Discuss the advantages and disadvantage of using expatriates rather than host country nationals to staff foreign subsidiaries. The success of an international business operation depends largely on the people in charge and the decisions they make (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1992; Black & Gregersen, 1999; Hiltrop, 2002), and the human resource function is a critical part of that success (Jaw & Liu, 2004; Rodriguez & dePablos, 2002; Rowden, 2002; Tung, 1998). Unless the staffing practices that select those in charge are well aligned with business strategies and culture, success in international business is difficult to achieve and sustain (Henderson, 2002; Hiltrop, 2002; Laursen, 2002; Mendenhall, Kuhlmann, & Stahl, 2001; Porter & Tansky, 1999).
http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_qa5495/is_200501/ai_n21364106 Advantage: • Bring more skilled in the organisation. Being a expatriates, it must be a reason for the foreign subsidiaries to employ them. Skilled and experienced is one of the reason. In the • May able to change the bed culture of the organisation, as their view and way of doing things can affect the other people, to amake a positive impact to the organisation. • The expetrate is • Help organisation development: transfer of knowledge, enhance a firm’s competitiveness in a global business Disadvantage: • Culture, Language One of the most disadvantage of using expatriate is language.
Language is the basic tool to communicate with people. Without communication, things struggle. Without speaking the local langaurge, message delivery will be difficult. Not fit into the team according to culture and lifestyle, which not only lose the advantage of using expertrates, but also slow down and affect the work efficiency of the organisation. The expatriates are from the foreign country, who have different culture, lifestyle and behaviour compare to the local people.
It will cause trouble in both personal life and at work place. In personal life, the culture different will bring them with lots of unhappy experience and unenjoyable life. When the culture is different, the way of thinking and doing things are different as well.
This makes them feel hard to get along with the people sourrounding. It makes them feels they are left out. While in the situation of can not find someone close to and talk to, the life will not be happy. Also, as different country have different lifestyle, such as the things that to do after work, in Australian people would like to go for drink, but in China people prefered to go Karaoke, even this small things effect the feeling of belonging.
When they don’t feel belong to this place, it makes them miss their familiy and life back home, which will largely effect their peroformance. This is oftenly that the unhappy personal life will transfer to work place. • The family matter – the expetrates home sick as their family is leaving be hide back home, so will effect their work efficiency, or they even can not perform at all • It is expensive to use expetrates, so according to any matters, if they leave earlier, the organisation will have huge effect on financial lose • Don’t have local knowledge • Damage the rlationship with customer, supplier and employee.
