Expatriate Management - Essay Example

Strong human resources management practices come in handy especially in the international context whereby managers are engaged in foreign assignments. They need to be trained to ensure that they are effective in accomplishing the duties assigned to them. Nevertheless, training of expatriate managers is faced with various challenges. This paper presents a critique of challenges such as identifying the time to train, type and level of training, parties to be involved in training as well as the expatriates’ capabilities to relate with the foreign culture.

There are also challenges related to the learning capabilities, interest and willingness of the expatriates to undertake the training. Determining the appropriate time to train presents a major challenge as trainers try to evaluate the training needs of expatriates. They can either be trained before leaving their home organization or immediately after travelling to the foreign country (Bird and Osland, 2005). Both strategies are significant in equipping the manager with the desired knowledge to cope with the new environment, but choosing one of them rather than undertaking the two may be effective in saving time and resources.

Planners are faced with a dilemma of determining which strategy would be more appropriate. For example, training before the managers leave the organization instills them with a sense of purpose for their mission. They are capable of imagining the organization’s situation after they successfully complete their mission. Yan et al. (2002) observe that training expatriates before they leave their home country motivates them to work towards accomplishment of the organizational goals to improve the situation at hand.

When they are trained in the foreign country, they are fascinated by the new environment; either due to its magnificence or otherwise lower standards. The new environment may influence learning and therefore the training might not accomplish the organizational objectives (Chew,