 In this topic, we are going to talk about the factors moderating performance of expatriate. In this topic, we are particularly going to talk about the reasons which could stall or reduce the performance of expatriates performing on international locations. So there could be a number of reasons why a person who is sent and selected for international assignment may not be able to perform in that particular location and it may not be a matter of his skills or abilities but external factors that we are going to discuss, they may be the reason why a person is not able to perform in that particular position. So the number one reason for expatriate failure or poor performance is the inability to adjust to the foreign culture. So and this adjustment is related to the person as well as the family adjustment is also very much important rather it was considered to be the top most reason that if the spouse is unable to adjust in the foreign location then the person is not able to perform or comes back earlier on a premature return and that is considered to be an expatriate failure. So inability of the spouse to adjust to the foreign location is the top most reason for expatriate return and therefore the HR managers must take this thing into account that expatriate management should include management of the family which is going with a person as well. Then there are different national differences, certain people from different nationalities they are able to adjust to international locations more easily than the others. So if there are cultural similarities people will be able to adjust well. If there are cultural differences, national differences then people will not be able to adjust. So inability to adjust to the foreign culture is one of the reasons for poor performance. So adjustment when we talk about cultural adjustment we need to look at the different stages of adjustment as well and where the problems can start arising and how to manage that particular phase that is important for the HR manager as well as it is important for the person who is being sent to be made aware that these are the stages that you may find in this adjustment process and you need to manage yourself according to that. So there are actually four phases of cultural adjustment which are identified and phase number one is that of tourist, number two is crisis, number three is pulling up and number four is adjustment. So now let's take a look at the model of how the adjustment process changes over these different phases. So you can see that on the horizontal axis is time and on the vertical axis is adjustment. In phase number one which is the tourist phase which is also called the honeymoon phase that is the time of excitement when people are really excited they take along their families, their spouses are with them, most of them children are also accompanying and they are very much excited and they want to explore the new place and they have a lot of they go and explore and they look around and they go to sightseeing places and the excitement phase is there and that is called the honeymoon phase and so you can see that the adjustment level is very much high and in phase number one. So the excitement phase is the one in which people are very much happy and no problems are usually detected at that point. Then is phase number two and this is the time of crisis. This is the time of cultural shock when after the excitement after the tourist phase when you've visited all the sightseeing locations and you've been to all the places and you've explored everything that you were excited about that new place you realize that oh this is another system, this is somewhere we may not be able to adjust. So you may find this is the time when crisis arises and the cultural shock is at the highest and you can see in the graph that the adjustment is lowest and this is the place, this is the stage where the person or the family is not ready to adjust to that situation and may go for exit. But if this stage is managed well, this crisis cultural shock stage is managed well then people start moving up on this adjustment graph and you can see that phase number three is the one in which people try to pull up, they try to adjust, they try to change their routines, they try to change their behaviors, they try to change their thinking and perceptions and they try to adjust and pull up to the situation, take up the challenge and try to adjust to that situation and then in phase number four you can see that adjustment has taken place and people they feel adjusted to the location, they feel like they are now this is their new home and they understand the culture, they understand the environment, they understand the place and they feel at home at that particular in this phase. So these are the different phases of cultural adjustment according to which the HR manager should plan what type of intervention is required in this kind of circumstances. So next reason factor which affects the performance of expatriates is length of assignment. Usually if the length of assignment is longer people are able to adjust well to the foreign climate and culture because they get due time, they get enough time to understand and to go through these phases of adjustment, a tourist and pulling up and then adjustment again and they are able to manage the crisis well. So longer time of assignments makes the adjustment easier. For that reason Japanese companies they send their international expatriates for longer period of assignments. Usually the time period in Japanese assignments is 4 to 5 years as opposed to the rest of the world in which the usual average is 1 to 3 years and the reason why Japanese firms they send people to longer assignments is this that when you send somebody for a longer period of time that person is able to adjust well and then you are able to benefit from that adjustment. So you have adjusted to that and when the time comes when you start feeling at home you have got to move back. So the Japanese firm they understand it well that if a person is adjusted then the benefit from that adjustment should be taken and that is why they give them a little bit longer time and because Japanese culture has a long term focus therefore they have this patience to deal with things in a slow and steady way. Another reason another factor that affects performance of the expatriate is the willingness to move and that also includes the willingness of the spouse to move and that's something which changes from nation to nation and culture to culture. Some cultures who are more risk averse they don't want to change so people who are risk averse they would not be willing to move from one place to the other but cultures which are more risk taking who are more willing to who are more okay with ambiguity they would be ready to take the challenge and they would be willing to move from one place to the other and it is found from literature and from different surveys that British managers British citizens they are much more open to move from one place to the other they are more ready to take international assignments and they are then more successful in the international assignments because they have a willingness to and they have an excitement to go out and explore different cultures as opposed to the American managers. And then there are the last factor which is which affects the performance of the expatriates are work environment related factors. There are many work environment related factors which affect the performance of the person which is different from from from the parent come parent country location. So it could be number one reason is effective skill utilization agar is Joe expatriate a unki scale properly utilize the holy so that is something which is going to cause a low morale and a reduced performance then if they don't get a similar kind of job autonomy they are not allowed to take as much decisions as they were allowed to take in their parent country which could be because of a different culture then that could also lead to lower performance and then another very important reason that causes lower performance is perceived organizational support if the person feels that the organization is not supporting them if they feel even if the organization is supporting them they are providing them with the facilities to adjust and all that but if they feel that the organization is not supporting their adjustment is not supporting if he he has this kind of feeling or impression is in his mind that he is sent on this international assignment because he is supposed to be he was supposed to be gotten rid of or he was supposed to be taken out of the scenario if he has that kind of a perception then performance is definitely going to be affected so the perception about of the person about how much the organization is supportive towards his relocation and this expatriate assignment that is also important reason and may be affecting the performance of the person so in this topic we have looked at the different reasons why the performance of an expatriate manager may be affected in addition to the skills or ability gap.