Strategy For Expatriate

Discussion about necessary competencies of both expatriate managers and global managers has recently been lively, since the need for such managers with international careers is increasing due to the globalization of business (Richard 1991)

However, leaders will find cross-cultural teams and expatriates difficult to manage as many issues arise in global companies where leaders must treat their employees equitably, yet culturally appropriate manner (Francesco and Gold, 2005).

In this essay, the strategies related to leadership and training will be introduced that will help a cross-cultural team to enhance performance and successful adjustment of expatriates, by improving the leadership behaviours in a multinational company.

The research suggests that between 16 and 40 percent of all American employees sent to developing nations return home early and the cost of expatriate failure are remarkable high. (Richard 1991a)

Expatriates often play critical roles in MNCs and therefore, their performance must be managed well and efficiently. It has been noted that the future success of all multinational companies depends on the availability of globally competent managers. The literature review suggests that the need to develop globally competent managers has been widely recognised. (Eeva 2002).

Jung et al (2003) cites that one of the most important strategies in meeting today's customer's needs is to be innovative. Therefore, the first strategy is to enhance innovation by adopting transformational leadership behaviour.

In cross-cultural teams, the emphasis should be put on creativity and innovation as one of the advantages of having members from different cultures arise from the ability to attain diverse views and ideas, hence, in this strategy, innovation will be regarded as one of the most important aspects of successful adjustment. In order to increase innovation, leadership is vital as it is the most important factor that increases creative behaviours and performance (Amabile, 1998 cited by Jung,2003). I suggest that leaders take transformational leadership. Leaders should support creativity by employing a supportive and non-controlling manner (Oldham, 1996 cited by Jung, 2003).

Leaders should also increase leader-follower relationship because it will encourage employees to undertake more responsible actions (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995, cited by Howell and Hall-Merenda,1999) and therefore, increase creativity.

Adding participative leadership behaviour is recommendable. The leaders delegate to followers the authority to execute any necessary actions for effective performance. Participative leadership lead to psychological empowerment which brings stronger task commitment and more innovation (Yuki, 2006).

In practical term, leaders must allocate tasks that are meaningful to individuals who are competent enough to complete them as otherwise delegation will not lead to increase in self-fulfillment and confidence. Leaders should clarify objectives, provide access to relevant information and encourage initiative (Forrester, 2000, cited by Yuki, 2006).

The reason for recommending transformational leadership is transformational leaders can help expatriates to adjust to the new culture.

Firstly, transformational leaders have substantial control over collective social construct, which represents organizational culture (Mumford et at, 1998, cited by Jung, 2003); therefore they are able to create organizational culture where members can easily adjust. Furthermore, they can provide explanations that link the follower's, in this case expatriates', identities to the collective identity of the organization (Jung, 2003), increasing the expatriates' intrinsic motivation and ability to see themselves as part of tile organization.

Lastly, transformational leaders often highlight the importance of cooperation in performing collective tasks and provide the opportunity to learn from shared experience (Bass, 1985, cited by Jung, 2003).

A research revealed 40% of expatriates worked ill teams (Suutari and Tahvanainen, 2002). Thus, a leader's ability to encourage group work is crucial.

Furthermore, in order to help expatriates to adjust, when setting goals for expatriates, the goal should be decided after a discussion between host-country manager and home-country supervisor, so that expatriates' ability is used to the full.

In this essay, the case study is chosen in order to introduce a more practical strategy and the situation is specified to “Western manager working in Hong Kong. “.

For instance Hong Kong with Chinese culture has high tolerance of inequalities of power, high power distance and collectivist culture (Snape et al, 1998).

The recommendable strategy is to adopt transactional leadership and then gradually move to transformational leadership with performance appraisal to enhance performance.

Hong Kong has relatively materialistic culture with monetary reward being of primary importance (Snape et al, 1998). Hence, I recommend transactional contingent-reward leadership where the leader and the follower negotiate the reward for a specific level of performance

It has been found that such leadership has a positive impact on follower satisfaction and performance (Howell and Hall-Merenda, 1999).

This must especially be true where monetary rewards are of great importance, such as Hong Kong. However, it is better to transform to transformational leadership, because transformational leaders provoke strong follower emotions, increase awareness of problems and ability to develop new perspectives, thereby allowing followers to exceed performance expectations (Yuki, 2006).

In order to do this, leaders should try to achieve high quality leader-follower relationship. Hong Kong has a high power distance, so is likely to have low LMX which is characterized by unidirectional downward influence. When high-quality LMX is achieved, workers are more likely to take on added duties, play a greater role in meeting goals and deliver high performance. Leaders can attain this by giving support and encouragement and having frequent interactions with the followers (Howell and Hall-Miranda, 1999).

Adding a charismatic side is recommendable especially in performance oriented culture such as Hong Kong. Charismatic leaders are able to discredit old ways and propose new ways. With expatriate managers, adopting new ways is unavoidable. (Yuki B, 2006).

Finally, it was found that host members often have more important roles compared to expatriates (Suutari and Tahvanainen, 2002), providing equal opportunities must be considered so that expatriates' dissatisfaction