Proceedings of World Business and Economics Research Conference
24 - 25 February, 2014, Rendezvous Hotel, Auckland, New Zealand, ISBN: 978-1-922069-45-0
A Study of The Key Cultural Selection Criteria That New Zealand
Selection Managers Use To Select Staff for Overseas Assignments
Alan Lockyer
Choosing the appropriate expatriate selection criteria is essential for those organisations that
send staff overseas to work on assignments. This is extremely important in regards to the
expatriate’s capability of adapting to the general environment factors (GEF) and being able
to deal with the interaction adjustment factors. Previous research has shown that poor
adjustment to the GEF in particular can cause an expatriate’s assignment to fail and this can
prove to be very costly to the home organisation in the immediate and longer terms. This
research focused on 30 New Zealand based organisations that sent expatriate staff on
overseas assignments. Organisation managers who select their expatriates were asked
what selection criteria they use. Hence, the research was predominantly culture based since
there is a miniscule amount of research performed in this area involving organisations in
New Zealand who send staff overseas to work on assignments.
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Alan Lockyer, Department of Management, Unitec Institute of Technology, Private Bag 92025, Auckland, New Zealand.