The focus of this paper is an article titled “Host Country National Willingness to Help Expatriates: The Role of Social Categorization and Exchange,” by Arup Varma, Shaun Pichler, and Pawan Budhwar. The work was published in 2016 on the Research Gate database and is a part of Global Talent Management via Skilled Migration and Services Offshoring.
The article explores the phenomenon of a host country’s nationals’ willingness to assist expatriate workers with their needs by considering the roles of social categorization and exchange. In the study the authors analyze 493 host country nationals (HCNs) in the United Kingdom, with the purpose of investigating the relationship between expatriate gender, national origin, job level, and HCN willingness to help expatriate workers. The authors suggest that the HCNs categorize expatriate workers as individuals performing their work-related duties as parts of groups, or as separate members relying on their perceived values such as ethnocentrism, similarity, and collectivism.
The authors specify that the help of HCNs is more effective for the adaptation of expatriate workers and the success of an expatriate assignment than any training and development. The results of the article suggest that the home organization and expatriate control affect the expatriate assignment experience. For better adjustment on the part of the expatriates, an organization is required to accomplish pre-assignment planning, selection, and training in order to appropriately match the assignments with the expatriate workers.
The main focus of the business paper is to find the role of host country nationals in helping expatriate workers adjust to life and work in a host country. The HCN attitude and behavior is significantly important to explore because the number of expatriate assignments is increasing. The objective of this article is to find the role of the expatriate worker in increasing the chance of making an expatriate assignment successful. HCN nationals can facilitate the adjustment process for expatriate workers by providing work-related information as well as helping them with the process of social adjustment. The objective of this article is to find and categorize HCN reactions to expatriate workers, the different levels of assistance that can be provided to expatriates, and the degree to which host country nationals can help the expatriate workers.
The business focus of this article is to find out the social categorization process used by host country nationals. Understanding the role and significance of host country nationals is important for the social, cultural, and business-related adjustment of the expatriate worker in the host country. The study concentrated on two countries, the United States and India (an expatriate country with long ties and a continuous exchange of people with the United Kingdom). As a result of the purchase of different groups by Tata Corporation in the United Kingdom, the outflow of expatriate workers to the country has increased. This study is designed with an objective of identifying the role of host country nationals in managing expatriate worker adaptation and HCN contribution to the success of expatriate assignments in the United Kingdom.
The results of this article would help expatriate workers to adjust to the host country’s working environment and help to make the expatriate assignment successful. In multinational corporations, expatriate assignments play a very significant role. The factors that affect the expatriate workers’ successful adaptation can help in determining the level of performance of these assignments and provide a foundation for researchers in the future. With the operational expansion of multinational organizations all around the globe, the need for expatriate projects is likely to grow, and the results of this study would enable the successful adjustment of expatriate workers. The authors identified an important aspect of expatriate assignment success by determining the role of HCNs. By identifying the role of HCNs, this article contributes to the existing literature that covers the organizational and individual factors of expatriate success investigated by previous research.
The study has explored how such factors as collectivism, ethnocentrism, and similarity play in HCN categorization, and the willingness of organizations to provide role information and social support to expatriates. Organizations can use the results of this article to formulate a framework for sending their expatriate workers to the United Kingdom. Namely, it helps organizations to educate the travelling workers about culture, history, language, and social features of the host countries, and plan successful pre-departure training accordingly. In addition, the results of this study can be utilized by modern organizations in order to prepare their HCNs to deal with expatriates of diverse backgrounds.
The results of this study suggest that future research can explore the issues related to working with expatriate subordinates and the role of highly qualified and competent expatriate workers for the success of the expatriate assignment. The limitations of this study include the collection of data at the same point in time. The casual reference ability of the research is limited. The article used the tried and tested paper-person model that limits the transferability and generalizability of the study results. Future studies focusing on this issue could rely on video material as a source of data and study the actual experiences and problems that expatriate workers tend to face at work. In addition, future research could also determine the degree of help provided by HCNs for the transition of an expatriate worker.