Expatriates Issues in International Joint Ventures - Essay Example

Much of the early studies on international staffing was largely descriptive, prescriptive, and lacking in analytical rigor (Dowling et al., 1999). One European critique (Brewster & Scullion, 1997) argued that staffing policies are often developed in isolation from other areas of expatriation policy and fail to connect expatriate selection to the MNE's international business strategy. Researchers are finding more variety in approaches to staffing and other activities (Scullion & Starkey, 2000; Petrovic et al., 2000). Drawing on the speculative concepts of the resource based view, European researchers have endeavored to explain the strategic measurement of expatriate selection.

Bonache and Fernandez (1999) explain the linkage between expatriates and spirited advantage by significance the significance of the relocating of tacit knowledge to new markets, through relocating teams rather than just: individual managers and Bonache and Brewster (2001) discover the role of expatriates as instrument of knowledge transfer. Recent European studies indicates the significance of country specific factors and indicates distinction between countries in international staffing practices. . utilize fewer.

For example, direct expatriate management is mostly well-built in the Far Eastern or Latin American subsidiaries of Japanese and German operating in the automobile or electronic industries, and much less important in the subsidiaries of U.S., French, and British MNEs located in Scandinavian or Anglo-Saxon countries and operating in the food or paper industries. Not all international business activities are staffed by "traditional" expatriates, that is, expatriates on international projects for several years.

There are a significant figures, in Europe at least, of self-initiated expatriate experiences (SFEs): group who find their own way to an additional country (Suutari & Brewster, 2000). buying and trade behavior are often behavior by people on short (often, factually, flying) visits. Studies into the selection of expatriates has generally been focused on the more "visible" aspects of these issues such as the criteria used in selection decisions. Studies in Europe, however, also indicate that selection criterion are largely create of the international HR unit: in practice choice on expatriate selection are typically taken by line managers--who often simply pay no attention to the selection criteria espoused by the HR department (Harris & Brewster, 1999).

The confirmation on numbers of expatriates is diverse. There are suggestions that the accessibility of people willing to recognize global projects is not escalating fast enough to meet the rapidly growing demand for international managers. Studies suggest that general lack of expatriate managers are mainly sensitive in European MNCs and restrict mutual efforts to develop