In the pursuit of international assignment success: role of cultural intelligence

Abstract

International assignments form the backbone of global human resource management. These assignments have been elemental for various business strategies, control, coordination, knowledge transfer, and the development of leadership competencies. Global staffing has risen by 25% over the last decade and has the potential to grow to 50% in the next decade (Owens et al., 2010). While there is an increase in the number of global assignments, the number of failures in these assignments remains a pressing concern for academicians and practitioners. According to recent research, about 40% of global deployments fail, leading to huge losses amounting to $311,000 (approx.) a year (MacLachlan, 2018). The outcomes and objectives of the global assignments have rarely been studied from both the organization's and assignee's purview, leading to an unbalanced approach towards success. Also, literature has inherently discussed success metrics in the context of traditional corporate expatriate assignments. Subsidiary performance (Chang, Gong & Peng, 2012), expatriate adjustment (Kraimer, Wayne & Jawaroski, 2001), and cultural effectiveness (Lee & Sukoco, 2010) have been the primary parameters for the measurement of success of traditional expatriate assignments. Global staffing has evolved in terms of scope, tenure, and exposure, making it imperative to develop clarity about the success metrics (Andresen et al., 2014). Hence, this calls for an examination of the perceptual differences in the success metrics between the organization and assignees. There is also a need to extend this intervention across diverse types of assignments.