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

The Successful Adaptation of Expatriates and the Intercultural...
the expatriate and an excess of prioritization of technical skills, leaving
aside other factors such as considering expatriation a form of getting
rid of an unwanted employee, or family problems such as spouse’s or
children’s maladjustment, spouse’s career expectations, elderly parents
and so on.
According to Schell (1994), President of the relocation services
agency Windham International in New York, «the recruitment process
is faulty in nature … Assignments rarely fail because the expatriate is
unable to adapt to the technical requirements of the job..., they fail due
to family and personal matters and due to the lack of cultural skills that
were not included as part of the recruitment process» 4 .
Finally it has to be pointed out that in Arthur and Bennett’s paper
(1995), the expatriate identifies five main factors that determine the
success of the assignment 5 . The findings, in order of importance, identify
the following factors: Family situation, (formed by a positive opinion
of the spouse, willingness to live abroad and stable marriage) flexibility
and adaptability (wittiness, stress handling, flexibility and emotional
stability), job knowledge and motivation (creativity, organisation skills,
administrative skills), interrelation skills (respect, politeness and tact)
and willingness to open to different cultures (external interest, assertiveness
and interest in other cultures and countries).
According to what has previously been mentioned, we can claim
that to reduce the failure probability, it is essential for companies to
understand the different additional factors that may be involved in the
assignment and that sometimes play a more important role than technical
and job competences so as to be able to take suitable measures and
implement a sound expatriate management scheme.
4
Quoted by Solomon, C. M. (1994), Success abroad depends on more than job
skills, Personnel Journal, April, Vol. 73 (4), p. 52
5
Report carried out and published in 1995 with a sample of 338 expatriates
from 26 countries belonging to 45 multinational companies relocated in 43 different
countries.
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