Expatriates in multinational enterprises (MNEs)

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2014 im Fachbereich Führung und Personal - Sonstiges, Note: Excellent 1.0, Fachhochschule Technikum Wien (Interantional Business and Engineering), Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Globalization of business entails a lot of challenges for a company, including the decision, whether to go international or not. The main reasons for going abroad include opening up of new markets, cutting costs and increasing profit, ensuring of raw materials supply, and acquisition of new technologies. However, the decision to expand business internationally requires developing of new strategies on all managerial levels including the international human resource management (IHRM). The subject area of international human resource management is 'the study and application of all human resource management activities as they impact the process of managing human resources in enterprises in the global environment.' The tasks of IHRM include the staffing decision in the multinational enterprises (MNEs), managing the global workforce and expatriates management. The role of international human resource management in global business is significant. Selecting an appropriate person for a position contributes to the success of a company, whereas recruiting the wrong person can cause failure and unplanned costs. The success of expatriate in their assignments abroad is even more important, because they are among the most expensive employees. Money, resources, and time are misspent if the selection and training process is insufficient. Who are the expatriates? According to Mendenhall et al., an expatriate is 'living or working in a country of which he or she is not a citizen and who can be classified as possessing skills critical the success of the performance of foreign subsidiaries.' The term expatriate is typically applied to an employee who is on a long-term assignment outside their home country. An expatriate assignment concerns not only the employee and their job responsibilities, but also relocation of their family, their adaptation to a different environment, climate, culture, and language. The international human resource department of a company is responsible for selection of candidates, preparation, training, drawing up a compensation package, continuous support during assignment, and arranging of repatriation. The aim of this paper is to research, what activities are necessary to carry out in each of the above-mentioned phase of the assignment circle to ensure a successful assignment of expatriate. The adopted research methodology is a literature review.