Training U.S. Managers for Distant Shores

Abstract

Proper pre-departure training and post-arrival mentoring of US managers who are assigned for distant and culturally and operationally different countries are vital for their success in their foreign assignment. Training them for foreign assignments is vital because they will be overwhelmed by an onslaught of diverse challenges of their tasks and unfamiliar operating and cultural situations, all of which will confound even the most capable domestic manager. Supervisory and decision making situations will be different from the home country situations with which they are so used to working before they left for the foreign shores. Specifically, they must cope and better manage their personally challenging issues, which are their own personal anxiety and stress arising out of unfamiliar situations that defy the cause-effect logic they were used to in their home countries, the foreign country’s unfamiliar environment causing perceived environmental uncertainty, their own personal flexibility and adaptation, communicating and leading with empathy in host country cultures, and self-efficacy and their own sustained drive for continuously working long hours to accomplish their own personal career goals and the foreign subsidiary’s objectives.