Working Overseas

Expatriates, individuals from the parent country

Use host-country nationals, natives of the host country

And deploy third-country nationals, natives of a country other than the home country or the host country

Estimates are that nearly 15% of all employee transfers are to an international location

Failure rates range from 20-70%

Failure rate, the number of expatriate managers of an overseas operation who come home early

Communication is key to reducing the failure rate

Each country is unique for reasons rooted in history, culture, language, geography, social conditions, race and religion

These differences complicate any international activity and represent the fundamental issues that inform and guide how a company should conduct business across borders

Ethnocentrism, the tendency to judge others by the standards of one's group or culture, which are seen as superior

Culture shock, the disorientation and stress associated with being in a foreign environment

Uncertainty avoidance, the extent to which people in a society feel threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations

Power Distance, the extent to which a society accepts the fact that power in organizations is distributed unequally

Individualism/Collectivism the extent to which people act on their own or as a part of a group

Masculinity/Femininity, the extent to which a society values quantity of life over quality of life

Inpatriate, a foreign national brought in to work at the parent company

If managers are to function effectively overseas, they must understand how culture affects both how they are perceived and how others behave

Assessments of right and wrong get blurred as we move from one culture to another, as actions that are normal and customary in one setting may be unethical or even illegal in another