A Study on Challenges and adjustment of expatriates in Cross cultural context

In an increasingly changing business world, MNCs establish foreign-owned subsidiaries and enter into joint ventures and strategic alliances to create a presence in international competition and to take advantageous production resources. Many opportunities and challenges of the globalizations processed are creating the need for expatriates to locate managers and skilled workers in international locations. However, the task of expatriate employment is complicated by profound differences between countries in labor markets, culture; legal and economic systems. Move abroad is the first step on a journey of adjustment. In order to have access to qualified staff at the time and place required, more MNCs are becoming aware of a need to develop international experience across a wider range of employees, from host locations as well as from the home country. Expatriate employees need to be selected not on technical expertise alone, but also on cross-cultural fluency in order to maximize the expatriates effectiveness and efficiency working in a different culture Therefore, it becomes necessary to train the new expatriates to perform the goals and objectives set by the MNCs. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the importance of training and certain care that can be taken to minimize challenges that are faced by expatriates during their international assignment.