CHAPTER 8

DEVELOPING CULTURAL AGILITY THROUGH INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS

Among the experiential opportunities companies can offer, the most often used—and potentially the most developmental—is the international assignment or expatriate experience. To round out the learning system, this chapter focuses on how international assignments can be best structured to build cultural agility in the workforce.

Jake Shannon, an American culturally agile professional, recalls many significant developmental cross-cultural experiences throughout his life, some occurring long before the start of his professional career. Jake was born in Japan and lived in five states in the United States as well as Germany on two separate occasions. These eight moves, three internationally, all occurred before Jake turned twenty years old.

As a child, Jake recalls several experiences where he learned, firsthand, the importance of being culturally agile. “I remember when I was eleven years old being invited by a German family to spend a weekend with them and their son at their small vacation home in southern Germany. Everything about that weekend was different from what I had grown up with—the style of their home, the food that they ate, and the Sunday morning worship service that I experienced.” Even with all of Jake’s time spent in different countries and states as a child, that weekend was salient because it gave Jake his first real experience of full cultural immersion with host nationals, one of the most developmental cross-cultural experiences one can have. Reflecting on that weekend, Jake says, “At first, I found the experience a bit odd and kind of awkward—but by the end of the weekend I was thrilled by it. It felt like an adventure, like I was discovering the culture and enjoying it.”

When Jake was in his thirties, he returned to Germany, only this time as an international assignee for the global health care company Merck and Co. (Merck). Jake’s wife, RuthAnn, and their four children, whose ages at the time were 11, 8, 5, and 3, accompanied him. Having lived in Germany as a child, RuthAnn also speaks German fluently. The couple embraced the opportunity to return to Europe. Jake and RuthAnn not only share with each other a strong, supportive, and loving marriage but also a deep interest in immersing themselves in different cultures, a value that they have fostered in their children as well. This shared family value for experiencing different cultures is important; in fact, it is a secret ingredient for international assignee success. My research on the predictors of success among international assignees found that a family’s communication, cohesion, adaptability, and interest in living internationally will directly affect the entire family’s level of adjustment, which, in turn, spills over to the international assignee’s work performance.1 Jake didn’t need my research to tell him that RuthAnn and his children were a positive influence on his ability to be effective in the host country. He notes that “RuthAnn’s flexibility and adjustment to living in Germany made it easier for me to focus on my work. I knew the home front was OK. She and our children were happy.”

The characteristics of Jake’s family, already well-adjusted, supportive and cohesive, became even more crucial when tragedy struck about five months into his assignment. Without any precondition or warning, Jake and RuthAnn’s youngest daughter was admitted into the intensive care unit of the local hospital with a very rare and life-threatening illness. As Jake says, “Under normal circumstances, this kind of shocking experience would have been devastating for a parent, to say the least, but to experience it three thousand miles away from home and in a completely different hospital setting was unnerving.” After one month in the intensive care unit, Jake and RuthAnn’s daughter thankfully survived the illness. She was released to go home with her parents to continue home therapy in order to relearn how to walk, talk, and eat.

The worst of the ordeal was over, but was Jake’s international assignment also over? Jake shared that “even though my daughter was receiving world-class medical care, we seriously contemplated returning to the United States. The location was just one more stressor we just didn’t need.” When the cloud of the most imminent threat to their daughter’s health was lifted, the need to return to the United States also faded. Jake notes, “We realized that we could provide the best possible care for her and still remain in Germany.” Jake and RuthAnn’s decision to remain in Germany was based not only on the excellent medical care and their daughter’s improving health but also on one more factor: the emotional support his family was receiving from their host national colleagues and friends. Jake says, “Even though we had just moved into the area, we felt that everyone from the local community—including new friends from church, school, and work—were rallying behind us during this difficult time.”

My research has found that even in the best of circumstances for international assignments, emotional support is critical for international assignees’ adjustment to living in a host country.2 Again, Jake did not need my research to tell him that. After this initial setback, which appropriately changed his priorities to focus entirely on his family, Jake returned to the work he was sent to do and continued with his international assignment.

Even though Germany was a country Jake already knew well, he still views the Merck experience in Germany as highly developmental for his cultural agility. The core of what made it so developmental was the fact that it was a full immersion. Jake worked directly with his German colleagues, often conversing only in German. Jake recalls, “Even though I thought I knew what I was getting into from a cultural perspective, I still found certain elements of the experience to be completely new. Even something as subtle as the best way to give presentations was different. I needed to adapt to the German way of working to be successful.” Jake went deeper into the German culture, sharing that he “also learned that there were differences between regions within Germany. The professional behaviors that were appropriate for success in one area would not work in another. I found that even with what I thought was a deep understanding of the culture, there were still many things I had to learn.” Jake’s comments reflect his true cultural agility—the deep desire to learn more about the cultural contexts in which he finds himself.

A professional milestone for Jake came after he had been on his international assignment for one full year. He and his German colleagues worked tirelessly as they collaborated on an important presentation to be delivered to approximately 120 of Merck’s most senior leaders in Germany. They presented as a team, and when it came to Jake’s section, he delivered it in German. Jake recalls that “both during and after the presentation I sensed that my German colleagues were impressed not only with the content of the presentation but in my ability to truly ‘speak their language.’ After that, I felt like I was accepted—not as an expatriate—but more like a local.” Jake noted that the experience at the presentation was a turning point for his international assignment and deepened his professional relationships with his German colleagues.

Reflecting on his international assignment and professional development, Jake notes that “it was in those interactions while on the international assignment that I realized how important it is to truly be able to see things from another person’s perspective—really walk in someone else’s shoes.” He underscored the value of language skills, sharing that “it is so important to speak the host-country language—even if not completely fluently.” Today, Jake appreciates the cross-cultural competencies he had gained in Germany, saying that “my experience in Germany has definitely given me credibility when working with professionals from all over the world. The experience also taught me how to really listen, not just to the spoken words, but to cultural cues and the subtleties of the context.” His roles have expanded over the years, and he now works with more global client groups within Merck. Jake credits his assignment in Germany for being developmental, personally and professionally, sharing that it “has definitely helped me not only be a better person but a better employee—and a better agent for change.”

International assignments like Jake’s remain the most popular method by which cultural agility is developed in organizations.3 However, merely labeling Jake’s international assignment “developmental” did not make it so. As you’ll recall from Chapter Seven, for international assignments to be truly developmental from the perspective of building cross-cultural competencies, they need to satisfy three conditions:

Jake’s international assignments included all these features—and he was supported by a cohesive and well-adjusted family, also critical for assignment success.

The right type of assignment and his supportive family were helpful indeed for Jake. However, Jake also possessed some personal attributes that helped in his development. Jake has an open personality, which facilitated learning in the host country. He had language skills that enabled him to collaborate with his host national colleagues. And he had successive cross-cultural experiences throughout his career, which helped accelerate his development of cross-cultural competencies in the host country. If you were reverse-engineering the development of Jake’s cultural agility, you would carefully select the professional for the assignment, support the family in the host country, identify how this experience fits into his or her broader career plan, and craft the type of cultural experience that would foster the desired development. In other words, you would strategically manage international assignments.

This is not as difficult as it might sound. Managing assignments strategically requires your organization to align the performance goals of its international assignments with its international business strategy and, in turn, the talent management practices that support that strategy. That was a mouthful. Let’s start with the most basic of strategic questions that you should be able to answer:

• Among your international assignee population, do you know who you have where—and why?
• What is each international assignee being asked to do? What is he or she being asked to develop, if anything?

Were you able to answer these questions? The most globally competitive organizations can. These organizations use different type of assignees for different strategic purposes. Through our research, Saba Colakoglu and I found that the most globally integrated organizations align the use of international assignments with the way in which they compete around the world. The firms with global integration business strategies made greater use of developmental international assignments, had a higher number of senior managers with international assignment experience, and had a stronger focus on leadership development through international assignments.4

The most globally competitive organizations align their talent management practices with the strategic decisions regarding where and when to send employees as international assignees. These organizations know who they have on international assignments and why they are there from the perspective of the assignments’ strategic goals. In turn, these organizations are able to leverage the competencies gained from the international assignees’ experiences upon their return. For example, in a survey of their corporate clients in Europe and the United States, TraQs Consulting found that organizations with a greater integration of international assignments into talent management systems reported greater success in the use of international assignments as developmental experiences.5 We need to keep in mind that from the perspective of strategic alignment, all international assignments are not intended to be developmental. Let’s go deeper into this.

INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENT GOALS AND CULTURAL AGILITY

Many organizations categorize international assignments based on the assignees’ hierarchical level in the organization, or on practical factors, such as tax equalization needs and visa requirements. These practical categories, which are useful for the administration of international assignment programs, do not differentiate assignments on the basis of their strategic importance to the organization. They should. International assignments do not all have the same strategic goals: some are designed for developmental purposes; others fill technical needs or skill gaps in the host countries; still others provide technical transfer of information from the assignees to the staff within the host national subsidiaries.6 An understanding of these differences is critically important for developing cultural agility through international assignments.

Intemational assignments do not all have the same strategic goals. . . . An understanding of these differences is critically important for developing cultural agility.

From the perspective of performance goals, there are two broad categories of international assignments: demand driven and learning driven.7 Demand-driven assignments are created for assignees to accomplish tangible goals, most often to fill skill gaps in the host countries and manage functional areas or units to align with the parent company’s standard or culture. Within the broad category of demand-driven assignments, there are two types of assignees, technical assignees and functional assignees. Technical assignees do not have much need to collaborate with host nationals in order to accomplish their goals, whereas functional assignees need to work collaboratively with host nationals to be successful. Even though development is not a strategic goal of these assignments, your functional assignees are more likely than technical assignees to gain cross-cultural competencies, given their higher level of collaboration with host nationals. (This issue becomes particularly important for retention upon repatriation, a topic I will discuss later in this chapter.)

Unlike demand-driven assignments, learning-driven assignments require employees to build cross-cultural competencies and gain international experience as part of a succession plan or talent management program for career development.8 Within this broad category of learning-driven assignments, there are two types of assignees, developmental assignees and strategic assignees. Developmental assignees are often junior in the organization and part of its global rotational program. The assignments for these developmental assignees have demand-driven performance goals—or, if they don’t, then they almost certainly should be cut from budgets—but they allow room for growth, coaching, and experiential gains through “stretch” assignments.

Compared to developmental assignees, strategic assignees have less “wiggle room” for possible slipups, regardless of how powerful the lesson may be; their roles are critical to the organization’s competitive success, and in their case, mistakes would be more costly. Strategic assignments are learning driven in the sense that these assignees should be building cross-cultural competencies while on assignment as part of an organizational succession plan. More precisely, they should be building on preexisting cross-cultural competencies; these critical roles, ideally, should not be employees’ first foray into developing cultural agility.

Distinguishing among these assignments is not an academic exercise. It has strategic importance for the type of global mobility practices your organization should be offering. Global mobility practices will help manage international assignees as they relocate from one country to another. Global mobility professionals (within a global mobility function in most organizations) manage a myriad of complexities (and vendors)—everything from international assignees’ taxes and visas to the movement of their household goods and enrollment of the assignees’ children into international schools. Global mobility practices ease the transition for the relocation, help employees remain in compliance with tax and immigration laws, and encourage professional development.

Global mobility practices offered to demand-driven assignees should maximize their effectiveness in their role (as quickly as possible). The purpose of global mobility practices offered to learning-driven assignees is different. Of course, they should maximize the assignees’ effectiveness in their role, but equally important, they should foster opportunities for development and growth. Helping assignees become increasingly more effective in their meaningful collaborations with host nationals is of paramount importance within this category. Figure 8.1 offers a closer look at the performance goals of international assignments and the corresponding global mobility practices that would best support those goals.

FIGURE 8.1 Getting It Right with Assignment Support

USING STRATEGIC GLOBAL MOBILITY PRACTICES TO BUILD CULTURAL AGILITY

Learning-driven international assignments need the right people in the right opportunities, without question. They also require strategic global mobility practices to support the effort. Compared to the global mobility practices offered in many organizations today, strategic global mobility practices are different because

• They are fully integrated with talent development practices.
• They focus on selection for personality characteristics that foster development.
• They involve crafting assignments with broader developmental goals in mind.
• They include more tailored support practices to retain the developmental components of the assignments.
• They focus on measuring, coaching, and leveraging cross-cultural competencies in subsequent roles within the organization.

To design a strategic global mobility program and help assignees achieve their learning-driven goals, your organization will need to reframe some key practices. Five practices, in particular, are especially critical to developing cultural agility:

Let’s look more closely at each of these.

Self-Assessment

Regardless of the type of assignment, accepting an international assignment is a major life decision, one that will affect the lives of employees and their families permanently. Many who accept international assignments have found their lives enriched, and report personal satisfaction in having spent time living and working in another country. However, as we have discussed in this book, international assignments are not right for everyone or every family. Given that families are pulled, roots and all, for the purpose of an international assignment, it is important for professionals to consider all the issues affecting them and their families before relocating to a host country.

Organizations offer employees and their families self-assessment tools with which to explore important personal issues confidentially before making a decision to accept an international assignment. According to Brookfield’s recent study of global relocations trends, 25 percent of the organizations surveyed use international assignee self-assessment tools, such as the industry-leading Self-Assessment for Global Endeavors (The SAGE).9 This rate of usage of self-assessment tools has been steadily increasing each year as the stakes for international effectiveness have become more critical. (See “The Critical First Step” for a brief overview of The SAGE.)

Jean Phillips and I conducted an experimental research study to assess the effectiveness of international assignment self-assessment tools for employees. Sixty employees who were interested in prospective international assignments were surveyed on their level of self-efficacy (their belief that they “have what it takes”) for success during an international assignment and their ability to make a thoroughly informed decision.10 After they completed this survey, we randomly assigned them into two groups; one group had access to The SAGE, and the other did not. One month later, the two groups were surveyed again, using the same survey as before. The results were clear. The group that took The SAGE had a greater ability to make an informed decision and also had higher self-efficacy for success in the assignment.

Taken together, these results show that self-assessment tools, and The SAGE specifically, play an important role in the strategic global assignment process. First, they give prospective employees a chance to learn, in a nonevaluative way, about their personality characteristics relative to the demands of international assignments. This helps build efficacy for the assignment because employees understand their strengths that will help them succeed. Second, these tools structure a way to foster a discussion with family members and proactively identify solutions regarding what would be needed to foster cross-cultural adjustment and assignment success.

Among demand-driven assignees, these tools can be used to identify and remove any barriers to adjustment. For example, if the self-assessment reveals a less than ideal set of personality characteristics, then additional support practices can be crafted to smooth the adjustment for the duration of the assignment. Among learning-driven assignees, self-assessment can be used to identify if, when, and under what conditions the developmental international assignment should occur.

Selection

Offer the right international assignments to the right people, and development will occur. Learning-driven assignees with key personality traits, such as openness and extroversion, are more likely to gain cultural agility from the international assignment experience. As discussed in Chapter Five, personality traits are not likely to change with experience; in the case of learning-driven assignees, it is better to select employees who exhibit the key traits. In the case of demand-driven assignees, knowing the various levels of these traits will enable global mobility professionals to target support practices so as to facilitate adjustment.

Offer the right international assignments to the right people, and development will occur.

Consider the following Big Five personality traits and how they affect development and success during international assignments:

Given the effort and time it takes to develop a pipeline of culturally agile professionals, it is important to select for these characteristics, especially when selecting those international assignees who will be in roles requiring a significant amount of collaboration with host-country nationals. Personality can be evaluated by tests, a structured interview, or direct observations of behaviors. The box “Assessing Extroversion” provides an example of a structured interview protocol and behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) for one of the five personality characteristics, extroversion (focusing on sociability and openness to people). In the example provided, you can see how the BARS could also be used by managers as a way to rate their observations of prospective international assignment candidates. For more information about the full structured interview and scoring BARS for selecting international assignees, please visit www.culturalagility.com.

Selection for international work starts where other systems stop, in that only those individuals who have a demonstrated competence for the tasks and duties of the job are considered. In essence, international assignment selection attempts to take a group of “qualified individuals” and determine which of these individuals can effectively deal with the challenges inherent in working with people and organizations that may approach work in a very different way. Not everyone with a proven record of professional success in a domestic context for a given job title will have what it takes to be successful in an international context—even doing the same job with the same job title.

It should also be noted that those assignments that are technical in nature, those with very little interaction with host nationals or significant adjustment required to the host country, might not require as much strength in these personality characteristics. For example, if your international assignees will not be interacting with host nationals, then extroversion might be somewhat less important. For most organizations, however, this is unlikely to be the case. Almost all international assignees will have necessary interactions with host nationals and will need to adjust to living and working in the host countries. In fact, Stefan Mol, Marise Born, Madde Willemsen, and Henk Van Der Molen conducted a large-scale meta-analysis (a study that combined the results of thirty studies) examining over four thousand international assignees and found that personality characteristics were predictive of international assignees’ job performance.11 Clearly, it is safe to say that most international assignments will require these most critical personality traits.

If you are in doubt, I recommend conducting a validation study for the personality tests you plan to use. You should conduct this research under the guidance of HR professionals or industrial and organizational psychologists who understand the technical aspects of conducting validation studies. In brief, they would likely conduct a concurrent validation study by assessing your current international assignees for their personality characteristics and relating those scores with their performance on the global components of their jobs. As with all employment testing, it is important to ensure that the tests you are using meet accepted scientific standards of reliability (measuring what they should be measuring and relatively free of measurement error) and validity (that is, appropriate inferences can be made from the test to job performance).

In international assignee selection, the most critical stage is selecting candidates for the personality characteristics needed for adjustment to living in the host country, performance while working in the host country, and, most important for this book, accelerated development of cultural agility from cross-cultural experiences. The Selection Test for International Assignees (see box) is one recommended instrument that may help organizations avoid costly mistakes in selecting international assignees or failing to provide assignees with the support they need to succeed.

In concluding this discussion of selection, I summarize four best practices that are used in the most effective international assignment selection systems. These high-value-added practices build on each other and begin before assignments even become available or need to be filled. Although much of this material has been mentioned in previous sections, it is important to highlight the practices in the context of selecting for international assignments. Ignoring these steps can result in organizations’ coming up short without enough available candidates in the talent pipeline when the need arises to fill international assignments.

Offer a Self-Assessment Tool for Decision Making

Start the selection process well in advance of international assignments’ becoming available. Offer a private and confidential self-assessment decision-making tool (for example, The SAGE) to all or a targeted group of employees, giving employees and their families the chance to consider a prospective international assignment before one becomes available. Ignoring this step often leaves organizations with their most desired candidates refusing the assignment for family or other personal reasons.

Create a Database

A database of candidates can be created through self-assessment and self-nomination (possibly combined with managers’ nominations). The database can also include information about individuals’ technical skills, experience, countries of interest, languages spoken, time of availability, and the like. Ignoring this step will often result in few, if any, options for candidates. Ideally, the database is robust enough to have more than one candidate from which to choose for each international assignment.

Select for Technical Skills and Experience

Once a database is created, it can be used to screen for technical skills and experiences to create a short list of candidates. These candidates would be prescreened on the technical skills needed to successfully accomplish the international assignments’ task goals. Those on the short list would also fit with your organization’s succession plan, when relevant.

Select for Personality Characteristics

You should now look at the short list of candidates who match the technical and experiential needs for the assignment and assess these candidates for the appropriate personality characteristics (using, for example, observation, interview, and testing). If assignments are learning driven, screen out candidates who do not have the requisite traits for development of cross-cultural competencies. If assignments are demand driven, identify the support that can be offered in the host country to foster task success, as needed and where practical.

Appropriate Support Practices

In August 1996, fifty-seven-year-old Japanese native Mamoru Konno, the president of Sanyo Video Component Corporation in Tijuana, Mexico, was kidnapped after attending a baseball game. It is suggested that Konno became a target because he was too “predictable in his actions, particularly when attending ballgames.”12 Sanyo paid the $2 million in ransom, and Konno was released unharmed. Not all such incidents have happy endings. On November 12, 1997, four American auditors working in Pakistan for Union Texas Petroleum were killed by armed gunmen as they traveled their typical morning route.13 Experts suggest that these men might have been saved had they varied their route, time of travel, and so on. Paul Johnson, an American working for Lockheed Martin, was also abducted and killed in Saudi Arabia. A senior U.S. State Department official commented that “Johnson lived away from the heavily fortified expatriate compounds,” suggesting that Johnson might have been saved had he lived (and remained) within the gated expatriate community provided by his organization.14

Without question, organizations should be deeply involved in protecting the safety and security of their international assignees. When there are credible risks in the host countries, most organizations do, in fact, take tremendous tangible precautions (providing armed guards, drivers, gated accommodations, and so on). The risky alternative is not an option. Compared to demand-driven assignments that are generally location bound, learning-driven assignments can, in many organizations, occur almost anywhere. I strongly recommend that you offer learning-driven developmental assignments in host-country locations where armed guards and gated compound environments are not the norm for international assignees. By necessary design, these safety practices will limit interactions with host nationals.

Safety-related practices are among the most extreme examples of the possible support offered to international assignees. For decades, global mobility professionals and managers have been mitigating the maladjustment risks and facilitating smooth relocation to the host country by crafting support practices for international assignees, their spouses, children, and pets. As noted elsewhere, these support practices and destination services are designed to reduce the challenges of the relocation by smoothing the lifestyle transitions that the international assignee will experience. The support practices have become quite sophisticated: finding comparable accommodations in an expatriate community with fellow compatriots as neighbors, offering memberships to international clubs to facilitate social support and friendships among international assignees, providing market-basket pay differentials for international assignees to purchase their favorite home-country foods in the host country (usually accompanied by directions on where to find them), finding international schools for children (where their children’s first language is spoken), and the like.

Whereas support practices are certainly appropriate for those with demand-driven assignment goals, they need to be designed more cautiously for those assignees with learning-driven assignment goals. Unwittingly, some support practices designed to facilitate adjustment have impeded the fulfillment of learning-driven goals. For international assignments with learning-driven goals, support practices should not wring the experience dry of authentic cross-cultural interactions with host nationals in the nonwork context (for example, neighborhoods, clubs, and associations). To facilitate development, offer support practices more judiciously when they impede meaningful interactions with host nationals—for example, possibly avoiding compatriot neighborhoods or memberships in social clubs designed for international assignees. To facilitate adjustment, offer support practices more liberally when they do not impede possible opportunities for meaningful host national interactions. It is also appropriate to offer support for accompanying family members of international assignees (for example, career assistance for the spouse, education assistance for children, a driver who knows the local streets and traffic patterns). Please read “Rule Number One Is to Support the Family” for more information about these important support practices.

Some support practices fulfill a dual purpose in helping improve performance in both demand-driven and learning-driven assignments. Cross-cultural training, language training, and cultural coaching, as described in detail in Chapter Six, positively influence assignees’ performance. Our research found that when offering cross-cultural and language training to international assignees, it is best to offer predeparture orientation (most often, Web based) on the basics of culture and on the practical issues expatriates might encounter from day one, such as safety, currency, travel, and etiquette. This training should be followed by in-country cross-cultural training or cultural coaching once the international assignees are in their host country and really “feeling” the differences.

Performance Management

The assignment’s performance dimensions, whether demand driven, learning driven, or both, should determine the type of performance assessment needed. Identifying performance goals prior to an assignment is the prerequisite, a critical first step. At this stage, it is necessary for the key stakeholders—for example, the sending and receiving managers, the assignee, and the head of the rotational program or business unit—to reach agreement as to these goals for the given international assignment. There are likely to be different stakeholders for different assignments or groups of assignments, each of whom will have a somewhat different view of what should be accomplished and developed.

Anyone who has ever tried to gain this stakeholder agreement is smiling right now at the challenge inherent in my recommendation. Unless your organization has a history of aligning international assignees’ performance goals across stakeholders, you might be surprised to see a lack of agreement among them, especially at first. This is a challenging step. Challenging, but not impossible, and the task is becoming easier as talent management programs have become more globally integrated in many organizations.

See “Stakeholder Alignment of International Assignees’ Performance Goals” for an approach to help stakeholders identify performance goals and their behavioral indices, resources needed to achieve them, and who the most appropriate raters would be for each key goal.

Different Performance Goals

With respect to measuring against demand-driven performance goals, it is important to decide on the lens through which international assignees’ performance should be evaluated. Within demand-driven goals, some assignees (typically those whose assignments are need-driven or technical) have more tasks involving cultural minimization. They are expected to become tacit transmitters of the corporate culture, upholding corporate norms for behaviors (for example, quality assurance, safety). Other international assignees with demand-driven goals are expected to adapt to the norms of the host country (for example, sales, marketing). Likewise, an international assignee’s demand-driven performance might be evaluated differently depending on whether performance is being evaluated by a host-country manager or a home-country manager. (Cultural differences might change the subjective interpretation of the organization’s performance indicators.)

With respect to measuring performance on learning-driven goals, organizations commonly will identify given international assignments as “developmental” without a structured method for evaluating whether developmental goals have been met. More often, their performance on learning-driven goals is inferred based on their performance on demand-driven goals. It is important to have clarity on just what it is that learning-driven international assignees are being asked to gain—whether cross-cultural competencies (for example, tolerance of ambiguity) or international business skills (language fluency, an understanding of the host national market). The box “Assessing Cross-Cultural Competencies” offers a sample performance measurement for assessing competencies as desirable learning-driven goals for international assignees to develop.

Different Raters

Brookfield’s study found that 45 percent of international assignees are rated by host-country managers, whereas 9 percent are rated by home-country managers; 26 percent are rated by both.15 In a research study, David Day and I found that international assignees’ performance ratings are affected by the nationality of the supervisor making the rating, especially when the dimensions are more subjective.16 Subjective performance dimensions can be culturally bound and might lack conceptual equivalence. For example, Asian managers might emphasize cooperation and teamwork when rating the performance dimension “leadership,” whereas American managers might emphasize assertiveness and independence when evaluating the same dimension. Thus the same manager may be rated as highly effective on a leadership dimension by the host-country manager, but highly ineffective by the manager in the home country. This is one example of a key strategic decision: whether a company-wide or country-specific set of metrics and standards will be used. To facilitate making this decision, refer to “Stakeholder Alignment of International Assignees’ Performance Goals” (on previous page), which encourages you to identify the behavioral indices and most appropriate raters for each key goal.

Repatriation

Thus far, this chapter has been dedicated to understanding the best way to manage international assignments for developmental purposes. However, a successfully completed international assignment is not the end of the story: assignees eventually come home. It is important to realize that using international assignments as a method to develop cultural agility will be effective only if this homecoming, or repatriation, is also managed well. If it is not, the organization risks losing the professionals in whom it has invested the cost and energy of the international assignment.

On the face of it, the retention of repatriates might not seem to be a concern, given that the annual attrition rate of repatriates is at 8 percent, the same attrition rate for employees generally across organizations.17 For most organizations, however, an 8 percent attrition rate is high, given that the organization has spent valuable resources in selecting, training, and supporting international assignees with the goal of, in turn, competitively benefiting from their increased cultural agility. Thus repatriate retention, and the methods to increase repatriate retention, are paramount when building the pipeline of culturally agile professionals.

Among the repatriates who leave their organizations, roughly one-third of them leave within one year after repatriation.18 The way in which your organization manages your repatriates’ careers is critical for retention. Maria Kraimer, Margaret Shaffer, and Mark Bolino conducted a study with recently returned repatriates and found that lower levels of organizational career support led to greater turnover intentions.19 Using the four goal categories (technical, functional, developmental, and strategic) that were listed in Figure 8.1, they found that repatriates who had been on strategic or developmental (learning-driven) assignments were more likely to advance with their organizations upon repatriation, compared to those on functional or technical (demand-driven) assignments. On the surface, this might make sense: those who were sent to develop career-enhancing cross-cultural competencies were rewarded for gaining them. Unfortunately, this is not the case. This study found no relationship between the acquisition of cultural skills and subsequent career advancement. The difference in attrition was related to career advancement opportunities, and there were more opportunities for career advancement among those in learning-driven assignments.

The picture is even more fine-grained. Although strategic and developmental repatriates both generally have their next move preplanned as a part of a talent management system, they have different levels of likely attrition. Strategic executive assignees are managed in the context of their cultural skills. For example, a product marketing leader might move from running a smaller regional market to a larger one. A finance leader might move from working in a stable, mature market to a high-growth market in a developing country. An operations leader might move from running the functional area in a region or country to a globally integrated role within headquarters upon repatriation. In the case of these high-level strategic assignees, their careers are planned in such a way that their cross-cultural skills are rewarded and utilized with subsequent career advancement. Their cross-cultural competencies were not just desirable but necessary for their subsequent roles within the organization’s succession plan, a trend that has been found in companies headquartered in multiple countries. As a part of a five-person and five-country research team, colleagues and I conducted a study of over sixteen hundred international assignees to examine their career-related perceptions.20 A dive into the data found that senior strategic assignees had the fewest concerns regarding their careers after repatriation, and reported the lowest intention of leaving their current employer to work for another organization.

Developmental assignees, usually more junior and often part of a rotational program, have a somewhat different pattern. Like strategic assignees, the developmental assignees have a desirable gain in cross-cultural competencies, but, unlike those of strategic assignees, those competencies might not be immediately necessary for their subsequent rotation. In their case, a problem for retention is that organizations are not using (or, in some cases, not even acknowledging) the assignees’ gains in their cross-cultural competencies. Technical and functional (demand-driven) assignees have the same retention concern, but for a somewhat different reason. Unlike those of their learning-driven counterparts, their careers are being managed based on their functional, not cross-cultural, competencies. The cross-cultural competencies they have gained during an international assignment are oftentimes disregarded upon repatriation. In our five-country study, both they and the developmental assignees reported the highest intentions to leave the organization upon repatriation.21

This is where the problem lies. Whether their assignment was intended to be learning driven or not, repatriates might have gained (or believe they have gained) cross-cultural competencies during their international assignments. If they have that belief (whether justified or not), they will, quite understandably, expect to be recognized, rewarded, and promoted accordingly. Organizations that do not appropriately acknowledge the experience and that underutilize (or fully ignore) the newly developed cross-cultural competencies are at risk for higher repatriate attrition.

Some organizations view repatriation attrition as a competitive risk: they invest in the development of cross-cultural competencies, only to have another organization—or, even worse, a direct competitor—realize the human capital gain.

Some organizations view repatriation attrition as a competitive risk: they invest in the development of cross-cultural competencies, only to have another organization—or, even worse, a direct competitor—realize the human capital gain from their investment. Other organizations view repatriation attrition as generally expected turnover, a cost of doing business. From this human capital perspective, they believe that some repatriates’ skills are not needed beyond the assignment. Most companies align more closely with the former view. Organizations holding the latter view tend to hire contractors or deploy employees who accept international assignments as their last position before retirement. These contractors and employees are able to manage their expectations accordingly; neither expect to stay with the organization upon repatriation.

Over the past decade, Mila Lazarova and I have studied the practices designed to lower unwanted repatriate attrition.22 Here are five recommendations you should consider for your organization:

TAKE ACTION

Based on information presented in Chapter Eight, the following is a list of specific actions you can take to make your organization’s international assignments more developmental and more successful in building cultural agility.

• Offer a private and confidential self-assessment tool well in advance of employees’ needing to make a decision about a possible international assignment. This tool can help employees determine whether an international assignment is really right for them and their families, and can be used in conjunction with a self-nomination process and as a way to tailor support practices for the assignees.
• Select for personality traits. Especially for learning-driven (that is, developmental and strategic) international assignees, assess candidates for the personality characteristics discussed in this chapter. Use tests, a structured interview, direct observations of behaviors—or, ideally, all three.
• Follow the guidelines in this chapter to tailor the level of support to the developmental nature of the assignment. For learning-driven assignments, increase support practices that foster learning (for example, cross-cultural training) and decrease support practices that inhibit learning (for example, memberships to international clubs).
• Align performance management systems. Before the start of an international assignment, be certain that all key stakeholders have agreed on the goals of the assignment. Also align behavioral indicators and identify who will be evaluating performance for each of the key goals of the assignment.
• Leverage competencies gained during repatriation by improving retention. Increase repatriate retention by affording better networking opportunities, offering career counseling, managing expectations, and the like. Measure and manage these practices by tracking your organization’s repatriate retention rate and adjusting retention practices as needed.

Notes

1. Paula M. Caligiuri and others, “A Theoretical Framework for Examining the Relationship Between Family Adjustment and Expatriate Adjustment to Working in the Host Country,” Journal of Applied Psychology 83, no. 4 (1998): 598–614.

2. Günter Stahl and Paula M. Caligiuri, “The Relationship Between Expatriate Coping Strategies and Expatriate Adjustment,” Journal of Applied Psychology 90, no. 4 (2005): 603–616; Paula M. Caligiuri and Mila Lazarova, “The Influence of Social Interaction and Social Support on Female Expatriates’ Cross-Cultural Adjustment,” International Journal of Human Resource Management 13, no. 5 (2002): 1–12.

3. Paula M. Caligiuri and Saba Colakoglu, “A Strategic Contingency Approach to Expatriate Assignment Management,” Human Resource Management Journal 17, no. 4 (2007): 393–410.

4. Ibid.

5. TraQs Consulting, Global Talent Pipeline: Critical Metrics, Effective Strategies (Henley-on-Thames, England: TraQs Consulting, 2011).

6. Colleagues and I have written extensively on this topic. See, for example, Günter Stahl and others, “Predictors of Turnover Intentions in Learning-Driven and Demand-Driven International Assignments: The Role of Repatriation Concerns, Satisfaction with Company Support, and Perceived Career Advancement Opportunities,” Human Resource Management 48, no. 1 (2009): 89–109; Caligiuri and Colakoglu, “A Strategic Contingency Approach”; Paula M. Caligiuri and Mila Lazarova, “Strategic Repatriation Policies to Enhance Global Leadership Development,” in Developing Global Business Leaders: Policies, Processes, and Innovations, ed. Mark Mendenhall, Torsten Kuehlmann, and Günter Stahl (Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 2001), 243–256.

7. Vladimir Pucik, “Globalization and Human Resource Management,” in Globalizing Management: Creating and Leading the Competitive Organization, ed. Vladimir Pucik, Noel M. Tichy, and Carole K. Barnett (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 1992), 61–84.

8. Ibid.

9. Brookfield Global Relocation Services, Global Relocation Trends: 2011 Survey Report (Woodridge, IL: Brookfield, 2011).

10. Paula M. Caligiuri and Jean M. Phillips, “An Application of Self-Assessment Realistic Job Previews to Expatriate Assignments,” International Journal of Human Resource Management 14, no. 7 (2003): 1102–1116.

11. Stefan Mol and others, “Predicting Expatriate Job Performance for Selection Purposes: A Quantitative Review,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 36, no. 5 (2005): 590–620.

12. Samuel Greengard, “Mission Possible: Protecting Employees Abroad,” Workforce 76, no. 8 (August 1997): 30–36. I have also conducted research with Jean-Luc Cerdin on this topic. Please visit www.culturalagility.com for updates on our research related to security issues and international assignments.

13. John Burns, “Four Americans Slain in Pakistan: Link to Killing at C.I.A. Is Seen,” New York Times, November 13, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/13/world/4-americans-slain-in-pakistan-link-to-killing-at-cia-is-seen.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.

14. Elise Labott, “U.S. Warns of More Attacks in Saudi Arabia,” CNN, June 18, 2004, http://articles.cnn.com/2004–06–18/world/saudi.arabia.warning_1_saudi-arabia-islamist-web-travel-warning?_s=PM:WORLD.

15. Brookfield Global Relocation Services, Global Relocation Trends.

16. Paula M. Caligiuri and David V. Day, “Effects of Self-Monitoring on Technical, Contextual, and Assignment-Specific Performance: A Study of Cross-National Work Performance Ratings,” Group and Organization Management 25, no. 2 (2000): 154–175.

17. Brookfield Global Relocation Services, Global Relocation Trends.

18. Ibid.

19. Maria Kraimer, Margaret Shaffer, and Mark Bolino, “The Influence of Expatriate and Repatriate Experiences on Career Advancement and Repatriate Retention,” Human Resource Management 48, no. 1 (2009): 27–47.

20. Stahl and others, “Predictors of Turnover Intentions.”

21. Ibid.

22. Mila Lazarova and I have written several articles on the topic of repatriate retention: Mila Lazarova and Paula M. Caligiuri, “Psychological Contract and Repatriate Intentions to Turnover,” Journal of World Business 36, no. 4 (2001): 389–402; Mila Lazarova and Paula M. Caligiuri, “Repatriation and Knowledge Management,” in International Human Resource Management, ed. Anne-Wil Harzing and Joris Van Ruysseveldt (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004); and Caligiuri and Lazarova, “Strategic Repatriation Policies.”

23. Brookfield Global Relocation Services, Global Relocation Trends.