隨著經(jīng)濟全球化市場的成倍增長以來,不同大小的公司現(xiàn)在可以獲得更多的外事活動和國際關系。尤其是科技設備和流程可以使廉價的通訊,為企業(yè)提供更快的航班和整體更好的機會。發(fā)送國外的實踐或海外的員工,所謂的“海外”,現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)成為常見國際趨勢，目前應考慮作為一個潛在的個人職業(yè)生涯中的“強制”步驟(即為了獲得經(jīng)驗)。外國環(huán)境呈現(xiàn)一種或多或少的不同的文化，員工將不得不應對和適應(即文化“差距”),人力資源專業(yè)人士多年來一直思考如何限制“外派流失”,所以成功的機會最大化的應用在國際分配(IA)之中。

外派的流失是一個復雜的概念,需要理解和產(chǎn)耱。它出現(xiàn)在人力資源亨利(1965)和東(1981)的著作之中,這是最簡單的方式定義可能是一個國際任務”(合成哈爾茨,2004)。創(chuàng)建某種產(chǎn)交流活動在管理者和研究人員外派流失的速度是非常高的。這個“神話”成為一個共同的信仰,因為三篇文章只有一個包含實證研究證據(jù)證明外派流失率相當?shù)?哈爾茨,1995)。

As the globalization of the economical markets tends to grow exponentially over the years, companies of diverse sizes can now get to have foreign activities and international relationships. This is particularly true as the technological devices and processes can now enable cheap communications, faster flights and overall better opportunities for companies. The practice of sending abroad or overseas one of its employee, so-called “expatriate”, has now become common and the International Assignments should be considered nowadays as a potential “mandatory” step in the professional career of individuals (i.e. in order to acquire experience). The foreign environment presenting a more or less different culture the worker will have to deal with and adjust to (i.e. cultural “gap”), Human Resources professionals have been thinking for years about how to limit the “expatriate failure”, therefore maximizing the chances of success of the International Assignment (IA).

The expatriate failure is a complex notion that needs to be comprehended with care. As it appeared in the HR literature of Henry (1965) and Tung (1981), it was defined in the simplest way possible as the “premature return from an International Assignment” (synthesis by Harzing, 2004). A certain myth has been created amongst managers and researchers about the expatriate failure’s rate being very high. This “myth” became a common belief because of the excessive quotation of three articles out of which only one contains empirical studies evidences proving expatriate failure rates to be rather low (Harzing, 1995). However, the low rates of failure should not prevent HR managers from investing an important part of their effort into managing the expatriates of their company. As for the reasons we quoted previously as well as for the increasing investments being made abroad, there is much more at stake nowadays in the success of an IA than there was in the past. Tung therefore describes “the effective management of expatriates internationally as being increasingly being recognized as a major determinant of success or failure in international business” (Tung, 1984). As we reviewed it through this study, the HR managers and researchers are mainly focused on how to avoid failure rather than how to achieve success. Success and failure can especially wear different meanings when being considered from different perspectives. We would therefore try to address the following problematic through the redaction of this essay:

Success achievement or failure avoidance, which of these should be emphasized in the HR strategy for effective expatriate management?

In the first part of this study, we tried to get a better comprehension of the different meanings implied within the notion of “expatriate failure”; then we defined the performance management practices and got a better understanding of how can this help an organization achieving a success-oriented expatriate management strategy; finally we determined the pros and cons of these two emphases and drew our own recommendations about these practices.

What implies the “expatriate failure” notion?

As mentioned earlier, the expatriate failure, or “expatriate turnover or transfer” (Naumann, 1992), or “recall rate” (Tung, 1981), was defined as “the premature return from an International Assignment” by Harzing in 2004. However several other authors have argued that the expatriate failure could be subject to other interpretations such as: “selection mistakes” (Henry, 1965), “the inability to function effectively” (Tung, 1981) or even “the inability to adjust” (Mendenhall and Oddon, 1988). Harzing herself stressed out in 1995 that the repatriation process could sometimes be more problematic than the International Assignment itself and could therefore be considerate as an “expatriate failure”. According to these considerations, Harzing classifies in 2004 the expatriate failure as falling into 5 different categories:

The International Assignment ends before the contract expiration (expatriate leaves organization for personal reasons, preferences, better opportunities, accident…),

The International Assignment ends before the contract expiration for a specific reason related to his performances (inability of the organization to select the right expatriate, inability of the expatriate to adjust, inability to perform well…),
Underperformance of the expatriate without the end of the International Assignment (damaging for the employing organization),
Repatriation problems.

All of these definitions are somehow incomplete as they tend to analyze the failure from a business-oriented perspective. This analytic approach can induce some errors for Human Resources professionals and Harzing preconizes to adopt a systematic perspective to get a better understanding of what is at stakes (2004).

But let us get a better look at the International Assignment cycle such as described by Harzing in her article of 2004 co-signed by Christensen “Expatriate failure: time to abandon the concept?”:

Harzing presents the International Assignment as a cycle made of 5 steps (please refer to schema hereunder).

Ideally, this cycle remains unbroken but as the expatriate goes through the different step of the exercise, it turns out that the fourth step, the “expatriation”, might cause problem in regard to what had been done previously. The employee can leave the company as he is offered a better professional opportunity; he can be offered to transfer to another position within the company, or he can simply get fired. Some other exceptional causes can occur such as death, illness or even kidnapping. Despite of their very “exceptional” aspect, these have to be considered carefully as they might endanger the ability of the company to find a replacement to the expatriate obviously unable to finish the assignment (as it might be perceived as a potential danger related to the assignment). Nevertheless, because of these reasons the cycle gets disrupted and here starts the problem of determining whether or not the disruption is synonym of failure.

Harzing and Christensen (2004) argue that one should consider the fact that a premature return CAN be a desirable outcome for both the employee and the company. If this one is a synonym of a lack of efficiency and capability of the expatriate, then one could argue that this can be defined as a failure. However, if the premature return is at the origin of an internal transfer and has for a result an improved flexibility, then it is definitely a synonym of success. Harzing and Christensen (2004) tried to decompose the term expatriate failure by first defining exactly what is implied in the term failure. From this decomposed analysis we can conclude that a more generalist definition of the “expatriate failure” notion would be “the inability to do or achieve the expected objectives related to the International Assignment given to the responsibility of the expatriate employee (no added-value has been produced for the company)”. This failure can be the fruit of mistakes committed by either the employee, either the company or both of them. Indeed has the company a certain form of responsibility toward the expatriate as it is supposed to accompany, facilitate, support and provide its employee with the different tools required to the correct achievement of the previously set objectives related to its International Assignment.

This responsibility is defined by the official contract document which binds both stakeholders (the employee and the company) after they agreed upon its terms. This responsibility can be social as the companies should ensure the worker and its relatives/family will be thriving in their new life environment (Harzing and Christensen, 2004). The remuneration in exchange of which the employee is willing to provide the company with his services has to be agreed upon by both parties. These are to be considered as key elements to help the expatriate perform better, therefore enabling him to achieve or exceed the objectives set. Morrison and Robinson (1997) describe a second informal way of describing the expectations of the employee towards its company: “the psychological contract”. They define it as “the employee’s belief about the reciprocal obligations between, that employee and his or her organization”. Sparrow, as for him, described in 1999 these reciprocal relationship made of expectations as “[…] the individual and the organization expect to give and to receive in return from the employment relationship.” These two quotations rise the problematic of the exactness of the different terms mentioned in the contract, are these terms very explicit or is there some remaining twilight zone the Human Resources managers and the employee should shed some light on?

Human Resources professionals have to remind that the expatriate failure is a concept to be applied considering the perspective: indeed can it be a failure for the organization and not for the employee or vice-versa (internal transfer can be a success for the company but lead the employee to feel a failure feeling whereas the inability to select correctly the expatriate employee could potentially endanger or damage the organization’s integrity therefore being a failure for the company itself).

Naumann (1992) describes one aspect of the expatriate failure as a “dysfunctional turnover”. The dysfunctional turnover would characterize a situation where a high-performing expatriate quits the organization or express a request for an early transfer. In this situation, despite of the high-performing character of the expatriate, the employee leaving the company creates the disruption of the International Assignment cycle, creating a need for a new resource allocation. This turnover creates a loss of earnings and requires the organization to allocate budget going through the first stages of the cycle (selection, hiring and training) once more before the expatriate finally operates abroad. Harzing and Christensen (2004) describe the opposite of the dysfunctional turnover as the “functional turnover” which would define a situation where the low-performing expatriate quits the organization or gets fired. This situation is the consequence of an appropriate and justified decision as the expatriate was not fulfilling his own part of the contract. However, it is hard to consider it as a success as the employee might have damaged the company or the organization might feel it failed selecting the correct candidate or providing the employee with an adequate training. Nevertheless, it cannot be considered as a total failure as well as this decision was the one serving the best the company’s interests; the company “is better off terminating the position or dismissing the expatriate” (Harzing and Christensen, 2004). The failure approach of the expatriate management strategy therefore provide the Human Resource professionals with a downstream analysis of what actually happened, who is to blame and what are the next steps to proceed with in order to stop the “bleeding” and limit the potential damages that threaten the company. But is it necessarily the right approach to be adopted upstream?

Toward the adoption of a success-oriented management of expatriates

Harzing and Christensen (2004) recommend Human Resources managers to consider adopting a performance management system upstream. This management system which is driven by success is defined by Fenwick (2004) as “any HRM activity, or bundle of HRM activities, designed to improve employee performance”. Armstrong (1994), states the different measures a successful and integrated performance management system should incorporate as follow:

This performance management system then needs to be linked with the International Assignment which also needs to be related to the international strategy of the organization. Why does the company send employees abroad as expatriates? Once this point has been made clear by the top management, the HR management can then communicate the objectives to be achieved for the International assignments. This set of objectives needs to be expressed according to the SMART principles of T. Doran (1981). Harzing and Christensen (2004) explain through their article that the SMART principles stand for “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely”. The notion of “specific” refers to the cultural context of formulation of the objectives. Regarding of the cultural differences, of the cultural “gap” standing between the home- and host country, the interpretation of the objective could potentially lead to a misunderstanding. The reference to the terms “measurable” and “timely” would imply the necessary definition of a timeframe and of a feedback policy with the required communication tool. How often should the expatriate report to his superior? Who is the expatriate’s superior? When should the expatriate report? How? On which criteria will the expatriate be evaluated? All of these questions need to be correctly and accurately answered in order to define the scope of work of the expatriate. According to Harzing and Christensen (2004), it is also possible, in order to maximize the chances of success of the IA, to assign the expatriate with a mentor (i.e. an individual with an IA experience, preferably in the same country or cultural context, who will assist the expatriate and provide him with information and support). The use of a performance vs. reward system could also encourage the expatriate to achieve the objectives of his IA as his international experience would be recognized after repatriation.

Griffet et al. defined in 2000 that “the two most important antecedents to employee turnover are the job satisfaction and the organizational commitment”. These two points can only be achieved through a perfect description of the expatriate role (“role clarity”), through the role discretion and through the support of the organization (Iverson and Deery, 1997). Black and Gregersen also stated in 1992 that company should avoid falling into the trap of “dual allegiance” (i.e. there are conflicts between home- and host- organizations’ demands). These points are to be managed using an efficient success-approach expatriate management system upstream but can also be corrected through the use of a failure-avoidance expatriate management system downstream. Through this academic study, we realized there is not one single specific approach to the expatriate management and that professionals should rather adopt a systemic perspective in order to consider factors of success or failure adequately. Harzing and Christensen (2004) defined the expatriate failure in their article “Expatriate failure: time to abandon the concept?” as “the inability of the expatriate or repatriate to perform according to the expectations of the organization”. However we would recommend the same as the two authors, it is to say to contextually define the notion of expatriate failure as “expectations change over time and regarding of companies”. To conclude this essay and in order to relate with the original statement of Harzing and Ruysseveldt from 2004 “Considering the complex challenges that emerge within the scope of international transfers, the analysis of assignment success is of crucial value for organizations with a high share of internationally mobile personnel” we would emphasize as per discussed previously that the systemic analysis of success and failure avoidance HRM policy are indeed critical to organizations described as “with a high share of internationally mobile personnel”.