International Human Resource Management: Managing Culture Shock for Expatriates

RUNNING HEAD: International Human Resource Management
International Human Resource Management

International Human Resource Management 1
Culture shock is experienced by expatriates when they move to a different country for overseas
assignments. The inability of the expatriates and their families to successfully adopt the culture
leads to the failure of assignments (Dowling, Festing & Engle, 2008). Therefore, the companies
should consider the policies and practices in order to manage the culture shock by way of
training the expatriates for the overseas assignments. The focus of this essay is on the term
culture shock, international HRM policies and practices that can be utilized for the effective
management of culture shock along with the example of Unilever.
Culture shock can be defined as an experience that a person may have when one moves to a
different cultural environment than one’s own. In other words, culture shock can also be
regarded as a personal disorientation felt by a person at the time of experiencing unfamiliarity
with the language, local customs and acceptable behavior as a result of variation in norms across
cultures. This unfamiliarity may be due to visit to a new country or immigration, movement
between social environments or a changeover to another type of life. A variety of culture shock
are experienced by the expatriate employees which include issue relating to organizational
factors, personality factors, differences between cultures, language, work factors, communication
styles, food and environment. The unexpected difficulties and differences faced by the
employees even when they move to culture similar to their own make them face culture shock.
Various international organizations provide cultural training to their employees for the purpose
of reducing cultural gaffes which has the capability of affecting the business. Culture shock
experienced an expatriate leads to depression, homesickness, frustration, irritability during the
period of adjustment (Naeem, Nadeem & Khan, 2015). Culture shock is often considered as the
primary reason behind the reduced on- the- job performance and failure of the expatriates
(Pokharel, 2016).
For the purpose of managing the culture shock, a variety of international HRM policies and
practices can be used. The selection of expatriates should be made after standardized tests which
measure emotional maturity and adaptability along with the assessment of their past
performance. The selection factors should also include good cross – cultural communication,
willingness to communicate, flexibility, language skills and open- mindedness regarding other
cultures and the capability to cope with the stress of dealing with new situations. This will allow
screening the individuals who have the initial capability of handling the culture shock. The