Management Professor Focuses on Personality as Predictor of Expatriate Effectivenes

Expatriation, whereby multinational corporations send managers on overseas assignments, comes with a substantial investment, and so it serves organizations well to be able to predict some measure of return on this investment. Meredith Downes and colleagues have contributed to the knowledge on expatriation by creating a selection model based primarily on stable traits (in this case, personality, which is deep-rooted and seldom changes) and secondarily on dynamic ones (such as technical expertise, which can be learned). Stated another way, they assert that certain stable traits are necessary but not sufficient conditions for expatriate success abroad.

They subsequently tested these assumptions, directly assessing expatriate personality and also employing multiple dimensions of effectiveness. In their paper, the authors show that expatriates who are extraverted, emotionally stable, and open, were significantly more adjusted abroad than were those who did not display those traits. Similarly, expatriates characterized as agreeable scored significantly higher on job performance than did their less agreeable counterparts.

The results highlight the intercultural context of overseas assignments and suggest that certain individuals are predisposed to succeed, whereas others, no matter how technically or functionally competent, are innately unqualified as expatriates and thus should not be considered for selection. The notion is that the ability to pick up those skills which are acquirable and which are vital to expatriate effectiveness, such as language proficiency, computer savvy, or negotiating techniques, is dictated by the ascribed characteristics that remain relatively stable throughout a person’s lifetime.

Citation

Downes, M., Varner, I.Z., and Hemmasi, M. (2010). “Individual Profiles as Predictors of Expatriate Effectivieness”,  Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal, Vol. 20, No. 3: 235-247.