Canadians Working Abroad
Throughout the world there are various ways for business to be conducted. Companies have many options at their discretion; one such way is to send an employee to another country as an expatriate (expat). When an expat is sent from Canada to another country, the company and the expat have various steps to consider before the assignment. The employee will be experiencing another country, learning valuable information about their customs, and practicing foreign business. This information can be brought back to the home country and shared with the rest of the firm in an effort to increase international knowledge. Nevertheless, the expat may experience culture shock, change in living conditions, and varied business practices. In this report we have researched Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom, and Brazil in relation to Canada.
We have discovered many noteworthy facts regarding the five countries we have researched. Australia is favourable to business and expats because of the large economic growth and similarities with the American and Canadian customs. However, the cost of living is somewhat more expensive than in North America. From our research of Singapore we have coined it the "Jewel of Asia"; Singapore is globally connected and very innovative in their business practices. We have found information that convinces us that a potential expat in Singapore will experience a great degree of culture shock. The United Kingdom strength lies in the similarity of access to large companies and local customs to North America. However, for potential female expats there is an evident glass ceiling that will limit the potential growth within a company. Brazil is known for their hospitality and carefree attitude that encourages cultural differences. However, entering the job market is very difficult and requires extensive research and local networking. Expats in Canada my experience varying struggles to adapt depending on where they are from.
Osland, Joyce Sautters. "Working abroad: a hero's adventure." Training & Development Nov. 1995: 47+. Academic OneFile. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
While the way of doing business may be similar everywhere in the world, cultural differences can have a significant impact on how these organizations operate. Local cultures can disorient a newly appointed expat manager and can lead to culture shock (s.,2011). Culture shock can be caused due to difference in ethics, ideology, execution and values between a manager 's native country and the local culture. Although culture shock can be disruptive to the manager 's performance, it can be defeated using a set of techniques and mechanisms. The manager has to understand and embrace the new culture and accept the differences it may have with his own. He should observe how people deal in the new culture and mimic the basic ways of dealings and conversing. Also, he should create a comfort zone where he can meet new people and practice his hobbies and interests with from time to time. Furthermore, it is useful to use stress reduction mechanisms to help him blend in to the new society
Canada is a very big country where many immigrants want to achieve their goals and have a good life. According to government statistics (October 2013) population in Canada is 35,295,770 and is still increasing. Every year more people from every country in the world are moving to Canada to settle down, find new job, and start perfect life. It is very hard to behave like born and raised as Canadians for people from different countries, cultures and with different backgrounds. Canadian government is supporting newcomers trough many trainings and courses, but this is immigrants responsibility to be prepared for new circumstances, they have to do a lot of job themselves just to feel safe and secure in new place and life. Immigrants should considered few very important things before they will make their decision about changing place and life style. While they can be great specialist in their field, emigrants have to learn about Canadian culture, Canadian workplace rules, and what’s most important they have to adopt this knowledge to their new life.
Rajasekar, James, and Franck Renand. "Culture Shock in a Global World: Factors Affecting Culture Shock Experienced by Expatriates in Oman and Omani Expatriates Abroad."International Journal of Business & Management. Canadian Center of Science & Education, 1 Feb. 2010. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
Moving to a different place seems exciting and adventurous. But when you find out you are moving to a new country without knowing anyone there or anything about the place, it is a terrifying feeling. I remember the day when my mother told me that we were going to move to Canada. At the moment, I had felt a rush of excitement jolt through my body as I imagined living in another country that had winters where it snowed and make new friends. Then it hit me. My mother and I do not know any relative that resides in Canada and neither have we heard of the city called Regina. Some serious questions came popping through my mind. Where would we live? Where would I go to school? How would we travel to places in town? How would we start a new life without
International businesses are also finding new ways of increasing diversity abroad. Instead of using expatriate employees as management, they are starting to hire locals. Companies that operate abroad are realizing that using expatriate employees is not a permanent solution. They are often expensive, and are not capable of translating their skills into the new environment. In a company that operates globally, it is important that the company knows how to relate to the local markets, and a great way to do this is by hiring local talent. Hiring locally is cheaper, there is not a language barrier, and they are accustomed to the business environment in the area(5). They can also help the business by providing a new perspective into international markets, and offer ways that the company can improve their diversity abroa...
Traveling to different countries can be very challenging, especially in business. Anyone who travels from Brazil to America will find it fascinating and sometimes confusing to live and communicate with each other because of the many cultural differences; however, it would not take a long time before they realize that there are many similes and differences between them. Although Brazilian culture is different from the Americans, it is exciting to learn how they act. The business world is something universal which needs both parties to come together and understand each other; in order to succeed any international transactions both countries needs to be able to communicate in the best way. For example, business communication,
According to Dutton’s (2011) implication, culture shock is a broadly tested model of expatriates react under a brand-new cultural condition. He pointed the birth of Oberg’s Four Stages Model explicitly illustrates the expatriates’ “honeymoon stage” to “adaptation stage”.
A major challenge of doing business internationally is to adapt effectively to different culture. Such adaptation requires an understanding of cultural diversity, perceptions, stereotypes, and values (Hodgett &Luthans, 2005). Doing business overseas has its challenges as well as it rewards.
Now this has become critical due to increasing number of international assignments. Yet, this has placed a great challenge for international firms HR practitioners. In order to minimize these, they are coming up with different HRM functions that will help employees, which are from different cultural backgrounds to work together. One of these critical function is expatriate’s pre-departure training
High turnover rate of expatriate: expatriate managers are frustrated with the performance and practices of local employees. And they do not have enough international experience and cross-cultural communication and sensitivity training.
The international management structure and an appropriate organizational design for managing people in a cross-cultural environment are made up of an effective scheme. During these activities, companies face the technical, political, economic, linguistic, and cultural differences have to go through practice. For a small business to go after any international activities, even if a couple of these international challenges, or simply to show up in the competition, while active in the local community in their own private market to cooperate with a foreign company.
Since the end of World War II, international operations have become a reality for an increasing number of corporations. Many of these initial efforts began as simple export schemes to sell goods overseas to supplement domestic sales. Over time, however, international operations have become increasingly more complex: from joint-ventures to purchasing existing foreign firms to ‘green-field’ start-ups. While export operations usually require no more than extended business trips overseas, more complex international operations demand long-term assignments of key personnel outside their home-country. What would normally be considered routine business transactions in the home country can become very complicated when they are conducted between individuals and organizations from different cultures. In this essay we will examine how this cultural gap can affect international business and joint ventures.
Successful companies mainly use several factors to keep a business growing internationally. For instance, globalized communications, also the media and movements of the people make it complex for international organizations to guarantee their businesses from standing out of the rest. Cross-cultural and intercultural training, is a slight appreciation from 30 years ago, has grown into a conventional approval in the past 10 years with international businesses appointing into a large and sometimes expensive selection of cross cultural training programs for their outgoing employees to foreign countries. (Lang)
An additional 30 to 50 percent of expatriates stay in their international assignments, but are regarded as either marginally effective or ineffective by their organizations (Bird and Dunbar,1991).According to evidence accumulated over the past two decades, roughly one in three managers sent overseas gets the job done the way headquarters wanted it done. This is costly to firms. The following are the characteristics that help expatriates adjust effectively and companies can select female expatriates based on the degree to which they possess these characteristics, and training can be designed to ensure that expatriates develop and use the needed