 In this topic, we are going to talk about the situational requirements for selection criteria for international assignments. In the previous topic, we had talked about the individual requirements. What are the requirements that the individual must possess to be selected for an international assignment? In this topic, we are going to talk about the situational requirements that are those requirements or those factors which are important to take into account regarding the situation. For example, what type of country that person is going to, what type of multinational it is, what type of language requirements would be there. So these are the situational requirements which are important to be taken into account while selecting a person for international assignment. So the selection criteria must take into account these situational requirements. So let's take a look what are the various different types of selection requirements. The first situational requirement for selection for an international assignment is the country or the cultural requirements. The country requirements could vary from different governmental requirements to the cultural and societal requirements of that place, including various different cultural dynamics that are over there. So the country requirements could be the work visa and permit for a desired parent country national or a third country national. So it should be important to note that whether a person would be given a visa or work permit to work in that place or not. Then work visas for spouse is also another factor which should be taken into account if that country does not give work visa to the spouse. That means that it would be a limiting factor for sending a person to that international assignment. A host country is a very important determinant. Some regions and countries are considered as hardship postings. So countries which have difficult environment, which have difficult cultures, which are torn with terrorism, which have different kinds of other problems, for example, disease epidemics. For example, in America, there are certain countries which are affected by various different diseases such as Congo virus or other type of such kind of diseases. So these areas, they are considered to be hardship areas. So the host country is a huge determinant whether a person would be interesting and willing to go to that particular location or not. So your selection criteria would be quite limited in case the country is a hardship area and people would not be ready to accept postings to that place. And therefore you need to develop such kind of packages which could provide incentives or you have to make sure you have to give them this kind of assurance that your requirements and your safety will be taken into account and what you are doing to ensure their safety and their well-being. So host country is a very important determinant, particularly in case it is a hardship country. On the other hand, if it is a country which people want to go to, then you would have a lot better pool of people who would be interesting to take up that international assignment. So this is a very important factor. Then the second type of situational requirement belongs to the multinational itself. And multinational requirements could include the mode of operation. So as we discussed in previous topics, whether it is a joint venture, whether it is a merger or an acquisition, that particular type of setting that would set the stage for what type of international assignments can you send your people to. And then what is the duration and type of assignment that you are sending your expatriates and the amount of knowledge transfer. How much knowledge do you need to transfer to the other country, that is also important. If you don't need to transfer a lot of knowledge from your parent country to the host country, then it is quite flexible. You can also hire host country nationals, but if you need to transfer a lot of knowledge from the headquarters to your host country, then you would need to hire parent country nationals for that particular post things. Alright, then language is another very important aspect. In some situations it is important. In some situations it may be less important. For example, if it is the same region, it may not be really important to take into account the language barriers. For example, if you are sending somebody from Pakistan to UK, a lot of people in Pakistan, they are very much familiar and conversant with the English language. But if you are sending somebody to Japan or somebody to Germany, German language or Japanese language is not something that Pakistani people would be really familiar with. So you may need to give them that kind of training and that kind of awareness about that particular language. Earlier language was considered to be a mechanical and manageable problem and that individual would take care of it themselves. So it was considered to be a responsibility of the individual itself. But now it is considered as a situational requirement so that the match between the person and the job that he is taking up is basically according to the language requirements of that particular position as well as that of the person. Selection tests are therefore used to select people who are appropriate and the appropriateness of the selection test is something which also determines how well you are able to select people for your international assignments. So there is a varying validity of selection tests. In different countries, they have a different type of prediction about use of these selection tests and selection is basically based on the subjective nature of these characteristics. And the subjective nature of these characteristics is actually then defined in a model of selection criteria in which there are four types of selection criteria which are defined which must be taken into account while you are selecting a person for an international assignment. So there are four selection criteria to be tested in the selection test. One is the self-oriented dimension, the degree to which an expatriate expresses an adaptive concern for self-preservation, self-enjoyment and mental hygiene. So this is a kind of tendency that a person is able to manage his own emotions, manage his own self and is able to adapt to different situations. Then second dimension is the perceptual dimension which is the expertise the expatriate possesses in accurately understanding why host nationals behave the way they do. So it is about the perception of the person that he is able to create the right perception about people who are in the host country belonging to a different culture and working in a different environment. He has the ability to perceive the way they are doing things, why they are doing it that way. For example, if they are bowing in front of you and that is happening in Japan, the person would know that this is something that is very much cultural in Japan. Then the third dimension of this selection criteria is other oriented dimension. So it is very much self-explanatory that this dimension is about orientation toward other people. So it is about the empathy. So it is the degree to which the expatriate is concerned about host nationals, coworkers and desire to affiliate with them. So it is other oriented dimension. The person is ready to affiliate, is ready to make connections, is ready to make relationships and is ready to accept that these are also equal people and what are their problems, what could be their issues and is ready to empathize with those people of the host country. And finally the fourth dimension is the cultural toughness dimension which is the mediating variable that recognizes that a culture ration is affected by the degree to which culture of host country is incongruent with that of the home country. So cultural toughness is actually the difference between the host country and the parent country. If the difference is too high, then cultural toughness is obviously something which is too high and if the difference between the host country and the parent country is low, it means that the cultural toughness is low and that means that the person who is moving from the parent country to the host country will not have to face a lot of difficulties in adjusting and understanding the other culture. But if it is a tough culture, if the cultural toughness is high, that means that the person would need to be given a lot of first of all training and then he would have to be culturally adaptive to actually understand the differences between parent country culture and the host country culture. So these are the four dimensions on which a person's ability to be selected for an international assignment would be assessed. So in this topic, we have discussed about the situational requirements of selection for an international assignment.