Surviving Expatriate Adjustment

By Dr Rudolph Young

This book aims to unravel failure and adjustment factors of expatriate employees and their families in terms of individual and contextual determinants. The author aims to help prospective expatriates to perform a self assessment that will improve insight into their particular risk factors and contribute towards crafting individual development plans that will prepare them for expatriate life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483542379

Book preview

ISBN: 9781483542379

"This book is an invaluable and practical guide: both to the expat employee and to corporations. It may save both a lot of money and stress". Mathilda van Wyk, Head of Manager & Employee Services (APAC): Nokia Siemens Networks, Australia. (Previously: Principal Consultant: Deloitte Consulting, Singapore and South Africa).

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…so much for the calluses I thought I had developed on my expatriate sensibilities after all those moves (different African countries, then Chile, then the USA, then New Zealand). Looks like I still get move-blisters!!! Wish I had read your book years ago… Rina Flanagan, Marketing Manager, Petrochemical Industry, New Zeeland (Previously Regional Executive, Shell Oil, Chile).

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Having worked as senior ships doctor in the luxury cruise line industry and in the UK for more than 15 years, I have realized the importance of knowing how your own (and family) profile will impact on your ability to adjust successfully to cross-cultural and expatriate situations. This book provides good insight into how to develop a personal risk profile and to strategize effectively when considering a position abroad. Dr Mandrid Blignaut, Senior Ships Doctor (Princess Cruises) and physician abroad UK NHS.

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You don't have to be an academic to appreciate this well-researched work, filled with practical advice for potential expatriates - and their employers - everywhere. Marita van der Vyver (expat author living in France).

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For anyone contemplating a career change in an overseas location, Dr. Rudolph Young’s book is a must pre-read before taking a decision. Surviving Expatriate Adjustment is a scholarly reflection as well as a pragmatic guide. Like most expatriates, I left my home country with a precise plan to return back in a short span of 3 years. That was 27 years ago and I am yet to lose the expat tag. This book is intended to help you in your first year or two – the toughest years in this transition. Dr Senthil Nathan, (formerly Deputy Vice Chancellor, Higher Education. Originally from India and currently working in the United Arab Emirates).

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Foreword

The book you are about to read on the expatriate experience is a useful guide for anyone who is considering working in a foreign land, and is also useful for those who find themselves already so situated but who have not yet fully settled in. The concept of settling in is interesting and individual. While working in a foreign land one meets those who have spent much or all of their lives in expat status and indeed they appear to be settled in. Some of these are children of past pilgrims, and others are people who merely stayed another day, another week, another month, another year until their persona became permanently stained by the expat modus operandi.

However for most of us new to the expatriate life the experience is a combination of feelings that are exhilarating, exciting, challenging, threatening and indeed a roller coaster of emotion and sense of well-being from day to day.

I have spent my career as an academic. I have been a university professor and university president who often focused on internationalizing the curriculum and one who believed that study abroad was a very important component of undergraduate education. Personally however I never had the benefit of study abroad, and my experiences were limited to those of a vacationer, and an emissary for various student and faculty exchange programs. None of these temporary experiences abroad equipped me at all for the challenges of living the expat life, and that is why I recommend this book to any and all who is considering such an adventure.

I have found my entry into an unknown culture to be a daily series of ups and downs, and a cycle of self-analysis and self-examination. Rather than being immersed into a culture shared by my ancestors I find myself in a culture that is in many ways the other side of the looking glass. Globalization has spread Facebook and Twitter, Harland Saunders and his fried chicken, and many other sights and resources that are part of daily life in the United States from where I come. But as even culture and society, folkways and mores vary within regions of the United States the variation is profound and stark in a wholly different and unfamiliar culture. Success in a very different society must combine professional and personal success, or no amount of satisfaction or happiness will result and failure of the effort will inevitably result. This book will help anyone who takes its message and suggestions seriously to become a comfortable and successful expatriate.

Marshall Drummond PhD

Past President, Eastern Washington University (1989-1998)

Past Chancellor, California Community College System (1999-2009)

Past Chief Operating Officer and Provost, Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates

Acknowledgements

Much of this book reflects discussions, consultations and debates held with HR executives, line managers and expatriates over the years. Each encounter has led to a greater understanding and appreciation of the intricacies of expatriate adjustment.

Many thanks to my HR colleagues and line managers who have helped me try to unravel the complicated adjustment factors that are associated with expatriate relocation. I am particularly grateful to my colleagues in the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Switzerland, India, South Africa, Canada, the US and UK. They allowed me to use specific examples in this book of their experience with relocating expatriates from more than sixty different countries.

Also, my appreciation to David Wheeler, formerly the Managing Editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education for his frank feedback and unfailing encouragement. Finally, to Mohamed Al Zadjali who contributed enormously to my initial research on this project.

About the Author

Dr Rudolph Young has been a Human Resources professional in the international financial services, retail, logistics, educational and consulting sectors for more than 30 years. During his career he has worked on strategic HR assignments and cross-cultural executive coaching in the UK, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. He is the co-author of the book Managing Information Systems Professionals and has written frequently about International Human Resources Management topics. Rudolph is the recipient of several HR service awards and he regularly speaks at international conferences. In addition to an extensive career in HR Management, Rudolph also worked as the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business for the largest institution of higher education in the Middle East. He has studied at the Universities of Leicester, Derby, Stellenbosch, and Cape Town where his academic achievements include degrees in Psychology, Cultural Anthropology, Human Resources and Information Technology Management, an MSc in International HR Management, MBA and a Doctorate in Applied Psychology.

In loving memory

of

Tori Young

Preface

This book aims to unravel failure and adjustment factors of expatriate employees in terms of individual and contextual determinants. With the trends of business operations becoming more global, the effective employment of expatriate employees has become of critical strategic importance. To ensure the success of an expatriate assignment, greater attention needs to be paid to expatriate adjustment to both the work and socio-cultural environment. Expatriate employees can cost an average of up to three times the cost of a similar level employee in their home country, and the successful assessment, selection and adjustment