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Re-Entry and Career Issues (Unit-4) : Chapter Learning Objectives

This document discusses repatriation and career issues for expatriates returning from international assignments. It covers [1] the process of re-entry and potential culture shock, [2] job-related challenges like career anxiety and work adjustment, and [3] social factors affecting repatriates like impact on family and social networks. It also outlines how multinational companies can maximize benefits and support repatriates through staff availability, return on investment, and knowledge transfer programs.

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Diksha Prasad
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88 views16 pages

Re-Entry and Career Issues (Unit-4) : Chapter Learning Objectives

This document discusses repatriation and career issues for expatriates returning from international assignments. It covers [1] the process of re-entry and potential culture shock, [2] job-related challenges like career anxiety and work adjustment, and [3] social factors affecting repatriates like impact on family and social networks. It also outlines how multinational companies can maximize benefits and support repatriates through staff availability, return on investment, and knowledge transfer programs.

Uploaded by

Diksha Prasad
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Re-Entry and Career Issues (unit-4)

Chapter Learning Objectives


After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
• detail the process of re-entry or repatriation
• discuss job-related issues
• outline social factors, including family factors that affect
re-entry and work adjustment
• suggest multinational responses to repatriate concerns
• discuss staff availability and career issues
• define return on investment (ROI) and knowledge
transfer
• outline the process of designing a repatriation program

Terms
• re-entry shock
• repatriates
• holding pattern
• kingpin
• ‘trailing’ partner
• ROI
• mentor
• knowledge transfer
• repatriate knowledge and
• skills:
• market specific knowledge
• personal skills
• job-related management skills
• network knowledge
• general management capacity
•
• boundaryless career
• ‘protean’ career
• international itinerants

Opening Vignette
Coming Home?
• challenges in the post-assignment phase of international
assignments = CULTURE SHOCK

Expatriation Includes Repatriation


Expatriation Includes
Repatriation (Figure 8-1)

Repatriation
activity of bringing the expatriate back to the home
country

Re-entry Culture Shock


• unaware of adjustment difficulties upon return
• re-entry adjustment
Factors that contribute
• extended assignments/unconscious internalizing of the
countries customs and practices
• lack of respect and use for international experience
• career uncertainties, loss of status,
• poor planning for repatriate and families return
Can lead to
• feeling alienated and uprooted
• career, performance and commitment problems
• high percentage leaving company shortly after their
return

Repatriation Activities and Practices


Repatriation Activities
and Practices)

• overemphasis on a home can lead to problems


with performance on assignment and premature return
• overemphasis on host activities can lead to a second
culture shock upon return

• the goal of expatriation/repatriation practices is the


successful integration of home and host experiences
• balanced set of transitions
Repatriation Process-
Phase I
Pre-departure
Pre-departure training (including career and financial
planning)

Creating a network of communication links for expatriates to


be able to keep up with the changes
• assign home mentors
provide web-based indices
• establish communication protocols

Repatriation Process-
Phase II
During assignment
• “home leave”
• work related information exchanges
• mentor communications
• systematic pre-return orientation process
•
Repatriation Process-
Phase III
Upon return
• new job assignment
• organizational reconnection
• assistance with non-work factors
• opportunities to recognition and sharing of experiences

Individual Reactions to
Re-entry
Moderators of re-entry readjustment
• Job-Related Factors
• Social Factors
•

Factors Influencing Repatriate Adjustment


Factors Influencing
Repatriate Adjustment
(Figure 8-3)

Job Related Factors


• career anxiety
• work adjustment
• coping with new role demands
• loss of status and pay
Career Anxiety
• expatriates two motivators for accepting an
international assignment: career advancement and
financial gain.
• prime factor in re-entry is career anxiety
no post-assignment guarantee of employment
• fearing a loss of visibility
• changes in the home workplace
•

No Post-Assignment Guarantee of Employment


• 68 % of respondents in the 2004 GMAC USA survey did
not provide post-assignment employment guarantees
• guarantee of positions decreasing; USA, UK
• Europeans have a labour contract, guarantee of job
upon return
• Continental European firms provide guarantees to
attract expatriates

Fearing a Loss of Visibility


• loss of visibility and isolation
• ‘out of sight, out of mind’

Fearing a Loss of Visibility


Depends on various elements
• the amount of contact with the home organization
• the position level concerned
• aware well in advance of the type of re-entry job
awaiting

Changes in the Home Workplace


• restructuring (a merger, acquisition, sale of divisions or
business units, closure of a plant)
• company undergoing turbulence, such as downsizing.
• potential or real job loss

Work Adjustment
• the employment relationship
• re-entry position
• devaluing the overseas experience
•

The Employment Relationship


Individuals perceptions regarding expected career
progression influenced by top management/IHRM
• clear messages that an international assignment is a
condition for career progression
• need for a global orientation or mindset; link between
international experience and global managers
• recruitment and selection stage; psychological contract

Re-entry Position
Fears
• peers are promoted ahead of the repatriated manager
• placed in a position that is a demotion/less senior level
• IHRM issues
• match the repatriate’s career expectation
• ‘headhunting’ repatriates

Devaluing the Overseas Experience


• promotion upon re-entry signifies that international
experience is important and valued by the organization

Re-entry positions can give impression that


experience is devalued
• reduced responsibility and status
• duties not using newly gained international expertise
• work colleagues lack of interest
Coping with New Role Demands
• mismatch of expectations
• time in the foreign location; significant changes in
behaviour.

The Repatriate Role

The Repatriate Role (Figure 8-


4)

Role Clarity
• role clarity, rather than role conflict affects adjustment
• clarify job description
•

Role Discretion
• refers to the freedom to adjust the work role to fit the
individual, making it easier for the person to utilize past,
familiar behaviour, thus reducing the level of
uncertainty in the new job that assists adjustment.
• positive impact on adjustment

Predictors for Repatriation Maladjustment


1. length of time abroad
2. unrealistic expectations of job opportunities in the
home company
3. downward job mobility
4. reduced work status
5. negative perceptions of the help and support provided
by employers during and after repatriation.

Loss of Status and Pay


• life on a scale that may be significantly less comfortable
• pay is usually lower in absolute terms
• total compensation package may allow for increased
savings
• housing prices and issues

Social Factors
• family adjustment
• social networks
• effect of partners career
• socially and psychologically distanced
• social disappointment
• financial loss of the compensation premium, housing
subsidy and related benefits

Family Adjustment
each family member is experiencing their own
readjustment problems
• reduced family income

Social Networks
• internet, wireless and mobile phone technology, digital
cameras and email, significantly easier to stay in touch
• changes with family friends ( i.e. moved, new jobs)
• level of MNE support is withdrawn
• children find difficulties regaining peer acceptance
Effect on Partner’s Career
• difficulties in re-entering the workforce
• negative experience of job search
• declining MNE support

Multinational Responses
Maximize benefits of the international assignment
• staff availability
• return on investment
• knowledge transfer

Staff Availability and Career Expectations


Re-entry positions
• signal the importance given to international experience
• impacts future staff availability

Linking Repatriation Process to Outcomes


Boundaryless Career
• shifts occurring in the employment relationship (job for
life to job mobility)
• sequence of job opportunities that go beyond the
boundaries of single employment settings
Boundaryless Careerist
• highly qualified mobile professionals, moving between
organizations, transferring across boundaries to develop
career competencies and labor market value.
• international assignments are boundaryless in that the
person is placed in another organization
Protean
A self-directed continuous learning career
• self –employed, contract work
• commitment to career and profession ( not
organization)
• develop their own intercultural and managerial skills
Itinerants
Two disadvantages
• lack of firm knowledge
• selecting and controlling

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