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Unit 6: Re-entry and Career Issues

Notes
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Caselet Happy to be going Home

US family, from the mid-west, was posted to Melbourne, Australia. The expatriate’s
role was to assist the Australian subsidiary improve its quality control and supplier
Arelationships. Chuck was placed in charge of the purchasing department. After 12
months, he had successfully established good links with the company’s key component
suppliers and was in the process of arranging joint company quality training programmes
with these suppliers to ensure the newly-instigated just-in-time inventory procedure was
on a sound footing. Chuck was enjoying his new role. Meanwhile, his 10-year-old daughter
was finding it difficult to make friends in the expensive private school the company had
arranged for her to attend. His wife was also finding life in Australia somewhat hard to
cope with. “On the surface, it seems so much like home, but Australians are not at all the
same as us Americans, and some people make disparaging remarks about us. They use
terms such as ‘Yanks’. I miss not being able to find familiar things, such as brownie mix, in
the supermarket.” Both wife and daughter were very happy when circumstances provide
an acceptable reason for an early end to Chuck’s assignment. His elderly mother suffered
a bad fall, and there were no other family members to take care of her. The family was
repatriated after 14 months into a 3-years assignment. The expatriate was replaced by
another PCN.

Source: Rao, P. L. International Human Resource Management: Text and Cases.
Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. ……….. is returning to one’s home country, the actual home one lived in before the
international assignment.

2. Issues of career ………. and job effectiveness has been in the limelight of re-entry training.
3. Expatriation and repatriation are ………...
4. ……..... phase of repatriation involves coping with reverse culture shock and career
demands.
5. The familiar surroundings of the home environment ease the transition or at least the
cultural ………. is not as demanding as that confronted in the foreign country.

6.2 Multinational Responses

Managing the process of repatriation should be of concern to multinationals that desire to
maximise the benefits of international assignments and create a large internal labour market. A
well-designed repatriation process is important in achieving these objectives, for three main
reasons: staff availability, return on investment and knowledge transfer.
1. Staff Availability: The way in which the multinational handles repatriation has an impact
on staff availability for future needs. Re-entry positions signal the importance given to
international experience. If the repatriate is promoted or given a position that obviously
capitalises on international experience, other members of the multinational interpret
international as a positive career move.

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