Motivation of the Female Expatriate to Work - Research Paper Example

? Managing Expatriate of the of the In present scenario, multinational companies are using expatriate staff in order to solve their balancing the labor market demand and also it has been found that absence of required skill set among local human capital encourages companies to hire expatriates who have the required skill set. However, it is not the fact that only business organizations hire expatriates but there are instances where academic institutions or universities also hire talented and knowledgeable expatriate academics personnel who can raise the academics quality of the respective universities. In such context, this paper has tried to understand the academic expatriate issue in the backdrop of a College for Women situated in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The college is facing problems like high attrition rate of academic expatriates, lack of engagement level of academic expatriates to the work, lack of motivation and conflict arises due to cultural differences between local academic staff and academic expatriates. The study tried to understand key reasons behind these problems and two academic expatriates have been used as representative of all the expatriates working in the college. Tentative suggestions have also been given in the report which would help the college to retain talented academic expatriates and enhance loyalty of these academic expatriates towards the College for Women. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Objectives 4 Background and History of the Female & Male Academic Expatriates 5 Motivation of the Female & Male Expatriate to Work 6 Expectation & Challenges for both Male & Female Academic Expatriate 8 Evaluation of Issues and Problems 10 Evaluation/Analysis the situation 12 Suggestions and General comments 14 Conclusion 15 References 16 Introduction In last 20 years, due to rapid penetration of globalization, number of multinational companies has been increased manifold and so the demand for world-wide expatriate staff has also been increased. Richardson and McKenna (2000) found that universities and academic institutions are increasingly participating in the global labour market in order to access and hire academic expatriates who can infuse quality in academic pedagogy in the universities. Altbach (2004) found that literature regarding academic expatriate is pretty scarce in contrast to research works regarding business expatriates. Richardson and McKenna (2002) found that universities and academic institutions can be classified as alternate version of organizational framework which is accompanied with cross functional departments. However, Altbach (2004) argued that there is significant asymmetry exist between business organizational environment and academic organizational environment. For example, in case of academic institutions and universities, expatriates involve in undertaking research, consultancy work, course administration, lecturing and doing operational works while in case of business organizations, performance expectancy from expatriates depends heavily on business outcomes (Barry, Berg & Chandler, 2003). Therefore, it can be assumed that academic expatriates are more involved in knowledge delivery process and they differ from business expatriates in socio and psycho-cultural aspects. However, the researcher has found that attrition rate for academic expatriates in the College for Women is pretty high and the college is performing poorly when it comes to retaining retain talented and skilled expatriate academics. As part of the Operations Management Team, the researcher has decided to draw an overall management plan to ensure smooth entry and to retain talented and skilled expatriate academics. Objectives It has been already mentioned that the researcher is working as the team member in the Operations Management Team who is working on behalf of College for Women. Core agenda of the research work is to help the college to develop a strategic to recruit and retain talented academic expatriate. However, the core agenda has been sub-divided into smaller parts in order to reach the project objectives in systematic manner. Important thing to mention that the project is being undertaken in context to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and therefore, the researcher will consider the socio cultural dimensions of the country while trying to understand the motivation of academic expatriate in the College for Women. To simplify the research process, Operations Management Team has selected two expatriate academic (one is being female expatriate while the other one is male expatriate) who have been working in the department for at least 6 months in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the team will try to understand the core research agenda in context to perception of these two expatriates. Now, the time has come to clarify objectives for this paper and it can be mentioned in following manner. 1- Identifying the plausible reasons for expatriates terminating the contract with the College for Women and after identifying these risk factors, the Operations Management Team will suggest suitable recommendations that can reduce the risk of expatriate terminating their contract. 2- Developing process map that can enhance satisfaction and engagement level of academic expatriates in College for Women so that they will remain at the department. 3- Identifying the key motivators for the selected female academic expatriate in the College for Women. 4- Identifying the expectation of the selected female academic expatriate working in the department and living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 5- Identifying challenges faced by the female academic expatriate while making adjustment with new place. 6- Delivering a holistic plan to University management which can help them to reduce expatriate turnover and improve the contingency situation regarding academic expatriate recruitment and termination. Background and History of the Female & Male Academic Expatriates Operations Management Team has selected both male and female expatriate and the team will try to understand their perception to the job in College for Women located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. To ensure confidentially of selected female and male academic expatriate, identity/name of them will not be revealed at any part of the discussion in the paper. Weir (2000) stated that organizational culture of Saudi Arabia is directed by indigenous local cultures, relationship, dominance of family and masculinity. Bozionelos (2009) found that expatriates from Non-Arabian region faces varied level of difficulties to adjust with social and work cultures in Saudi Arabia such as difference in morale levels, culture shock and communication difficulties etc. Before going to the discussion about collision of cultural aspects of the selected female and male academic expatriates with Saudi Arabian socio cultural aspects (although the study setting is in Riyadh but cultural aspects are more or less symmetric in all the region of Saudi Arabia hence the researcher is taking Saudi Arabia as sample geography instead of Riyadh), let us check the person knowledge and academic experience of the respective female and male candidates. Nationality of the female academic expatriate is British and the lady did her education schools and colleges of UK. The female academic expatriate did her masters in economics from reputed college in London and she received PhD from a reputed university located in London. She already worked as part-time professor in a management college in UK for two and half years. During early stage of her professional career, the female academic expatriate got the opportunity to join as part-time professor in College for Women located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. For last two years, the female academic expatriate is working as associate professor in economics department also doing post doctoral research on a topic of micro economics. The female is leaving with her 7 year old girl in Riyadh and the girl is attending local school. Nationality of the male academic expatriate is Chinese and he did his education in schools and colleges of Beijing, China. The male academic expatriate did his masters in management from reputed college in Beijing and received PhD from a reputed university located in Shanghai. He already worked as part-time professor in a management college in China for 1 year and then joined College for Women in 2 years contract. For last 1 year, the male academic expatriate is working as associate professor in management department of the college. The man is living alone in the Riyadh and at present, he doesn’t have any plan to bring his family from china to Saudi Arabia. Motivation of the Female & Male Expatriate to Work Hartl (2004) argued that it is not the fact that companies promote male and females to international assignments only for giving them global career exposure rather companies tend to provide equal opportunity to both genders equal opportunities. Hartl (2004) stated that when it comes to international assignments, women perform equally well as their male counterpart but it is only due to less numbers of females in middle level managements, companies do not take the risk to relocate chunk of mid level female employees to foreign countries. However, in this case, the male and female expatriates are not in any international assignments for any company rather their relocation to Saudi Arabia is more of ‘self-initiated foreign work experience’ (SFE). Consideration of the research works of Hartl (2004) reveals the fact that there can be five different motivators for the male and female academic expatriate in the case to continue working in College for Women such as, 1- motivation for gathering experience in different cultural settings, 2- higher monetary compensations, 3- greater diversity in job responsibilities in the College for Women, 4- presence of supportive work environment, 5- personal preference for the socio- cultural life in Saudi Arabia. Upon observation, Operations Management Team found it perplexing to establish the equilibrium between challenges of unfamiliar job environment faced the male and female academic expatriates and motivation of these expatriates to give full potential while doing work College for Women situated in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Operations Management Team conducted interview with both male and female academic expatriate and also observed their behavior while teaching in the college and found following motivators. 1- Work Performance- College for Women monitors the performance of staff in systematic manner and presence of transparent performance evaluation scheme plays vital role in motivating the male and female academic expatriates to deliver high performance. Selmer and Lauring (2011) also found that transparent job performance evaluation and reward system can motivate expatriates to perform well and remain loyal to particular educational institute and universities. Therefore, it can be said that there is symmetry exist in the research findings of previous research scholars and Operations Management Team. 2- Job Responsibility- after joining the College for Women, the female academic expatriate has got the chance to do post doctoral research on preferred topic and the lady is also getting supervisory support from experienced academicians of the college. On the other hand, the male academic expatriate got the opportunity to attend teaching training organized by the college authority. Attending such training has helped the male academic expatriate to gather knowledge and improve teaching pedagogy. Both male and female academic expatriate handle the responsibility like full time professor (although, they were hired in contractual basis) which includes taking classes, guiding students, checking exam answer sheets, playing important role in deciding academic curriculum of the college etc. In their previous job in the home country, they did not have the opportunity to handle such level of diversified job responsibilities. According to the female and male academic expatriate, diversified and challenging nature of the job responsibilities motivate them to remain engaged with the work environment of College for Women. 3- Job Environment Bhaskar-Shrinivas, Harrison, Shaffer & Luk (2005) argued that work environment play vital role in motivating expatriate workers to remain engaged with the workplace in foreign shore for longer duration. According to these scholars, cooperative and supportive work environment in foreign countries can help expatriate to adjust with the cultural, social, behavioral and professional expectation in the foreign workplace. Operations Management Team has found that most of the staffs in College for Women are experienced professional and having diversified cultural background. In such context, academic staffs of the college have helped the female and male academic expatriates to gel up with the organizational environment. According to the researcher, supportive and collaborative work environment of College for Women motivates the academic expatriates in discussion to remain motivated and engage with the college for long term basis. Expectation & Challenges for both Male & Female Academic Expatriate Consideration of the research works of Zimmerman, Holman & Sparrow (2003) reveals the fact that expatriates relocates to foreign locations in order to fulfill certain expectations and the case is not different for both male and female academic expatriate in this case. According to Zimmerman, Holman & Sparrow (2003), common expectations for expatriates are exposure to global career, better compensations, quest for handling diversified and challenging job responsibilities, better performance reward, gathering cross cultural management skill, knowledge integration etc. All of these expectorations might not synchronize in context to academic expatriates but factors like better job responsibility, opportunity to know cross cultural aspects, cross cultural knowledge management, opportunity to develop skill set and better compensations etc might affect expectations of academic expatriates. In this case, the female and male academic expatriate might have joined College for Women located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with following expectations; 1- Getting challenging and diversified job responsibilities which cannot only enhance their knowledge level but also increase their professional competency. 2- Expectation of the female academic expatriate was to gather teaching experience in a gulf country as there is vast difference exist in the culture of her home country (UK) and culture of Saudi Arabia. She might have the expectations to test her competency to manage the cultural shift and gather knowledge from working in pro-Saudi environment. On the other hand, male academic expatriate expected that Riyadh based College for Women would sharpen his teaching competency and he would get the opportunity to teach bigger student base. 3- The female academic expatriate also had the expectation to conduct post doctoral research on her preferred topic and get financial remuneration which can satisfy her social and lifestyle needs. Same is the condition for the male academic expatriate because he joined the college in Saudi Arabia with the expectation for high financial remuneration. 4- Finally, the female expatriate might have expected that the college would help her to settle down and college would provide support to her to raise her 7 year old girl in uninterrupted manner. The male academic expatriate did not have such kind of expectation rather he expected to do the job in College for Women for few years in order to gain relevant work experience and then switch to some more reputed academic institutions of other gulf countries. Bhaskar-Shrinivas, Harrison, Shaffer & Luk (2005) found that it is not logical to think that a job can satisfy all the expectations of the expatriates because significant amount of divergence exists between professional and social expectations. Zimmerman, Holman & Sparrow (2003) and Selmer and Lauring (2011) found that existence of professional, cultural and social challenges create the barrier for academic expatriates to fulfill their expectations. Same is the case for the male and female academic expatriate who took contractual job in College for Women. These challenges can be summarized by considering the socio-demographic aspects of Saudi Arabia. Challenge 1- the lady was born and brought up in UK while the male academic expatriate was born and brought up in China and they were never exposed to Saudi Arabian culture which far more conservative than culture of UK and China (Weir, 2000). Therefore, it was challenge for them to adjust with the cultural difference in Saudi Arabia and remain motivated in the workplace. Challenge 2- Wright and Bennett (2008) argued that most of the expatriates from western countries face workplace decision conflict against Emirati groups and local people. For example, most of the staff in College for Women uses local languages while the male and female academic expatriate faced the challenge to communicate with other colleagues by understanding the local language. Challenge 3- the female academic expatriate has 7 years old girl and it was a challenge for the female academic expatriate to find suitable environment for her girl in Saudi Arabia while it was not a option for the lady to live alone in Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, male academic expatriate found it difficult to find Chinese foods and it was challenge for him to adjust with the local food habits. The study has also found that the male candidate is not comfortable with excessive religion intervention in the work practice. The male academic expatriate has born and brought up in a Communist country hence it was quite difficult for him to adjust with religion centric culture of Riyadh. Therefore, the female and male academic expatriates faced psychological as well as professional and cultural challenges while joining College for Women located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Evaluation of Issues and Problems Forstenlechner (2008) stated that organizations and universities in Saudi Arabia are hiring expatriates in contractual basis due to non-availability of talented human capital in the country. Historically, Saudi Arabia has never been exposed to western culture and educational curriculum due to various macro and micro environmental reasons. Understanding these micro and macro environmental aspects is beyond the scope of this paper hence the study will only focus on the resultant outcomes. According to Forstenlechner (2008), in the recent years, Saudi Arabian government and governments of other gulf countries have taken strategic initiatives to increase the skill and competency level of local people and decrease dependency on expatriates. Although, implementation of such strategic initiatives affected the penetration of expatriates in business sectors but educational sector of the country remain unaffected. As a reason for such divergence, Selmer and Lauring (2011) stated that Saudi Arabian educational sector still has not been grown to its full extent and the Saudi government supports the universities and colleges to hire educational expatriates who can improve overall quality of education in the country. Generally, colleges and universities in Saudi Arabia hires educational expatriates like research scholar, professors or teaching staff from countries like UK, India, Egypt etc. As a result of such practice, College for Women hired female academic expatriate for the economic department in contractual basis and for the last 2 years, the female academic expatriate from UK is working in the college. The college has also hired the male academic expatriate in the discussion in contractual basis and the male academic expatriate is working in the college for last one year. In the previous sections, the study has defined the challenges faced might have faced the academic expatriates while relocating from UK to Saudi Arabia or from China to Saudi Arabia. However, researching on the topic has revealed some intricate problems associated with the expatriate strategy of College for Women. It is not the fact that these problems are de-motivating or negatively affecting the engagement level of female academic expatriate and male academic but these factors are also affecting the motivation and engagement level of other expatriates. Due to presence of negative factors, duration of stay for contractual academic expatriate is pretty shorter for the college in the discussion However; these negative factors will be discussed in the later part of the discussion but the Operations Management Team has found that presence of these negative factors are the root cause behind the problems and issues faced by the female and male academic expatriates in the discussion. Problems faced by the male and female academic expatriate can be summarized in the following manner. Issue 1- College for Women has no policy to support female expatriate to live with their families within college campus. In such context, the female academic expatriated faced challenge to find accommodation in an unknown city and for first few months, it was quite problematic for the lady to search for accommodation while taking care of her girl simultaneously. Same problem faced by the male academic expatriate and it took 1 hour everyday for him to reach the college from his accommodation in distant place in Riyadh. Issue 2- although, it may sound little subjective but the research has found that College for Women give more preference to local researchers or academic staff having Arabian background in contrast to expatriates from countries like UK, USA or India. Such preferential treatment has created problem for both male and female academic expatriates to gel up with academic stuff from Arabian decent. Issue 3- monetary compensation for contractual academic expatriate is pretty much low in College for Women in comparison to other colleges. According to the female and male academic expatriate, research scholars from foreign countries join the college for monetary benefits but offered monetary compensations in the College for Women is not sufficient to keep expatriates motivated for long period of time. As the dissatisfaction rises, academic expatriates leave the job for better opportunities. Issue 4- the female and male academic expatriates have not only faced discrimination regarding treatment by authority of College for Women but they also faced excessive work pressure which cannot be compared with the work related pressure for local academic staff. It has been found that college authority gives additional work pressure to expatriates such as taking classes in odd hours, asking for taking more classes in absence of other teachers, asking expatriates to come to college even during weekend etc while such kind of pressure is non-existent in case of local academic stuff. Such level of discrimination has evoked sense of dissatisfaction among expatriates who have joined College for Women and such level of dissatisfaction might influence academic expatriates to leave the job. Issue 5- Van Vianen et al. (2004) argued that non-Muslim academic expatriate might go through both “deep level” and “surface level” cultural differences while joining universities and academic institutes in Saudi Arabia. In case of surface level cultural difference, frustration of the female academic expatriate caused by issues likes wearing of Islamic dress while working, preferential treatment to men, gender biased treatment discouraging females from availing facilities etc. In such context, frustration of male academic expatriate caused by excessive practice of religion in work environment, pressure from local community follow local food habits etc. In case of deep level cultural difference, frustration of the male and female academic expatriate is caused by the mentality of the college authority to view academic expatriates from non-Arabian background as “repressive” and dominating their presence imposing limitations and code of conducts. Evaluation/Analysis the situation Although, the male and female academic expatriates have been used as representative of academic expatriates in College for Women who have joined the college from varied academic and cultural background but issues identified can be used by the Operations Management Team to deliver a holistic plan to University management which can help them to reduce expatriate turnover and improve the contingency situation regarding academic expatriate recruitment and termination. Consideration of research works of Ghorbani & Tung (2007) and Budhwar & Mellahi (2006) reveals the fact that staying or leaving the job of expatriates is affected by multitude of factors like nature of the work, quality of life in foreign location, work place relationship, magnitude of cultural difference, monetary compensations etc. In such context, Operations Management Team has found five pertinent aspects that are not only affecting motivational level of academic expatriate in College for Women but also influencing expatriates to leave the college. In simple words, analyzing the situation has revealed 5 negative aspects of the operation in College for Women and these factors can be defined in the following manner. Table 1: Risk Factors Name Characteristics Unequal Job Responsibility At present, job responsibility among academic expatriate and local academic staff is not equally distributed rather excessive work pressures are being given on academic expatriates without providing significant monetary benefits. Gender Discrimination Gender discrimination is being done by college authority while opinion of female academic expatriates is not being taken seriously by authorities. Due to presence of gender discrimination, local male academic staff is being given higher preference for important academic assignments. Cultural Biasness Academic expatriates from non-Muslim countries are often asked by authorities of College for Women to follow local dress codes or local customs. Another thing is that local languages are still being preferred as communication medium in the college while most of academic expatriates find it difficult to cope with such localized culture. Family Life College for Women does not provide family accommodation facilities to academic expatriates. Academic expatriates do not have the right to live in the campus of the college. Therefore, most of academic expatriates find it harassing to find accommodation in a city which is completely unknown to them. Compensation Monetary compensation for academic expatriates is pretty low as compared to other colleges in the city. Low monetary compensation has negatively affected the engagement level of expatriate academic staff joined the college for better compensation. The study has found that the above mentioned five factors are working in conjoint manner in order to reduce engagement level of academic expatriate and these factors can also be classified as probable reasons behind the motives of academic expatriates to terminate the contract with the College for Women. It is evident from the above discussion that authority of College for Women takes wrong attitude towards male and female academic expatriates. For example, they discriminate between Arabian and non-Arabian academic expatriate and they also preferentially treat local male academic staff over female academic expatriate. Such level of discrimination and preferential treatment are creating level of dissatisfaction among academic expatriates. In such context, following suggestions and recommendations can be drawn in the following section. Suggestions and General comments The problem areas identified are pretty much broad and most of them are beyond the scope of operation management. In such context, a qualitative payoff table can be used in order to put some general suggestions. Table 2: Payoff Table Alternatives Outcome Treat all the academic staff in equal manner Developing the egalitarian culture would help academic expatriates to meet with local people in easier manner. The process will not only reduce cultural differences between expatriates and local people but also will bring out culture of collaborative team work in the college. Provide industry average salary to expatriate academic staff Financial need of the academic expatriates would get fulfilled and they will not fill the urge to switch jobs for getting better financial benefits. Develop a secular culture within college and use most preferred international language as medium of communication Magnitude of cultural shock would get reduced by this step and academic expatriate would easily gel up with the culture of the College for Women. Develop a culture of equal respect and opportunity for both the genders. There will be no conflict between female and male academic expatriate and both the gender would respect each other’s work. Offer accommodation facility to academic expatriates and their family members within college campus. Academic expatriates would not feel the urge to terminate the contract to meet families in home country rather they will feel more engaged to the work while getting support from families. Conclusion Barry, Berg & Chandler (2003) found that it becomes very challenging to motivate academic expatriates by satisfying socio and psycho-cultural requirements due to involvement of intangibility and cognitive sense. However, Selmer and Lauring (2011) tried to identify the role of satisfaction and motivation in increasing loyalty among expatriates in universities and academic institutions but despite their seminal research work, very few other research scholars tried to understand cognitive aspect of expatriate motivation in academic institutions and universities. Such gap in the literature has forced this researcher to take up the study and try understanding pertaining issues regarding academic expatriates. Selmer and Lauring (2011) found that decision of the academic expatriate to remain or resign is directed by their satisfaction with the organization they worked and the place where they and their family live is shaped. Selmer and Lauring (2011) also argued that universities can design the organizational culture or job responsibilities to enhance satisfaction level and engagement level among academic expatriate but it becomes difficult for universities to shape the quality of life of academic expatriates and their families. It is evident from the above discussion that research findings of Operations Management Team have significant amount of symmetry with findings of previous research works. Therefore, it can be said that there are scopes exist for the College for Women to reduce the frequency of termination among academic expatriates by implementing above mentioned strategic plans. Although, it might be difficult for the college to implement all the recommendations due to socio-cultural barriers but the college has the resource capacity to implement some of the suggestions like compensation hike for academic expatriates and arranging accommodation for families of academic expatriates. In conclusion, it can be said that removing socio-cultural barriers might be a lengthy process but authorities of College for Women can eradicate such barriers by taking planned and strategic initiatives which can reduce the attrition rate of academic expatriates in definitive manner. References Altbach, P. G., 2004. Globalisation and the university: Myths and realities in an unequal world. Tertiary Education and Management, 10, 3-25. Barry, J., Berg, E., & Chandler, J. (2003). Managing intellectual labour in Sweden and England. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 10(3), 3-22. Bhaskar-Shrinivas, P., Harrison, D. A., Shaffer, M. A., & Luk, D. M. (2005). 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