 In this topic, we are going to talk about pre-departure training and the aspect of pre-departure training which is cultural awareness programs. Most of the pre-departure training as we have discussed in the previous topic as well, that it is directed towards developing cultural sensitivity and giving a cross-cultural orientation to people who are going to a new culture. So pre-departure trainings, they are mostly emphasized on cultural awareness programs and these are what we are going to discuss in this topic. A well-designed cultural awareness training program can be extremely beneficial. Why? Because it seeks to foster an appreciation of the host country's culture so that expatriates can behave accordingly. So it is not just that you make them aware about the cultural aspects, you actually make those people appreciate the culture of the host country. So they don't just know the features of the host country culture but also they are given such kind of training that they are able to appreciate the differences. They are able to appreciate the features of the host country culture so that they are pleasant and positive towards the culture of the host country. So it can be extremely beneficial if you are able to develop these kinds of positive feelings in the minds of people who are going to the new culture. Or at least if appreciation cannot be developed, at least develop appropriate coping patterns so that they can, the ideal is that they are able to appreciate and when they appreciate they will definitely respond positively. But if they are not able to appreciate at least make them capable of coping with the situation and being able to show behaviors which are appropriate for that particular culture. So that is the usefulness of cross-cultural training programs. Components of these cultural training programs they may vary according to the country of assignment. Obviously if the country of assignment is very much different in culture then the component would be different. Then on duration as well then the purpose of the transfer. What is the purpose of transferring person from for an international assignment? For example, if it involves a highly technical and mechanical work and less interaction with people then obviously the training program does not need to be very much rigorous. And then provider of such programs that also determines who are the people who are available. So if people are available for this training kind of training then you can go for rigorous training programs. But if people are not available then you may not be able to, even if you realize that this is important, you realize you are ready to spend the money, you are familiar with the fact that it would be problematic. But if people are not available to provide such kind of training then obviously the components will vary accordingly. A study was conducted and we are going to discuss this study in various different aspects of cross-cultural training which was done by Tong. It identified five categories of pre-departure training that were based on different training processes, the type of job which is being taken up, the country of assignment and the time available for training. So she developed a model for evaluating different types of pre-departure training programs. What she did basically is that she identified two dimensions to determine the level and vigor of the training. How rigorous the training should be and what should be the level of that training program, should the level be very high level of training or something which is low or moderate. So the dimensions which would determine whether you want to go for a rigorous and high level training program or whether you should go for a less rigorous and low level training program, those are the dimensions which are identified by this research scholar. And these two dimensions are number one, the degree of interaction required in the host culture. If a person has to meet a lot of people, he is a sales manager for example, then it is a high interaction situation. So degree of interaction required in the host culture. And then second dimension is the similarity between the individuals' native culture and the new culture. How much similarity is there in host country culture and parent country culture. This is going to determine how much training you need to give. So these two dimensions, they determine the vigor and level of training which should be given to a person who is going on an international assignment. So the two situations could be that if the expected interaction between individual and members of the host country is low and the degree of this similarity between the individuals' culture and the host country culture is also low, then the training that should be focused on task and job related issues rather than culture related issues. So if both are on the low side, then your training should be based on task related issues. The technical skills and job issues should be focused on them rather than cultural awareness. And the level of rigor necessary for effective training should also be relatively low because you would remember that people who are selected for international assignments are selected on the basis of the technical ability. So technical ability is possible that it is already there. So you may not have to train them a lot for task and job related issues. It would be something which they would already be having and possessing. Therefore the level of rigor and the amount of training that needs to be provided to such situations that is low. So low dissimilarity and low interaction leads to task and job related training and the level and rigor is low in that situation. And this is vice versa on the other side. If there was a high level of expected interaction and the dissimilarity between the culture is also high, then the training should focus on cross-cultural issues, cross-cultural skill development and rather than on the new task. And the level of rigor for such training should be moderate to high. So a person who is going to be interacting in a very dissimilar kind of a culture should be given cultural training. And that cultural training should be given with a moderately high level of rigor and the level of training should also be high. And so that therefore the person is able to cope with the dissimilarity and is able to cope with the high level of interaction with people in the host country. So this model of tongue is something which gives us direction about how training, cross-cultural training should be focused on different types of assignments. This model is going to be further elaborated by other authors which we are going to discuss in the next topic but this topic it discusses the cultural training program from tongue's perspective. So this was the discussion about cultural awareness training programs.