loyalty of inpatriate managers.