Ascribed Behavioral Determinants of Success-Failure among U.S. Expatriate Managers
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Myriad factors have important effects on the performance of the multinational corporation. In addition to the normal business issues faced by its domestic counterpart, the multinational firm faces many added opportunities and problems simply because it operates in more than one country. Many of these complicating factors which are unique to multinational firms have been examined and researched in great detail. However, one set of factors which is very important to the success of multinational firms has received relatively little attention from researchers: those factors relating to the unique human and behavioral problems encountered by a firm operating in several cultural and national environments. One of these behavioral issues which is particularly vital to the multinational firm is the performance of persons of one nationality who are assigned to positions in another cultural environment. Although both governmental and economic pressures have mounted to encourage multinational firms to reduce the percentage of U.S. nationals in foreign operations, the magnitude of U.S. foreign investment is increasing at such a rate that the absolute number of U.S. managers abroad has probably increased substantially over the last decade. Certainly these pressures have caused American managers who remain overseas to represent increasingly, only the very highest levels of the firm abroad, so that knowledge relating to the factors influencing the success of these individuals is even more crucial than before. In addition to the U.S. expatriate, the "third country national" (the citizen of neither the U.S. nor the country of operation) is becoming an increasingly visible element in multinational firms. These facts point to the importance of knowledge relating to the behavioral problems of moving people across political and cultural boundaries. At present, approximately 200,0001 U.S. business expatriates exist, and "it has been estimated that about 30 percent of the people sent overseas *The article is an adaptation of a paper delivered at the December, 1970 meetings of the Association for Education in International Business. 1. According to the 1960 census, 190,706 Americans of non-governmentor armed services designation lived abroad in 1960 (Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, "U.S. Census of the Population: 1960," Volume I, and "Area MeasurementReports," Series GE-20). The Bureau of the Census cautions that this number is probably seriously understated due to the voluntary nature of census reporting outside the U.S.
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by American companies are mistakes."' Certainly some significant and costly failures are occurring in expatriate assignments. This study was designed to investigate some of the basic behavioral forces acting on business expatriates in order to improve the basic for assignment and action by multinational firms. The Study Any research study must employ
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