Expatriate Assignment: Personality Measurement
Introduction
Over last three decades it has become almost a kind of “tradition” to open an article related to expatriate management by stating that the expatriate failure rates remains (very) high (Harzing, 1995). Expatriate failure is always a big concern of global firms, as the costs of failure is relatively much higher than any other management failures. Among numerous research paper of exploring the reasons why expatriate assignments fail, the latest research conducted by Melissa M. Freeman (2013) indicated that during the initial selection process, organizations should seriously consider using personality measures (the big five model), particularly agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience, to make the decisions. Based on her findings, the multiple regression results showed that these three characteristics can effectively predict employees’ capability of cultural adjustments (general, interaction and work adjustments). Thus, these personality traits are able to be used as effective measures to identify whether an employee could well adjust to host country within the assignment period.
Freeman’s argument is partially supported by this essay; after analysis, it concluded that although personality traits do relate to the cultural adjustment in some extent during the expatriate assignment, however, it’s more important for MNCs to do preliminary research of the host country’s culture firstly, since personality traits will affect cultural adjustment dependently of the host country’s culture. If global firms are using personality measures, they should decide which traits are more accurately predictable for cultural adjustment in given particularly host country culture.
This essay is going to provide related definition and statistics of expatriate failure, then to examine the validity of Freeman’s suggestion step by step. Firstly, the importance and three aspects of cultural adjustment are going to be clarified. Then the five personality traits
Over last three decades it has become almost a kind of “tradition” to open an article related to expatriate management by stating that the expatriate failure rates remains (very) high (Harzing, 1995). Expatriate failure is always a big concern of global firms, as the costs of failure is relatively much higher than any other management failures. Among numerous research paper of exploring the reasons why expatriate assignments fail, the latest research conducted by Melissa M. Freeman (2013) indicated that during the initial selection process, organizations should seriously consider using personality measures (the big five model), particularly agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience, to make the decisions. Based on her findings, the multiple regression results showed that these three characteristics can effectively predict employees’ capability of cultural adjustments (general, interaction and work adjustments). Thus, these personality traits are able to be used as effective measures to identify whether an employee could well adjust to host country within the assignment period.
Freeman’s argument is partially supported by this essay; after analysis, it concluded that although personality traits do relate to the cultural adjustment in some extent during the expatriate assignment, however, it’s more important for MNCs to do preliminary research of the host country’s culture firstly, since personality traits will affect cultural adjustment dependently of the host country’s culture. If global firms are using personality measures, they should decide which traits are more accurately predictable for cultural adjustment in given particularly host country culture.
This essay is going to provide related definition and statistics of expatriate failure, then to examine the validity of Freeman’s suggestion step by step. Firstly, the importance and three aspects of cultural adjustment are going to be clarified. Then the five personality traits