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Unit 5: Recruitment and Selection for International Assignments

the international assignment is an emerging area where career orientation not only affects the Notes
couple’s willingness to move but negatively affects performance and retention in the foreign
location.
Most companies use informal or ad hoc approaches to addressing the problems of their expatriate
career couples. In isolation or with industry colleagues, companies are beginning to generate
innovative programmes and interventions to assist this special breed of couples. Strategies
multinationals have experimented with include:

1. Inter-company networking: Multinational attempts to place the accompanying spouse or
partner in a suitable job with another multinational–sometimes in a reciprocal arrangement.
2. Job-hunting assistance: Multinational provides spouse or partner assistance with the
employment search in the host country.
3. Intra-company employment: Sending the couple to the same foreign facility.
4. Support of “commuter marriages”: The spouse/partner may decide to remain in the home
country, and the couple works out ways to maintain the relationship with the help of the
firm. When a major U.S. multinational assigned a female expatriate to its Australian
subsidiary for 18 months, her husband remained in Chicago. The multinational supported
this arrangement through subsidised telephone bills and three return airline tickets.

5. On-assignment career support: Motorola is an example of how a multinational may assist
spouses to maintain and even improve career skills through what Motorola calls its Dual-
career Policy. This consists of a lump-sum payment for education expenses, professional
association fees, seminar attendance, language training to upgrade work-related skills,
and employment agency fees. There are conditions attached, such as the spouse must have
been employed before the assignment. Thus, if the spouse is unable to find suitable
employment, the time can be spent on career development activities.

5.5.1 Female Expatriates

The selection of female for international postings is a related issue.
Many multinationals are concerned with the various social norms with regard to women, which
prevail in many countries. For example, some Middle Eastern countries would not issue a work
visa to a female expatriate even if the multinational selected her. In many countries, social
norms regarding the role of women do not apply to female expatriates because locals regard
them as foreigners. This did appear to be the situation for female members of the U.S. armed
forces station in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War.

Men in some cultures, such as certain Asian countries, do not like reporting to female managers,
particularly foreign women, and therefore women should not be posted abroad. Such beliefs
help create what has been termed the glass border that supports the glass ceiling.
There is no question that women receive fewer opportunities for overseas postings, and what
foreign assignments they get are usually short ones, with two-week projects being most common
for women. A study by Adler (1984) reported that only 3% of U.S. expatriates were women. This
shortage of women expatriates is found to exist because:

(1) U.S. MNC executives believe that women are ineffective, unqualified, and uninterested in
foreign assignments;
(2) corporations resist the idea of sending women abroad; and

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