Proceedings of 8th Annual London Business Research Conference
Imperial College, London, UK, 8 - 9 July, 2013, ISBN: 978-1-922069-28-3
Creating an International Expatriate Training Team: Lessons
Learned and Best Practices Uncovered
Bob Barrett
As more companies make the decision to go global, there is a growing need
for better quality expatriate training to help employees for this new overseas.
In particular, why do some expatriates excel in overseas assignments;
whereas, other expatriates may fail in the first few months and need to return
home? Thus, we need to understand why some expatriate training is more
successful than others.
Over the period of five years, the researcher has been teaching an
International Human Resource Management (IHRM) course with the
emphasis of exploring expatriate training. The use of appreciative inquiry was
used to find out from the students from various private and public sector
organizations, along with military background, as to what their personal and
professional experiences have been in this particular segment.
During the course of the teaching of the course focusing on factors of cultural,
technical, business, and educational implications preparing expatriates for
overseas locations, several findings were discovered. First, students whom
have travelled overseas, for work or personally, have a strong interest in
preparing expatriates for overseas assignments. Second, those students
whom have never travelled often feel ill-prepared to perform this HR function
of expatriate training. Third, due to the ever-changing rules and laws,
technology, cultural/political events, most students voiced a need for
additional training and education for anyone in HR that would be involved in
the HR training aspect. Finally, a key finding was that training before an
overseas assignment is not enough. Many students, as well as the literature,
have indicated that many expatriates would feel more self-reassured if they
had on-going training and knew that there was someone available for their
questions and need for additional training.
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Dr. Bob Barrett, Professor, School of Business, American Public University, 110 Durham
Court, Falling Waters, WV 25419, USA, 011-304-274-3535, Email: docjob00@msn.com