Changes to Expatriation in ManCo

As all interviewees had been with the company for longer than five years, they were in a position to comment on any observed changes in the way that expatriate assignments operated. The one key change that all of the interviewees at ManCo mentioned stated that they had noticed since 2007 was the reduction in the use of international assignments by the organisation. This, they mentioned, was directly related to the economic recession in the US in 2008. In order to avoid cutting staff, ManCo sought to cut a number of internal programmes, which included the reduction of global mobility. As the economy recovered, the number of expatriate assignments began to increase from 2010 onwards, however it remained more limited than in previous years. Another change observed by managers was the increased focus on using international assignments to develop global leaders within the organisation. R3 stated that he has noticed that there is an increased emphasis on leadership in ManCo since he initially started with the company. About this he commented:

119| P a g e “There’s a lot more focus on leadership. I think they’ve implemented a brand new program called [name] which will become, it won’t stop until it gets ingrained into the supervisors and leaders all the way to the top. And they want to instil a culture, different leadership culture that they would like to demonstrate amongst, take all the way down to the leaders. So that’s kind of rolling out at the minute, it what we want to focus on”

-R3, Finance (EngCo)

Other managers agreed that there was a significant focus at that time on creating a leadership culture and developing and investing in individuals who had the potential to lead and exude the company culture while assigned in various global locations. Interviewees stated that this increased focus on leadership was due to the way in which the business was changing, primarily with regard to larger percentages of company activity and investment in less traditional regions. In addition to more international opportunities being created, managers also stated that the top-down approach to expatriate assignments was also changing, with non-US managers increasingly being sent on assignment as well. One manager, R2 clarified further:

“One thing that I would say that has change and that you see more dramatically is because so much of our business has shifted outside the US than when I first started. Maybe 60% of the business was in the US and 40% outside and then it was 50-50 and now it’s probably 60-40 the other way so in the past allot of the expat community were US-based people getting global experience”

-R2, Marketing (EngCo)

A review of information on the company’s history, gain from the corporate website, as well as the 2014 company report produced by ManCo confirmed the above-mentioned increase in the firm’s internationalisation. As a result of such shifts, more third-country managers were being assigned within the UK and other global locations, and more international assignments were being arranged for host country managers to work within ManCo’s US headquarters. A key part of the company’s new leadership focus was to develop local leadership within its UK facilities. Some managers described this as the firm becoming more global and less ‘US-centric’. R2 stressed, however, despite the increased desire to see local managers managing local subsidiaries, the use of inpatriate assignments ensured that they maintained a global view. The GM in EngCo, R7, confirmed this, as he reflected on how the company’s leadership focus had changed over the years:

“I mean it’s only in the later years now that we said we wanted to have local managers…Twenty years ago you would have said ‘Why isn’t an American running this

120| P a g e factory’ or locations. It was an American company so it will always be an American at the head. Today, we don’t say that anymore we say it has to be a ‘Why isn’t there an Englishman running this company or a Russian running the Russian operations now.”

–R7,

GM (EngCo)

The HRD and other managers agreed with this, stating that there was a larger flow of AE managers out of other global locations coming into the UK than in previous years. He also used the GM, who was from Sweden, and the Financial Controller, originally from New Zealand, as examples in increasing TCNs coming into the UK, as their positions would have typically been occupied by US nationals. One other change identified by AE managers was an increased shift away from using short-term (ST) assignments. Some managers stated that the rationale behind this was to provide enough time to build longer-lasting connections across the units. About this, R4 in marketing explained:

We’re trying to get more people going both ways so we get the teams to work together as opposed to working as two separate product groups…I think for me this is, however long it is necessary to get the experience, make the connections, because when I go back, hopefully those bonds remain, as long as the people over here don’t change.

- R4, Marketing, EngCo Other AE managers echoed similar sentiments, stating that implementing strategy and embedding cultural values was more of a long-term, rather than a short-term under-taking as it took time to re-shape long-held beliefs and values.