Selection Criteria, Procedures and Success Indicators for Managers in International Assignments

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SELECTION CRITERIA, PROCEDURES AND SUCCESS INDICATORS FOR MANAGERS IN INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS

By Rita Bennett
August 1995
Reviewed August 2002
Technical competence and management experience are often the sole criteria for the selection of managers for international assignments. Unfortunately, home country performance alone does not guarantee overseas effectiveness. Other factors—cultural adaptability, family circumstances, career and life stage—are equally important in determining the success of an international posting.
Prior to selection, the groundwork must be laid for assignment success. The organization must, first, be sure that the assignment meets a clearly defined business strategy. Then, a position analysis and clear job description must be developed based on bicultural input from both the sending and receiving groups.
The position analysis and job description should outline performance expectations for the assignment and serve as an anchor for an employee development plan. Once overseas, the employee's performance appraisal can be linked directly to the job description and development plan, thus laying the groundwork for a successful assignment. This process also helps ease the employee's repatriation by promoting professional development so that a suitable position is waiting for the expatriate upon repatriation. This promotes assignment success because the employee can focus on job objectives rather than worrying about the career track back home.
Next, the organization must define what is meant by success overseas. Until recently, success was often measured by the employee's ability to simply remain abroad for the full term of the assignment. Intense global competition means that now the employee's ability to accomplish the company's strategic objectives for the assignment determines success. Too often, managers are sent overseas in haste, depriving them of adequate preparation and often limiting the candidate pool to those with the necessary technical, functional and/or managerial skills. An expatriate must also have the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to become adjusted and interculturally active, or the assignment will fail to meet business objectives.
Intercultural adjustment encompasses adaptation to the job, to interacting with host nationals and to the overall living situation. Research shows that the characteristics that generally predict expatriate adjustment and effectiveness include empathy, patience, respect for others, interests in the host culture, flexibility, the ability to manage stress, tolerance for ambiguity, open-mindedness, willingness to learn, good social and interpersonal skills and honest self-awareness. In addition to these personal attributes, strong employee and family motivation to go abroad, solid family communication and relationships, realistic expectations about the assignment, prior successful international living experience, foreign language proficiency and the ability to comfortably interact with foreign nationals are also good indicators that the candidate has the potential to prosper overseas.
The selection process should not overemphasize adjustment. Those who will have little or no difficulty with adjustment in fact may be ineffective in carrying out the technical and managerial strategies of the assignment. Previous successful overseas experience, often used to assess adaptability, is sometimes an indicator of adjustment but does nothing to predict effectiveness.
The most common reason for an early return from a corporate international assignment is the spouse's or family's inability to adjust to living in the host culture. The accompanying partner and family must be included in the selection process. The spouse's motivation and adaptability must be as strong as the employee's.
Overseas career alternatives for a working spouse play an important role in the selection process. The spouse must be made aware of existing obstacles to finding employment and to career maintenance abroad and must understand the many personal, professional and financial implications that the international relocation might pose. The spouse should be given as much career and job search information about the destination as possible. A company with any type of spouse assistance program should explain it during the selection stage to help the spouse and employee to make an informed decision.
Profile of the Effective Expatriate Manager
Assume professional qualifications—appropriate educational background, training and experience—along with commitment to the overseas job. The individual should understand how professional and technical skills must be modified to fit local conditions and constraints.
The manager must
• Be flexible in response to ideas, beliefs or points of view.
• Have respect for others in a way that makes them feel valued, attentive and concerned.
• Be a good listener who accurately perceives the needs and feelings of others.
• Have a demonstrated ability to build and maintain relationships with people of diverse backgrounds.
• Be calm and in full control when confronted by interpersonal conflict or stress.
• Be sensitive to local realities, social, political or cultural.
• Have a strong sense of self, be proactive, self confident, frank and open in dealing with others.
• Be open and nonethnocentric, flexible, outgoing.
• Be self confident with a strong desire to take the initiative.
• Have good, harmonious family, personal and professional relationships.
Prior to departure, the individual should be realistic about the constraints and barriers to effective performance but remain fairly optimistic about success.
Profile of an Effective Expatriate Spouse
An accompanying spouse overseas should
• Be attentive and concerned about others, a good listener.
• Be flexible to the ideas, beliefs and points of views of others.
• Demonstrate an ability to build and maintain relationships.
• Be calm and in full control when confronted by obstacles or interpersonal stress.
• Weigh all factors when making decisions.
• Demonstrate relaxed friendly communication with members of the immediate family.
• Be frank, nonethnocentric, self confident and able to take the initiative.
Some criteria are elastic, depending on the "foreignness" of the host country. An American moving to London where language and social customs pose few obstacles may experience little difficulty, whereas an American going to Dubai will need a great tolerance for ambiguity.
The most frequently used selection methods involve multiple interviews and weighted biographical data. To a lesser extent, companies use family interviews, psychological screening, written instruments, assessment center/panel reviews and self-assessment programs.
Some companies have developed their own interview procedures and success criteria based on available research, their own specific corporate values, business objectives and assignment categories. A high-potential employee being sent overseas for developmental purposes should be assessed differently than one taking a technical or functional assignment. Assessment and selection can be carried out by home- and host-country line managers, HR professionals, external or internal assessment specialists or a combination of these individuals.
Standardized tests such as the Overseas Assignment Inventory, the Culture Shock Inventory, or the Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory are used in international assignment selection. Written tests should be used in conjunction with a structured behavioral interview conducted by a trained assessment interviewer who observes the participants to determine if and how they demonstrate the desired aptitudes, behaviors, attitudes and attributes necessary to succeed overseas.
Assessment centers combine written tests, simulations, in-box exercises, behavioral interviews and observation by an assessment team. Selection experts, former expatriates and host nationals from the destination and HR representatives make up the panel. Although highly effective, this approach is expensive.
Self-assessment programs facilitated by experienced assessors provide a less expensive option. These sessions assist the candidate and spouse in examining their suitability for overseas assignment. The programs usually include testing with a self-scoring instrument as well as guided discussions and feedback provided by the facilitator. Some programs also offer input about the destination and a visit to provide first-hand impressions and information.
Data and insights gathered about the employee and spouse during the assessment can also provide a foundation for designing the employee's development plan and be used for their cross-cultural training and as ongoing assistance to support the expatriation-repatriation process.
Companies that systematically develop a candidate pool of employees qualified for international assignments avoid making last-minute personnel choices. Firms that are serious about globalization are especially interested in developing a pool of high-potential employees to build an international corporate culture. Some companies create databases to use as central clearinghouses for collecting and updating information on candidates with relevant skills. These databases include information on the employee's current position, technical qualifications, previous international experience, expressed interest in an overseas assignment and cross-cultural skills to match candidates with international positions.
Establishing such a pool can be difficult, however. Newer international companies will have few viable candidates. Continual downsizing, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, as well as the predictable changes in an employee's personal, family and professional life, undermine the pool's stability. Constant organizational and personal fluctuations require that employees be reevaluated periodically. A reevaluation should always take place when the candidate is actually targeted for a specific assignment.
Successful selection is closely linked to successful repatriation. The company should discuss the employee's next position as part of the selection interviewing process. Promising a specific position for two or three years hence may be impossible, but the type of position should be reviewed. At a minimum, companies should ensure that a position of equal or higher level will be available at reentry.
Selection Criteria for Expatriate Managers
• Strategic considerations.
• Professional skills.
• General managerial skills.
• Communication skills: A genuine desire to establish solid working relationships with host-country nationals without the help of translators, consultants or other go-betweens.
• Personal characteristics: As described above.
• Gender: Although a small percentage of expatriate managers are women, consistent evidence shows that female executives perform just as well as men during and after global assignments, even in traditionally male-dominated societies.
Selection Criteria for Expatriate Families
• Spouse's career: Increasingly, companies offer some form of career support, advice or maintenance to spouses of expatriate managers.
• Children's educational needs: Most expatriates—70 percent—take their children with them on assignment. The presence of an international school or help in adjusting to a school in another language is critical. Children's adjustment to a global assignment ties back to the parent's adjustment and must be taken into consideration in selection.
Overseas effectiveness—the capacity to live and work effectively on overseas assignment—means that the employee is professionally competent, adjusted personally, as is the family in that they are satisfied and interculturally active. Companies consider intercultural interaction the foundation of effective technology transfer and host country nationals deem it the essence of overseas effectiveness among foreign expatriates. Intercultural interaction means that the employee interacts with nationals socially and on the job, has an interest in and some knowledge of local language (such as modes of greeting), understands local nonverbal modes of communication, has some factual knowledge about the local culture, expresses concern for and trains nationals and shows tolerance and openness toward local culture and conditions, local mentality and customs.
Professional competence means technical and functional skill and knowledge sufficient to perform daily tasks, duties and responsibilities on the overseas job. Professional effectiveness is indicated by technical background and qualifications, demonstrated commitment to the job, understanding of local technical conditions and local ways of operating in the specific technical or functional area.
Personal/family adjustment means that everyone is personally satisfied with the overseas situation. The family enjoys themselves, likes the environment, living and working conditions, has a minimum of complaints about conditions, about nationals or host culture, voices little stereotyping of host nationals, holds no romantic ideals about the home country and adjustment on repatriation.
To effectively measure selection success, gauge whether:
• The employee completed the assignment.
• The reentry position is a promotion and/or the repatriate is able to use newly acquired international expertise.
• The employee makes significant contributions while abroad.
• The employee receives favorable peer, supervisor and/or subordinate performance evaluations abroad.
There are a few additional caveats to some candidates. Those with exaggerated expectations about career or financial reward should be apprised of the true situation. Those with a reluctant spouse should be looked at especially carefully. Those with dependent, aging or ill parents and those with teenage children who must stay behind are at greater risk. Any special needs such as health problems or special schooling requirements will complicate transfer to even the most expatriate friendly destination. Those who are overly optimistic and deny that they have any concerns or that any potential problems exist should be brought back down to earth.
There are also some definite contraindications to some candidates. Alcohol and/or chemical dependency is a workplace problem which will only be exacerbated by culture shock. International transfers never remedy marital problems but invariably make them worse. Those with marginal social skills will suffer isolation with the addition of a foreign language and new culture. Serious health problems and mental illness are best treated close to home. Racism or exaggerated ethnocentrism can doom an overseas assignment.
According to Global Assignments: Successfully Expatriating and Repatriating International Managers, (Black, J. Stewart, Hal B. Gregersen, and Mark E. Mendenhall. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, 1992.) firms spend an average of almost $1 million per manager during a four-year assignment. In U.S. companies, some 20 percent of expatriates quit or leave the company within a year of repatriation. Careful selection, support, and measurement of success provide the best insurance for a profitable return on investment.
SHRM thanks Rita Bennett of Bennett Associates for contributing this paper. It is provided for your information, and is not a substitute for legal or other professional advice.
For more information on this subject, send an e-mail to the SHRM Information Center at , please click here to ask the Information Center for help.

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