 In this topic, we are going to discuss about the type of international assignments. International assignments are classified into two types. One are the traditional international assignments and the other type is the non-traditional type of international assignments. So let's take a look that within these two classifications, what are the different types of international assignments. So within the traditional type of assignments, the first one is short-term assignments which are an assignment is considered to be a short-term assignment if it is up to three months. Assignments which are given for a short period of time, they are usually for the purpose of filling up some urgent requirement. They are usually for troubleshooting that there has been a problem, a crisis, a machinery crisis or a supply management crisis. To deal with that crisis, if your subsidiary has no human resources, then technical people are sent out for one or two months to do the troubleshooting. Then for project supervision, if a project is launching, then sometimes your subsidiary does not have the human resources available or you want to send your parent country supervision so that your project can be launched according to your strategic objective. So for that purpose, a short-term assignment is given to international expatriates. And it could be for a stop-gap measure. So a stop-gap measure could be taken where your management position is vacant. For example, if the person has left without any notice or there has been an urgent problem, then in that situation, the stop-gap arrangement has to be made. So a short-term assignment is given for these particular purposes. The second type is the extended type of international assignment which is up to one year. And the reason for these particular assignments is also similar activities as that for short-term. So sometimes you need a little more time for troubleshooting or for a project to be launched, it's not possible to be done in three months. So that is why we call it an extended international assignment. And then finally, the third type of traditional international assignment is a long-term one which varies from one to up to five years. So that type of assignment is actually termed as a traditional expatriate assignment. So that is the situation in which the person who is moving from one country to the other country actually becomes an expatriate. Otherwise, in the short-term one, the person would not be considered as an expatriate who has moved from one location to the other. He would be considered a person who is a non expatriate person who is filling a particular position for short-term purposes. So a long-term assignment is the one which actually makes a person an expatriate and that is considered to be a traditional expatriate assignment. And in that traditional expatriate assignment, then there is a clearly defined role in the receiving operation. For example, a person may be hired as head of operations of the subsidiary. A person may be hired as the project director of a particular project. The person may be hired as head of finance or marketing or whatever role is required to be filled by the expatriate. So there is always for a long-term assignment, there is a clearly defined role. There is a clearly defined job description. There is a clearly defined objective and then there are clearly defined outcomes which are expected from the person who is coming as an expatriate in the subsidiary role. All right, so these are the three types of assignments which are considered to be traditional international assignments. Then we look at some non-standard or non-traditional type of international assignments. So in this category, there are basically four types of non-standard assignments. Number one is the commuter. Commuter you can understand from the word a person who commutes from one place to the other. So people commute from their workplace to their home place every day. But in the international scenario, the commuter is considered to be a person who commutes from the parent organization to the subsidiary organization on a regular basis. So a commuter is somebody who goes home every one to two weeks. So it is possible when the two countries are located nearby, for example if it is Pakistan and Afghanistan or it is Saudi Arabia or Dubai or it is North America, if it is America and Canada and people are located close by, they can cross the borders and they can commute. And in European countries, they are really small and their boundaries are really open. So in these type of assignments are very much common in the European countries where people can just move from one place to the other and it is actually moving countries. But because it is so easy and they are so closely located, it is something which is very common over there. Then the second type of non-standard assignment is a rotational assignment in which the person commutes for a set period followed by a break in the home country. So it is possible that a person goes for one or two weeks and then comes back to the home country and stays there for a month or two months or maybe for a longer period of time and then also goes again after one or two weeks. So that is according to the requirement of the position, if the requirement of the position is so that the person is required only for one or two weeks in a particular position and country, then the person can commute. The third type is that of contractual assignments. So people are hired outsourced for 6 to 12 months and they are given the position because of their specific skills and they are for some specific projects. So to achieve the skill gap, people are hired and because that position is something which is not a long-term position, for example, if you want to do market research, you need to do market research for a new product launch. So maybe your company does not have a very much sophisticated marketing department and what you do is that you hire a person to do market research for that particular area and that position and project is given to that person for 6 to 12 months and it is on the contractual basis and not something which is a permanent position in the organization. And finally the fourth type of non-standard international assignment is that virtual one. Virtual assignment is that in which you are working and you are fulfilling the role of a person in some other country but you are staying in your own home country. So you are managing the international responsibilities from being based in the home country. So virtual assignment and you would very much be, you know, conversant and familiar with this fact that virtual assignments are really something which are in trend these days. The lecture that you are listening to right now is also a virtual assignment. I am giving the lecture somewhere else and you are listening probably at some other time and in probably in some other location. So this is a virtual assignment which I am fulfilling right now. So virtual assignments are something which are that of a non-standard type and they are something which are emerging and becoming very much pervasive in the current scenario of globalization and the borders are being, they are disappearing. So virtual assignment is also a type of non-standard assignment. So in this topic we have discussed the two basic categories of international assignments which is one is the traditional international assignments and the second one are the non-traditional or non-standard international assignments. So this was the content of this talk.