Stephane Rouamba Chapter 15 discussion

Research expatriates. What is an expatriate? What are companies doing to prepare the expatriate and their families for their assignment aboard? How are they transitioning them back home? Would you want to work abroad?

The online business news Financial Time define expatriate as “an employee who is sent to live abroad for a defined time period. An expatriate is expected to relocate abroad, with or without family, for as short a period as six months to a year; typical expatriate assignments, however, are from two to five years long”. In another words, an expatriate is an employee sent to a foreign country for work related reasons. There are many reasons that lead companies to send an employee abroad to work. It could be professional development, knowledge transfer, and fulfillment of scarce skills, or control (expatica.com).
Companies prepare expatriates and their families for their assignment abroad. Companies provide relocation cost to the foreign country sometimes through a relocation agent, accommodation benefits; free schooling for the employee’s kids. The spouse of the employee sometime gets paid for not having a job in the foreign country or the company finds a job for her.
Some companies have a program designed to make the return of expatriates easier. When expatriates return home they have no ideas what they are going to do back home. Sometimes, there is no position available for them in the company, and most of their colleagues