An Experience-based Typology of the International Workforce

Abstract

To limit ambiguity in international business, firms often prioritize employees with international experience as they may contribute with complex knowledge of specific cultures and/or general and cross-cultural competence. Yet, hitherto literature has failed to consistently delineate employees endowed with cultural competence. Hence, we intend to clarify the differentiation of the classifications for internationally experienced employees. For this purpose, the term internationally skilled mobile employee (ISME) is introduced. By conceptualizing a novel typology, we comprehensively structure the differing cultural competencies of ISMEs according to the dimensions “depth of culture-specific knowledge” and “breadth of culture-general competence” and discuss implications for theory and practice.

North American Perspective

An Experience-based Typology of the International Workforce

• John D. Daniels 

1. University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

   John D. Daniels

This chapter could not be timelier inasmuch as every day’s news covers complications and controversies about the international workforce. These include such subjects as mass migrations for both political and economic motives, undocumented workers, effects of remittances, recent and long-term stateless individuals, changing factor endowments, and the social, economic, and political consequences on both home and host countries as people become part of a foreign workforce. Thus, I enthusiastically read this manuscript, especially since the raison d’être of this book was to bring a European (mainly German) perspective to a subject primarily studied from a North American (mainly United States) viewpoint.

At first, I hoped to find an empirical comparison of the two areas. But then, I concluded that the authors have compiled a set of promising descriptions and definitions of necessary terminology for making such future comparisons. In fact, the whole area of international business (and probably other disciplines as well) has suffered from a lack of common clarity that too often has resulted in the proverbial “comparing apples with oranges”. I encourage anyone who plans to work in this area to take a good look at Table 2.1 so as to explain exactly what they mean.

The first thing that struck me when I read the chapter was how more refined the terminology has become. I pulled out a study I published in a now defunct journal way back in 1980 (Daniels, 1980) that attempted in many ways to make the same distinctions among types of foreign workforce participants. I note that some of the descriptions therein now have names attached to the people involved—for example, border movements now have ICAs; target-temporary movements and the fulfillment of structural vacancies now employ STAs; permanent-indefinite movements employ either immigrant employees or SIEs. The old term of third-country national has been divided into INs and OEs. Hopefully the terminology that has now emerged will become permanent, thus enabling better pursuit of longitudinal studies. Future research could pick up on the terminology of this chapter (1) to group the explanation of the acronyms for each type of person in the international workforce in such a way that the reader can follow the materials more easily and (2) to bring in re-immigrants, which is a thorny issue between Canada and the United States, that is Canada claims it pays most of the acculturation cost for immigrants who end up working in the United States.

Aside from clarifying foreign worker types, Raupp and Puck have laid out an ambitious delineation of the types of foreign workers according to their depth and breadth of cultural competence, and, thus, how each might contribute differently to organizations’ adaptability. This delineation is based on an extensive literature survey. Although the authors do not use formal hypotheses, each short discussion could be turned into hypotheses by expanding its literature and depth of discussion. Overall, this breadth is an advantage for future research, as the chapter introduces a very wide span of conjectures, each of which might be expanded into formal studies. Considerably more research is necessary before embarking on an empirical study as we need to know more about the specific characteristics of each type of foreign workers—which of course cannot be achieved in a single study. Still, by providing an overview about each type the authors deliver an interesting starting point for future studies.

I want to make a few comments on the general delineation. First, the chapter examines competencies from a static viewpoint without regard to employees’ experience before arriving in their present positions. Thus, they may belong to both clusters as laid out in the chapter. Second, international firms commonly gather employees’ cultural information only on place of birth, language skills, and previous international employment. Determining if that is true could be a worthwhile research topic in the future. Further, Raupp and Puck suggest that firms should solicit more cultural background information. This is a promising starting point and future studies could seek information on for example, foreign travel, nationality of relatives, or study abroad experience. Third, my experience is that individuals will seek out expertise not just formally but also informally, such as by contacting individuals that have visited a particular foreign country, either on a short-term visit or a prolonged assignment. Future research could extend on the role of expatriate networking as well. This might be particularly interesting to see whether there are differences between European and American expatriates.

The study of Raupp and Puck provides another interesting avenue for further research. Future studies may analyze changing immigration patterns whereby people, whether for economic or political motives, move abroad to an area dominated by their own nationalities, such as Marseilles for North African Arabic speakers, Miami for Latin American Spanish speakers, and Vancouver for Chinese speakers. Concerning this matter, two relevant questions come to my mind: How does their acculturation process resemble or differ from those described in the chapter? In what ways can companies tap these resources to help them become more competent culturally?

Overall, this chapter covers a very broad array of expatriate types and potential contributions. By expanding any one of these, one can develop articles that extend the field. Further, they form the basis for making comparisons between European and United States norms at either the organization or the individual level.