British Expatriate Managers Coping with Culture Shock in the USA - Dissertation Example

Globalisation along with economic liberalization that started in the early half of the 20th century made it necessary for many of the business firms to expand their trade and commerce globally, along with establishing an international distinction. In this context, Bartol and Martin (1998) tell us that the process of globalization is, in reality, a strategy for worldwide integration where the chief objective of the various business firms is developing comparably standardized materials with a global address, along consolidating all the operations taking place at the worldwide level.

In order to achieve this goal, the organizations must necessarily send their chosen representatives for the various foreign projects, in order to oversee the work at site locations and maintain the product and service standards in these foreign countries. Companies that with globalisation, have broadened their scope to create a worldwide presence and name, are often referred to as multinational companies or MNCs (ibid).The origin of the modern form of multinational companies or MNCs that we see today can be traced back to the post-World War II era.

Though some companies may have started during the late 19th century, the development actually started from the late 1940s. However, it was only during the early 1980s, that various researchers in the fields of global HR management and expatriation (Evans, Barsoux, & Jean, 2002, 14 - 16) showed interest in this regard. Expatriate managers who are on foreign assignments must work in a completely new culture and work environment, with which they must cope well to function effectively as managers and succeed professionally.

The process of coping or adjusting to entirely different work and cultural environments is a challenge that the expatriate managers must deal with almost on a daily basis). Many researchers have reviewed this issue of adjustment, and a majority of the papers assume that the factor of adjustment of the expatriates is directly dependent on the degree of cultural differences between the host country and the country of origin; that is, more the degree of difference, greater will be the difficulty in adjustment.