»expatriate«

My interview partner's company does not especially prepare their expatriates for their mission. Since they preferably hire people coming from a multi-ethnic background or having lived in another culture, they accept them to cope well in any cross-cultural setting. Prior to their employee's departure they conduct a so-called exit-interview. In this they simulate the employee's financial situation before and after his expatriate-mission, they talk about social insurance, the company car, .... and hard facts like that. My interview partner was actually disappointed that I did not show any interest in these facts, while they make up 90% of the future expatriate's concerns. Only by the time that they are on their second or third mission, they will start asking about the soft facts concerning the foreign culture and foreign attitudes.
In the host country a start up team which is assigned by the division manager is renting housing and helps organizing the required documents. If no facilities are available and the projects are planned to take longer, the company puts up its own camp.
The expatriates themselves are expected to learn the apparent cultural gestures of their host country and as said before they are expected to cultivate networks. The company understands itself as guest in the foreign country and it wants to keep that status/reputation. ("Wir sind Gäste in dem Land. Wir wollen auch in fünf Jahren noch willkommen geheißen werden.")

Additionally, it has to be mentioned that working for a big constructing company expatriates are not going to a "Polish" construction site - big construction sites are international by matter of investors and experts joining in. On 80% of their sites English is spoken as common language.
It also has to be remembered that expatriates are not coming to an unknown setting - they have worked on that project already for at least four years and know the relevant people on the other side, plus the colleagues they met in common workshops or trainings before. In addition construction sites offer a huge pool of diverse people thus it should be possible for everyone to find somebody he gets along with well. And, too, my interview partner says that it is still business and not about finding buddies.

They have hardly any problems with the acceptance of expatriates in the host country: On the one hand the expatriates are committed to excellence in their job, they want to show their best talents and thus are dedicated to absolute professionalism. ("Ich hab hier eine Aufgabe und ich zeige euch, dass ich das auch kann.") On the other hand their higher payments are usually accepted by host country nationals if they prove to be experts. ("Nach dem Motto 'ah-ha, der kann was', dann wird das auch akzeptiert.")

Nevertheless, expatriates especially in Eastern Europe hardly ever have problems with socializing. This is due to what my interview partner called "double binding". While it is simply their mentality to be more cordial than Germans, they are also aware that these are high-ranked people who are sent to them and they meet them as welcomed guests. Apparently, the biggest problem for expatriates is how to return this affection. Most of them can easily go along but then experience frustration and disappointment as part of a reversed culture-shock coming back to Germany. Others though perceive the call for socializing as an obligation and have a hard time to escape from it without appearing solitary.

In all cases it is up to the expatriate's personality if he succeeds in diminishing power structures or not. My interview partner argues that they never had any problems. "We are not putting anyone in a role, he couldn't play."
Every now and then they might have to send somebody who does not necessarily suit the expatriate profile but is an expert in a certain technique. In these cases it might happen that expatriate and host country nationals do not find a way to work together at all. But since the company cannot abandon the expert, they send a second expatriate to pour oil on troubled water by involving people in personal conversations, outlining the problem and showing empathy for the difficult situation. ("Ein Mensch kann nicht alle Fähigkeiten haben - in bestimmten Fällen muss man Abstriche machen. Da schickt man dann notfalls einen Gutelaune-Clown hinterher.")

I had two nice interviews this week.
I'll throw you right into the second one. The text is quite long but I think it's worth reading ;-) And it was a long interview: 1.5 hours. (I add some German quotes I scribbled along since I was not allowed to record the interview. Hope they don't bother the English readers too much but I might want to use them.)

For my second interview I met a guy from the human resource management of a German constructing company. Thus he is one of the big important guys - scary. Lucky me that I did not know that before. Among other things he is responsible for the 380 expatriates his company is sending on mission abroad. He did not tell me so much about Poland in specific but drew a very interesting picture on the expatriate business.

His company first went to Poland in 1990, thus veryvery early. Mostly when they move onto new markets they follow their clients. Let's say they have done constructing for e.g. Volkswagen in Germany. Then Volkswagen decides to put up a factory in Poland - my interview partner's constructing company will for sure accompany them. In Poland they were first cooperating with a Polish company to master a huge construction project. But their expansion plans based on former clients. He said the Eastern European market to be especially interesting because the population is keen on consuming, on investing their money.

While the Polish part of his company is an independently running association, expatriates are send for several reasons:

• they are experts in their field of the construction process.
• for means of human resource development. The mission abroad is often taken as a step up in the business's hierarchy. ("Wenn der demnächst ne ganze Truppe leiten soll, soll der vorher auch mal sehen, wie der Laden im Ausland läuft.")
• they act as guarding dogs in all areas (which my interview partner described as organs, the vital parts of an organization: "Organe der Gesellschaft") but especially when it comes to financing; in this function the expat is responsible to do or see through the processes of planning, calculating, thus watch that everything is running smoothly and that the right numbers are reported, since everything will flow into the overall big balance.
• Every now and then expatriates are also installed in the Board of Executives, sometimes as guarding dogs and sometimes to profit from their experience when it comes to installing a whole new division for example.

They try to run a regular cycle with their expatriates ranging from two till four years. Every now and then they might send somebody on a half-year mission but that only happens in special cases where experts are needed. They normally do not stay longer to prevent fraternization.

Their biggest problem is actually to find enough people who are willing to go on an expatriate mission. ("Es ist nicht viel Auswahl. Wir freuen uns, wenn wir für eine Position drei Kandidaten haben, meistens sind es nur zwei.") They try to meet this problem already in their hiring practice where they especially look for people with international experience or for people with a multi-ethnic background. ("Wir suchen nach Menschen mit zwei Seelen in der Brust; Menschen mit zwei, drei Mentalitäten.") Thus they normal advertise their jobs already in English since on 80% of the construction sites English is the main language. They look for people who are mobile, adroit, open-minded and who already studied or worked in foreign countries. They have to show a certain ambitiousness and joy at other people and other cultures; they have to show a gipsy-mentality.

At the same time they try to work on the Polish side by means of ongoing training. This has several advantages. In the long-term they hope to reduce the need for expatriates. For the moment further training is simply necessary to work with qualified staff and then to draw employees close to the company. My interview partner described Poland as one of the hot markets where it is relatively easy to make a career if you are keen on that. ("Osteuropa - das sind heiße Märkte, da bewegt sich unheimlich viel.") Nobody has the patience to run through a solid three-year apprenticeship while you can make the big bucks so much faster.
In general companies are faced with a much higher fluctuation than in Germany. Qualified staff is rare and competitors are willing to pay higher salaries if they do not have to invest into education. But there is a natural limit to paying employees for staying. My interview partner's company tries to bind people by offering them a future, by cultivating personal relations, and by giving them the outlook to work for a successful, well-positioned company, thus employ their reputation. A profound job marketing and close connections to the universities leads to 30.000-40.000 job applications annually. ("Jung finden und selbst backen." - Find young and bake yourself.) Nevertheless, this procedure implies that only in 10-15 years you will have the staff that you are looking for.

Thus: back to expatriates.
(I split the summary so you'll have to check out the next article linked aboved.)

Not that I'm getting sick of expatriates already but Harvey and Napier introducing the inpatriate got me. To implement business by expatriates seems to be forced in a way. Inviting host country nationals to your home base seems much more convincing. I still wonder if it works.
At the same time that goes pretty much in line with my idea to introduce the working environments of two countries: Poland and Germany. It's just not only about Germans going to Poland but also Polish people coming to Germany. Poland seems to be a perfect partner taking into account the close ties to Germany and facts like that there are a lot of Polish learning German.

At the same time I thought of people of - let's say: polish ;-) origin establishing business in Poland.

Just some thoughts flipping through my head....

The Expatriate Business
The expatriates in a construction company are of course working on their projects long before they get to go on the construction site. Additionally, everybody is working on several projects at the same time since normally it is not clear till the end which company will actually get the order to build. From 10 projects planned only two will get ordered. Thus projects normally are kicked off four to five years in advance. For the expatriate business this as several advantages. First of all every project is run by a small fixed team. Other people will join that group during the course of the project but the leading troop will remain together. Thus by the time an expatriate mission is becoming relevant all the parties concerned are already long acquainted to each other. And of course the company tries to install groups that already proved to work well together in order to not face any additional problems. The more tricky a project is the more important the personal binding turns out to be ("bei den Schlüsselfiguren achten wir auf eine feste Bindung").
The company further promotes personal bounds by organizing workshops or training programs in which employees from all over the world join together. ("Damit möglichst viele Menschen im Konzern ein Netzwerk haben.") Thus when expatriates go to work abroad they do not arrive at a completely unknown setting. ("Normalerweise kennt man schon Kollegen aus dem anderen Land; Berührungspunkte gibt es überall.")
This concept of personal bounds also helps to avoid problems of power structures which the host country nationals often face. While it is never easy to admit mistakes or to ask strangers for help, a company is dependent on sharing knowledge. But a Polish employee would never call for help in the head office in Germany even though he might knew that the company has 100 experts sitting there especially trained in solving problems just like his. This is eased up by introducing employees to each other. Then the Polish employee does not have to call some unknown boss but calls Hans or Karl and turns to them for help as a friend.
The company also tries to consider employees personal preferences. This means if somebody often goes on vacation in Greece, he will most likely be assigned to projects taking place in Greece. As an international company they are dependent on being enrooted in the environment. They kind of expect their employees to also deploy their personal contacts and to cultivate networks ("ein Apparat will gepflegt werden").

Networking is further institutionalized by the kind of projects the company is participating in: joint-ventures are the most successful projects where each participating company is responsible for their share. Sometimes this is the only way to get into big building projects. They are often initiated by public institutions and nowadays financed through public-private-partnerships. Consequently it is difficult to give projects such as airports which are of public and national interest to a foreign company.
These professional partnerships on the other hand minimize the risks and allow access to already existing networks in the foreign market. The German company would assign a team of engineers which then would be responsible for assigning appropriate companies. The Joint-Venture-Board itself would meet once a month. And financial matters from all running construction projects are reported to the German head office every monday. While daily communication among all people in charge is absolutely essential, somebody from the German head office will visit the construction site at least every three to four weeks.

While sometimes only one expatriate will be sent abroad, a number between five to 20 is quite usual for a project with a turnover of 170 million ? and 400 employees in peak times.

Nowadays, German is still spoken in the higher management level at Volkswagen as well as at Panopa. In the second level both companies mostly employ Polish people who also speak German.

In general Panopa is sending fewer expatriates to Poland every year. In the beginning jobs in the strategic division were filled project-specific with German expatriates. Nowadays the job is done by two fixed employees and help is only sent in emergencies. Instead Panopa makes sure to grant their employees qualification trainings to build up competencies on site.
This redundantizes the business with expatriates which is comparably expensive and takes a lot of energy from the company as well as from the employees concerned: motivating employees to leave Germany and to stay abroad for weeks and months at a time for single projects, permanent shuttling, ... Dr. Hucht resumes that it is simply easier and less expensive to establish methods of qualification at the respective location. ("Wenn ich in Deutschland jemanden motiviere da rüber zu gehen, dann redet der erstmal über mehr Geld." Dr.Hucht, 13.45 min.)

Altogether, my interview partner summarizes, are German companies appreciated for their accuracy and precision in planning and construction. They often believe that only a German company will put the project through in the limited time given. He claimed that in some towns even some streets are named after his company. This appraisal keeps them from delegating expatriates among subsidiaries. A client assigns a German company because he expects German experts.

At the same time Germans are seen to be smart asses that know everything better and know how to do everything better. They live on their procedures and check-lists and they cannot talk about anything else than business. They are the small talk losers because after two minutes they get serious and talk business again.



And of course you are invited to comment on other things typical for Germans, especially regarding the work aspect...

Strategic Global Human Resources Management in the Twenty-First Century
by Michael Harvey and Nancy K. Napier

[p.42] The authors start off that in a globalized economy the only advantage businesses have is "the uniqueness of their human resources and their system of managing human resources". They understand an effective global organization to be a "repository (Behälter, Fundgrube) of skills, competencies, routines, and dynamic capabilities that are managed by multicultural management teams in a manner difficult for global rivals to replicate". [p.43] Therefore global managers are needed who "possess a complex amalgamation (Vermischung) of technical, functional, cultural, social, and political skills to successfully navigate the intricacies (Feinheiten) of the new global manager responsibilities".

[p.44] Outlining how companies start doing business abroad, they define a little evolution.
[p.45] At first businesses simply check out their potential in the host country. In this phase they completely rely on their home-grown staff. Expatriates hold the key positions and all of the parent organization's structures and processes are transferred unmodified. The advantages of this "exportive or ethnocentric orientation" are obvious. The parent organization remains in full control and promising managers gain international experience.
When the host organization appears to bear enough potential, companies shift to a more "adaptive or polycentric orientation". Host country nationals are employed to manage the business abroad. Human resource management is based on local policies, philosophies, and personnel. All in all the branch office receives more responsibility. Harvey and Napier note that in many countries organizations will directly have to rely on host country nationals. Especially in developing countries this is a popular approach since there are simply not enough expatriates who would give up the comfort of their home.
While the reliance on local staff makes it difficult to implement the corporate culture, it allows the company to more deeply set roots in the foreign country. While at the same time it offers the host country to establish competencies of training and work.
[p.46] In the third step a "integrative or regiocentric orientation" is established. Ideally staff is exchanged mutually between the headquarter and the subsidiaries and staff is employed on both sides regardless of nationality (even third country nationals are being employed). In this system the best of both sides is used to the company's success.

[p.47] Thus there are different kinds of global managers: the expatriate, the local national, and the inpatriate managers.

The Expatriate
So far sending expatriates is the common business option for companies working abroad. They posses advanced technical as well as business skills, are experienced and hold a broad, informal knowledge in working within the parent organization. While it is their task to establish their company in the foreign country, they often fail to manage and to adjust to the given cultural setting. Even though this fact is well known it still remains difficult to select promising expatriates. [p.48] Research (as I already introduced) nowadays focuses on predictive character traits, mostly focusing on the Big Five (though introduced already, here a short-form):

1. extroversion: ability to assert oneself and to gain acceptance through social relationships.
2. agreeableness: ability to form reciprocal social alliances and thus to build social capital within the organization; acting as a team player
3. conscientiousness (Pflichtbewußtsein): being trustworthy, supportive, and diligent
4. emotional stability: ability to cope with stress on a professional as well as on a private level
5. openness and intellect: ability to complete an assignment as supposed and apply changes where needed

Though the authors do not support research on predicting expatriate success based on singling out certain character traits they introduce multiple screening devices. [p.49] The Ashridge Management Research Center, for example characterize expatriates by their
"(1) strategic awareness and support,
(2) adaptability in [p.50] new/novel environmental situations,
(3) sensitivity and openness to other cultures and social mores,
(4) language capabilities, and
(5) interpersonal communication skills."
Other sources call expatriates to posses the so-called soft skills such as "global awareness, international strategy, cultural empathy, international or cross-cultural team building, international negotiation skills, ethical understanding of conducting business in foreign countries, and self-efficacy."

Altogether they pin down expatriate's failure to be caused by problems to adjust to the organization and/or the culture and due to family-related issues. They warn of a lack of cross-cultural training and a lack of support by the organization itself to transfer and to adjust. The authors caution against damaging relationships and therefore business opportunities in the long run, and against damaging the expatriate's career.

Local Nationals
The advantages of hiring local nationals in emerging markets are obvious: They possess a "tacit knowledge of cultural, social, and economic characteristics". [p.51] Thus they have a lead on handling local institutions. They can rely on a professional and personal network - which expatriates would still have to establish. Different to expatriates who are only on short-term assignments they are also more likely to guarantee stability and do not need any adjustment time. In that regard they are also less expensive since the company does not need to pay extra for housing and incentives.
Additionally, the authors suggest that local nationals might be especially highly motivated because of extra benefits, compensation, and the prestige working for an international company. Presumingly receiving more acceptance throughout staff then foreigners, they could also function as a role model. Especially in developing countries the authors expect to find a larger pool of applicants in the host country than expatriates. They even suggest to find staff that is perfectly qualified but simply does not meet the local market needs - e.g. women. (But actually I think that that contradicts their assumptions of a higher acceptance of local nationals - it sure offers new chances to the affected potential employees but putting them in lead positions might need some extra effort to establish their role.)
As disadvantages Harvey and Napier name questionable loyalty. They also mention difficulties to first find and then retain qualified staff with experience. They assume potential qualified staff to be mostly integrated in family owned businesses or in the government. They also warn that different cultures might stick to different hierarchies: the most qualified might not necessarily be accepted in the designated role when normally, for example, the oldest person holds the lead position. It might also be difficult to impose Western business practices and policies on the subsidiary.
Altogether it seems as if multinational companies are afraid to take the challenges and even more important they are reluctant to give away control.

Inpatriate Managers
Inpatriate managers are host country nationals who are referred "back" to the headquarter. Harvey and Napier understand them to be "linking-pins". [p.52] As expatriated host nationals they possess a deep social knowledge about their home country, they have their existing networks, they know the culturally "right" way of handling staff and partners. Going abroad they are getting attached to the businesses corporate culture and thus gain credibility and trust. They broaden their skills by taking an external view on the local business, getting "a keen sense of the dynamics". Having grown up with a different education, different training and different work experiences they can enrich the company to a "pluralistic strategic orientation". Thus inpatriate managers can function as "boundary spanners between the domestic and foreign operations of a company".

Harvey and Napier see inpatriate managers to be the future of global business.


in: Gerald R. Ferris, M.Ronald Buckley, Donald B. Fedo.: Human Resources Management - Perspectives, Context, Functions, and Outcomes. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2002. 4th edition

In general Mr. Vieth and Dr. Hucht see the Polish to be quite like the Germans - in terms of values and principles. Compared to the experience he gained in Shangai, Dr. Hucht says that it is fairly easy to get acquainted to the Polish. Even though the language is quite different and the way of living, the similarities still out-rule the differences. They both emphasize that people's behavior is directly connected to one's own behavior. If you treat people fairly they will much likely return that. As long as you do not present yourself has the smart-ass German, who knows everything better and tries to mission-ate everybody, you will not have any problems being German.

[following up just quotes in German:]
("Ansonsten ist das eigentlich wie überall. Behandeln Sie Ihr Gegenüber als Mensch, dann gibt es keine Probleme." Vieth, 2nd 05.50 min.)
("Das ist so wie überall. So wie Sie es in den Wald hinein rufen, schallt es letztendlich wieder hinaus." Vieth, 2nd 07.52 min.)

("Die Polen, in meinen Augen, denken eher wie wir Deutschen." Vieth, 28.53 min.)
("Ich glaube schon, dass es ein Riesenunterschied ist, wenn ich hier in den Nachbarstaaten unterwegs bin, wo sicherlich die Sprache ne andere ist und auch in Details sicherlich bestimmte Gepflogenheiten anders sind, aber man doch immer noch mehr oder weniger in dem gleichen Kulturkreis sich bewegt; das Wertebild so in etwas das Gleiche ist." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 06.12 min.)

("Wenn ich da die Wahl hätte, würd ich jetzt nach Polen oder soll ich nach China gehen, würd's mir nicht allzu schwer fallen. Da [Shangai] hatte ich wirklich das Gefühl, hier bist du vollkommen fremd. Und in Polen.... klar, ich versteh die Sprache nicht, aber das wär ja auch noch ein Thema das zu lernen, ich kann nicht lesen, was da irgendwo steht, aber wenn man mit den Leuten ins Gespräch kommt, wenn die Englisch oder Deutsch sprechen, versteht man sich doch eigentlich relativ schnell." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 06.55 min.)

("Wenn man da nicht auftritt wie der schlaue Deutsche, der jetzt alle missionieren will oder zeigen, wie es richtig geht, dann kommt man mit den Leuten auch gut klar. Die Erfahrungen, die ich da bisher gemacht habe, waren auch durchweg positiv. Ich hatte auch nie das Gefühl, auch wenn ich da abends mal weg war oder auch im Hotel oder bei den Mitarbeitern, da irgendwie geringschätzig behandelt zu werden oder ein Problem damit zu haben, dass ich jetzt deutsch bin." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 07.22 min.)