 In this topic, we are going to talk about one of the major issues of staff selection and that is expatriate failure. Expatriate failure has a high level of cost for international operations. So let's take a look what it is and what are its implications. All right, so defining expatriate failure is the premature return of an expatriate that is a return home before the period of assignment is completed. So if a person is sent for one year and the person comes back before completion of that particular time period of that assignment, then that is a premature return and that is considered to be expatriate failure. This represents a selection error and usually which is compounded by ineffective expatriate management policies. So if you select the wrong person for an international assignment and that person is not able to perform and is not able to adjust to the cultural differences and comes back home, comes back to the home country before the completion of that assignment period is done, that means that it is an expatriate failure. And this is because of a poor selection technique or that could be compounded by ineffective expatriate management policies. So it is possible that you may have selected the right person but then you did not provide that person with proper expatriate management and because of inappropriate expatriate management which could come from various different number of factors, you did not provide that person cultural training, you did not adjust their families to that particular location, you did not give them the facilities to effectively live in that particular place and then there could be so many issues of expatriate management which was not done effectively that could lead to expatriate failure and if expatriate failure happens then it is an extra cost for the organization and may have detrimental issues for the organization. So we have defined expatriate failure as premature return which is an earlier return than the other assignment. This is the traditional definition of expatriate failure but there could be so many other scenarios as well which are not termed as expatriate failure but which could actually sound like and could have the similar effects of an expatriate failure. So number one in that varying scenario which is not considered under the traditional definition of expatriate failure is inability to adjust. There is a person who goes to an expatriate assignment and does not get to adjust there and does not perform. He does complete his assignment in time for example if he is appointed for 3 years then he comes back after 3 years but he does not adjust there and he does not perform there. So this is also expatriate failure but it is not considered in the traditional assignment. Then assignment completion but leaving the multinational enterprise after repatriation. Now repatriation is the process when a person from one country from the parent country is sent to a foreign country and then they are repatriated back. So after completing the expatriate assignment they come back to the home country and this is the process of repatriation. So they complete the assignment so it will be considered a successful selection and successful implementation of expatriation but when they come back what happens is that they are not able to adjust back to the home culture or they are not and that is why because the benefits that were expected out of the process of repatriation that the person will get an international exposure, that person will learn about the local market of that international location that person will learn about the local culture, that person will be able to bring very important information and skills and abilities about that particular international location and then that is going to be beneficial for the organization after repatriation. If that person leaves the organization after repatriation it means that this is an expatriate failure as well but this is again not considered under the definition of traditional expatriate failure and another third scenario is possible that a person is able to complete the assignment earlier for example you have given that person one year and that person finishes in 10 months and comes back after finishing so you will call it expatriate failure under the traditional definition and it will be statistically considered as expatriate failure because that person came back in a premature return phase but that person was rather more efficient and was more quick in doing that particular assignment and this is a scenario which should not be considered as expatriate failure so expatriate failure needs to be given a broader definition and the literature which defines expatriate failure as only a premature return that is something which requires modification and needs a broader definition to define expatriate failure and there is a need to include poor performance and repatriation problems in the definition of expatriate failure as well but because it is very difficult to actually measure and to operationalize what things are poor performance, what things are in adjustment to the culture and then why after repatriation a person left the job whether it was because of expatriate failure or it was because of failure of expatriate management or it was because of other factors because it is something which is very difficult to calculate it is not included in the definition of expatriate failure but this is a conceptual error which we do in defining expatriate failure when a survey was taken and survey was done in that survey people were asked what are the possible manifestations or possible implications of expatriate failure so 72% of the people said that early return of an expatriate shows that it is an event of expatriate failure but more than that other reasons were also identified so 71% of the managers said that unmet business objectives if a person is unable to meet the business objectives and even if that person stays and completes the expatriate assignment time period and stays for that particular period of time and comes back and still stays in the organization as well but if that person is not able to meet the objectives that were of that expatriate assignment or meet the objectives of the organization that is also considered to be, should be considered to be an expatriate failure 49% of people said that if the person who is appointed on an international appointment creates problems at the assignment location for example he is not able to adjust with the local culture he is not able to mix with the employees of the local market he is not able to manage people well at the creates crisis has fights, has issues, has problems if such kind of problems they arise at the international location that is also considered to be expatriate failure and then 32% of people said that if there are unmet career objectives that is also expatriate failure because if a person was given an international assignment and took it for a particular career objective in his mind and that career objective is not met that is also considered to be expatriate failure so there are many different manifestations and meanings of expatriate failure which could be a cost to the organization as well as a cost to the person so looking at this cost of failure the different type of costs which are associated with expatriate failure number one there are direct costs direct costs are very easy to calculate how much money you have to spend to transport how much money you have to pay for his salary how much money was spent on his training how much money was spent on adjusting his family so all those direct costs which were associated with actually transporting that person from your from your parent country to the host country adjusting the family to that place the salary that you gave that person in addition to the salary that you were giving them at the local domestic location benefits that you paid them allowances that you paid them training costs that you paid for them all of these, these are the direct costs of expatriate failure and if a person is not able to complete the objectives of that particular assignment these are the costs which are kind of sunk in that particular instance then there are indirect costs and there are so many indirect costs that expatriate failure could create and number one is reduced organizational performance if the person is not performing well because he is not adjusted to the location that poor performance is going to be a cost for the organization lowered morale of the subordinates if a person is not adjusted well he is not performing well he is not mixing with the culture of the local location the morale of the subordinates is going to be lowered down they will not feel comfortable talking to that person they will feel that this is a foreign person looking after them they will feel demotivated and the morale will be lowered and so the performance of the people working under that person that is also going to be lowered and that is also going to be a cost to the organization and then there is also a possibility of lost contracts so if a person is not capable enough to adjust to the foreign location the contracts or the deals or the business enhancement that could have been possible because of that person being in that international location if that is not done those lost contracts those deals which could have been possible that is also cost for the business which could not be materialized and there could be so many other indirect costs attached to failure of a person who is sent on an international assignment and then the third type of cost are the individual cost to the person that person may feel if he is not able to successfully manage that position that person's self esteem would be lowered confidence would be lowered and when he will come back he will feel like a failure probably it will be difficult for him to adjust back to his home country location and he will feel that he has he has not been able to accomplish something which was given to him and that is going to be also going to reflect on his CV and his history and will have different kind of individual costs for that person in the future as well as when he has actually failed to perform in that particular assignment so there are very different costs which are attached to expatriate assignments and if a person is not able to perform well there are a number of costs which are attached to that so expatriate failure is an important issue for staff selection so it is very important for HR managers to hire the right type of people for expatriate assignments so that expatriate failure can be lowered