Global Careers and culture shock

By Arun Kottolli

Global firms operate in highly competitive,  inter linked global business environment. To succeed they need executives who understand the world and have experience abroad. This makes global assignments increasingly important for manager’s careers. Historically companies have sent one of their home country mangers for a foreign assignment. The selection of the candidate often depends on the nature of the company. For example, Multi-domestic companies do not send their best performers abroad, while global companies select their best candidate. The table below gives the highlights of such foreign assignments.

Organizations can learn a great deal from the expatriate’s experience abroad, but only few do so. Most multinational and multi-domestic companies ignore the foreign experience. Foreign practices are treated as irrelevant in the home country. Such attitudes cause a great loss to the organization as it will not learn from expatriate’s experience. 

Global corporations on the other hand value foreign experience a lot. They begin with selecting the right candidate (recruited either internally or externally), brief him/her about the foreign culture and situation before sending them on the global assignment. Once the assignment is over, the person is debriefed and provided reentry orientation to help them adapt to the home country on their return. People who went abroad are recognized for their achievements and may be rewarded with promotions upon their return to the home country.

 Adjusting to new culture

 Foreign assignments require adjustment to new culture, new job, new language. The need to interact with host nationals at work and in general life makes the expatriate feel the culture shock. Culture shock can be best defined as a natural response to stress on immersing oneself in a new environment. The new environment makes new demands for which the people are not ready for. They neither have ready answers nor do they know what the appropriate response should be.  This massive change creates stress. 

 Expatriates face many changes in leaving their home country and transferring to a new country. Separation from family, friends and familiar environment causes stress. They see situations that they neither understand nor accept it. And worse, their own behavior does not seem to make sense and does not produce expected results.

 Stress related culture shock may take many forms : anger, anxiety, disappointment, embarrassment, frustration, impatience, confusion etc.. Stress may also cause physiological responses such as insomnia, headaches and other health problems. Consider the case experienced by an American in Israel:

 My third week in Israel, accompanied by a queasy stomach, I ventured  forth into a corner market to buy something light and easy to digest. As yet unable to read Hebrew, I decided to pickup what looked like a small yogurt container that was sitting near the cheese. Not being completely sure it contained yogurt, I peered inside; to my delight, it held a thick, white, yogurt looking substance. I purchased my “yogurt” and went home to eat -- soap, liquid soap! How was I to know that soap came in packages resembling yogurt containers, or that market items in Israel were not neatly divided into edible and inedible sections, as I remembered them in United States. Now my “clean” stomach became a bit more fragile and my confidence waned.

Normally it takes about 3-6 months to get over the culture shock and start living a more normal life abroad. Slowly they learn what the new culture considers important and meaningful, as time proceeds, they learn the local culture and language.

Often times the adaptation process will not be smooth. Culture shock & work related stress often brings out the worst -- When people start blaming others:

Ÿ         Blaming the host culture, nationals etc..

Ÿ         Blaming the company.

Ÿ         Blaming the spouse.

 Blaming game is the wrong way to handle these circumstances. Often this creates bad will and will prevent the success of the expatriate.

 Getting over the culture shock

 Often the best method to adapt well with the local culture will be to befriend a local person in the company. Learning a new culture is lot more like children learning from their parents. Initially children mimic their parents and as time proceeds they learn the culture themselves. Expatriates can do the same. Work with the local person and learn the culture through him/her.

 On the job, people can reduce culture shock by modifying their expectations and behavior accordingly. Spend time to create “stability zone”  -- that closely resembles home and are comfortable with. For example, having home style food abroad, practicing home country practices in their private spaces (yoga, puja) etc..  Next step would be to establish priorities and focus their limited energy on only the most important tasks.

 Coming Home : Reentry Culture shock

 Social Life

 After a long stint abroad, expatriate returns to his/her home country. Returning home is not easy as it seems. People experience a culture shock similar to that they experienced when they went abroad. Though this sounds surprising, its for real. Often times, expatriates remember only the best things of their home country and idealize their homeland while totally forgetting the bad things in their home country. For example, people forget about the chaotic traffic, power cuts, water shortage etc. in India while they live in US.  Another cause for the reentry culture shock is that things change with time. The home country would have changed during the time the expatriate was abroad. Situation would have changed, old friends would have changed, culture would have changed etc.. Expatriate’s remember things as they were when they left the home country and when they return, they are unable to comprehend the changes. Lastly, returning expatriates find themselves as foreigners in their home country. Having stayed abroad for long, they would have absorbed so much of foreign culture that they look at the home culture as different and inferior to the foreign culture.

 Professional Life

 At the work front, things would have changed at the work place too. Often the home country office would have no idea what to do with the returning expatriate. The old job will not be there and the company does not know what to do with the employee. Multidomestic companies do not consider foreign skills as useful for their local operations, Multinationals fare a little better but they too do not think highly of the foreign experience.

 Companies which do not value foreign experience don't think highly of the returned expatriate while the expatriate thinks highly of his/her accomplishments. Also the home country may have a xenophobic attitude towards expatriates. All  this often leads to expatriate leaving the company and may even go back to the foreign country.

 Transition to home environment

 Getting over the reentry culture shock is a lot similar to getting over the foreign culture shock. It takes time, learning and practicing. Its been noted that returning expatriates follow one of the three patterns to adapt to their home country:

 1.                  Resocialized Returnees

      Resocialized returnees are most common among corporate expatriates who work for multidomestic firms or multinational firms which lack a global orientation. Resocialized returnees try to fit back into the domestic environment by acting like they have never been away. They choose not to use their globally acquired skills and experiences. This negates the possibility to enhance their home country’s effectiveness. The lack of individual and organizational  learning is particularly unfortunate today when firms need continual world wide learning just to compete, let alone succeed.

 2.                  Alienated Returnees

      This is more common with returnees who are coming back after a long time abroad. While working abroad, they assimilate values and lifestyle of the foreign culture. When they return, they continue to see the foreign culture as better than their home culture, believing that it offers a richer way of life. They reject the home culture and in doing so, they frequently become socially isolated.

      Alienated returnees contribute little to home organization from their global experience. This often results in diminished productivity and the organization evaluates them as ineffective.

3.                  Proactive Returnees

      These are the best type of returnees. They neither reject their own culture nor the foreign culture. Rather they combine aspects of both in creating new approaches to working and living. They recognize and use their globally acquired skills and learning to contribute within their work environment and modify their personal lifestyle.  They see themselves as being more effective and more satisfied with their job as they have developed a highly sophisticated skills at perceiving their environment -- whether abroad or at home -- and at describing situations, rather than simply comparing and evaluating them. They easily identify similarities and differences without  classifying them as good or bad.

      Proactive returnees  contribute a lot to the home organization by creating a synergetic approach -- by combining the best of both cultures. This allows returnees to work effectively with a wider range of alternatives.    

Getting the best from Global Managers

 The global business environment is highly competitive. Success depends on corporate excellence. To compete, today’s global companies select the best people and manage them appropriately. Unfortunately, many organizations frequently fail to profit from their employee’s global experience. To benefit fully, organizations and returnees need to better understand the reentry transition. Both must identify job skills acquired abroad and systematically find ways to productively use them. The home country organization must recognize the value of worldwide experience. The attitude of returnees must also change to be inline with that of the home organization.

 Few global corporations conduct reentry sessions with the returned expatriates to help local managers learn from their foreign experience and vice-versa. This allows better understanding and perceptions of the organization on global basis.

 Women in Global Careers

 Today more than 40% of the work force are women, so its natural to select women for foreign assignments. However the realty is quite different. Companies are often hesitant to send women abroad. Some of the common myths against selecting women are 

1. Global experience is not that important.

2. Women prefer family commitments over global assignments

3. For global managers, being a woman is a disadvantage.

4. Certain cultures make it impossible for women executives to succeed.

5. Women is not taken seriously if she cannot separate her professional life from personal life