8/2/2019 Expatriate Assignments and Intra

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Expatriate assignments and intra-organizational career success: implications for individuals and

organizations.

AbstractAnecdotal accounts and reports in the popular press often suggest that international assignments are criticalfor employees who seek to move up the career ladder more quickly. Nevertheless, previous research on

repatriation indicates that many former expatriates feel that their overseas assignments have harmed, ratherthan helped, their careers. Relatively little research, though, has sought to understand how expatriateassignments might be related to career success. This paper, then, presents a conceptual model describing therelationship between expatriate assignments and intra-organizational career success. Specifically, theories ofcareer mobility are used to develop a framework for outlining the factors likely to determine whether expatriateassignments help or hinder the advancement of employees who have worked as international assignees. Themodel also indicates that repatriate career success influences an organizations ability to retain its currentrepatriates and recruit future expatriates. Some implications of this research and directions for future researchare discussed as well.

Access of Host Country Nationals to foreign subsidiaries top staffing positions: Initial

statements for Latin America.

Abstract: The substitution of expatriates by host country nationals (HCNs) is part of a foreign

subsidiaries(fSubs) development process; the extent of substitution depends not only on

multinationals (MNEs) strategies towards the host market but also on the economics of the site and

the availability of local managers. The purpose of this paper is to establish initial statements for

Latin America that will help us describe the phenomenon. The cross-checking of the literature,

interviews with managers from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, and a description of Latin

America as a subject of research provide hints for further steps in the consideration of this matter.

Keywords: Subsidiary development, Subsidiary coordination & control, Host country nationals,

Expatriates, Latin America

Conclusions

This paper aimed to understand the HCN phenomenon from fSubs point of view of rather than from

the HQ perspective typically explained by Expatriates literature. The main conclusion is that it is

possible to demystify the idea that some authors crafted about MNE may adopt a geocentric attitude

towards fSubs which break into confrontation between Expatriates and HCN. This paper argues that

far from planned or intended confrontation, there is a miscommunication going on fSubs that act as

conveyors of MNE towards what HCN understand and prompt as response. If both MNE (HQ) andHCN understand that miscommunication across fSubs creates noise, they would put in practise

strategies to reduce the noise; in consequence, the analysis of corporate communication would helpto depict noise from clear commands and improvements on communication mechanisms can be

created to tackle specific communication problems or HCN lack of skills.