EL MUNDO hOy. GESTIÓN DE LA DIVERSIDAD. UN IMPERATIVO ...

INTERNAcionaLIZACIÓN Y CAPITAL HUMANO
its negative connotation, 1 it is also true that there is not agreement on
the exact definition of staff to be relocated. The length of time of the
expatriation is the factor that brings about a greater disagreement.
According to the literature, we can say that, in general terms, the
expatriate is the citizen of a country who moves to work to a foreign
country, no matter the position, and who lives in the foreign country for
a more or less lengthy period of time. For instance, for De la Osa (1997),
expatriate is «the person of a high position/or potential who moves to
a country different to the country of employment for more than one
year.» 2 . For Colomer (2001), it is the person who, for professional reasons,
is sent to a country different from the country of residence for a
period of time, maintaining links with the country of origin.
Depending on the length of time of the assignment we can find
three different types of assignments: «short-term assignment» for a period
of up to three months to deal with specific problems, supervise
projects or temporally fill a vacancy; the «extended assignment» up to one
year with similar objectives to short-term assignments; «long-term assignment»,
also known as «traditional expatriate assignment», which can last
from one year up to five years with a clearly defined role in the running
of a subsidiary, usually in a managerial position 3 .
For our research we have defined expatriate as «the manager, executive
and/or specialized technician of a multinational company who is
1
It is a term that has been used since the Middle Ages to refer to persons
expelled from their own country as a punishment.
2
De la Osa, J. C. (1997), Corporate Resource Group Ibérica, Capital Humano
No. 106, p. 31.
3
This long-term assignment has been the way in which traditionally businesses
have dealt with their foreign operations (Black et al., 1992; Dowling et al.,
1999; Dowling y Welch, 2004), nevertheless, according to the study «Benefits
for Expatriates 2005/2006» by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, more than 60%
of their companies expatriate in employees for a short-term assignment and one
every five companies expatriates its workers for one to five years. In contrast with
this study, carried out mainly within North American companies, the research on
Inter-European assignments carried out by Weichert Relocation Resources Inc. and
Worldwide ERC in 2004, claims that 89% of the inter-European assignments have
an average duration of one to three years. They pointed out as one of their main
findings that the tendency over the following three years was that the assignments
would be maintained or increased.
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