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The purpose of this paper is to explore the specific forms of training and support that individuals on short-term international assignments (SIAs) receive. It further explores issues such as short notice prior to departure and how this impacts the type of training and support compared to what the extant literature on expatriates intimates. Scholars and practitioners both agree that the increasing deployment of individuals on SIAs presents significant challenges that have not yet been met with the development of appropriate organisational policies and practices.

Drawing on in-depth exploratory qualitative interviews with a sample of German assignees, the paper is abductive in nature with semi-structured interviews analysed through thematic based analysis. The data analysis identifies the need for more tailored training and support through formal and informal mechanisms, developed in pre-departure and post-arrival contexts.

The paper makes key contributions through providing much needed empirical evidence on the training and support short-term assignees receive and in so doing we identify specific forms of training and supports deemed relevant from the perspective of individuals on SIAs. Given the inherent time constraints for SIAs, the significance of informal support, in both pre-departure and post-arrival contexts is especially emphasised.

The paper is one of the first empirical pieces of work to explicitly consider the specific forms of training and support that SIAs consider important. The authors answer calls for greater consideration into the significance of developing a more tailored and strategic approach to managing SIAs as a specific form of an international assignee.

Due to the globalisation of business, international assignments are becoming more typical career steps in managerial careers than before. On the other hand, expatriation has been found to include several problems including high costs, adjustment challenges, inefficiency, and premature returns. As an outcome, the need for adequate preparation and training of expatriates has been stressed. Here the focus has been on pre‐departure issues while on‐site support and training provided by host units has clearly been covered less. In the present study it is analysed what kind of on‐site support and training host units provide to expatriates and what kind of support the expatriates see as necessary. In order to understand the situation expatriates are facing when arriving at their host units, their adjustment difficulties and pre‐departure training are also covered. The results indicate that training and support provided by host units is a more common form of expatriate training than pre‐departure training. Thus, existing research may exaggerate the lack of expatriate training when focusing only on pre‐departure training.

Based on signaling and motivation theories, this study investigates the impact of organizational practices on the formation and development of expatriates' psychological contracts in three stages. Stage 1: the impact of the selection process on psychological contract formation with the mediating role of perceived organizational justice. Stage 2: the impact of pre-departure training on psychological contract formation with the mediating role of individual absorptive capacity. Stage 3: the impact of perceived organizational support on psychological contract development with the mediating role of expatriates' adjustment.

By using a purposive sampling technique, the respondents were approached via e-mails and personal visits in three waves, each wave had 45 days gap. After three waves, a total of 402 complete questionnaires were received back. To test the hypotheses, the partial least squares-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was used.

Stage 1: effective selection process and perceived organizational justice positively support the psychological contract formation. Stage 2: the pre-departure training and individual absorptive capacity have a positive influence on the psychological contract formation of expatriates. Stage 3: the perceived organizational support and psychological contract development have a positive direct association. However, expatriates' adjustment does not mediate the association between perceived organizational support and the psychological contract development of expatriates.

The implications of this study are supportive to the organizations that deal with expatriates. The organizations should adopt practices (i.e. effective selection process, pre-departure training and perceived organizational support) for effective formation of psychological contract formation and development. In addition, perceived organizational justice, individual absorptive capacity and expatriates' adjustment can help out in the formation and development of the psychological contract of expatriates.

This study highlights the role of organizational best practices in the formation and development of the psychological contract of expatriates.

This paper aims to explore international training and development policies and practices in Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs). The issues examined in this study include pre‐departure and post‐arrival training for expatriates and their spouses and families, training for host‐country nationals (HCNs), reasons for Chinese MNEs not providing adequate training and the approaches of Chinese MNEs to international management development.

This paper used a semi‐structured, interview‐based survey for collecting data from ten Chinese MNEs. The case companies consist of a range of industries and economic ownership types. A total of 30 in‐depth interviews involving general managers, HR managers at headquarters and executive managers in subsidiaries were carried out.

The paper reveals that Chinese MNEs provide only limited training to expatriates and other nationals, and lack a systematic international management development system. They adopt usually an ethnocentric approach to international training and development, and provide different levels of international training and management development for HCNs and PCNs.

The paper has many issues, especially those relating to the organizational determinates of international training and management development, their impact on organizational performance, and the effect of different approaches to training and development on different nationals; these require further investigation.

The paper shows that HRM in Chinese MNEs has not been much considered. This study has examined a selection of international training and management development issues in Chinese MNEs that have not been reported in the literature to date.

In the study of expatriation and expatriate adaptation, there are limited studies that focus on issues faced by expatriates working in foreign countries with very distinct cultures. This study aims to explore this idea through the experiences of western expatriates working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Two research questions were posed to examine the cross-cultural issues and challenges faced by expatriates in the KSA, as well as the role of cross-cultural training in expatriate adjustment.

The study was guided by an interpretivism paradigm through a qualitative method by using a semi-structured in-depth interview approach. Interviews were conducted among 12 expatriates from the USA and UK who are currently working in KSA.

A coding technique and theoretical thematic analysis was conducted to analyze the data. The results of this study highlighted three key themes that had a considerable influence on expatriates’ adjustment, in particular: culture shock, lack of pre-departure training and the demand for an extensive cross-cultural training.

It is acknowledged that the existence of sub-cultures within the KSA would expose the respondents to varying cultural values within the community. Thus, future studies within a similar context should consider the influence of intra-cultural variations.

The findings of the study emphasized on the importance understanding the cultural gap between home and host country and the individual cultural awareness of the expatriate. It calls attention to the need for a tailored and extensive pre-departure, cross-cultural training and a collaborative effort between employees’ and managers to improve expatriates’ motivation and retention.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the cross-cultural training (CCT) provided to European expatriate executives in New Zealand, and consequently add to the knowledge for human resource management in the Australasian region.

The present qualitative research study is based on open-ended and in-depth interviews with 30 European expatriate executives who had been residing in New Zealand for the past year or more.

The results indicate that at least some CCT was provided to all interviewees; however, the training content seemed to be strongly centered around professional work, with little focus on the culture of the host country. Moreover, there was no follow-up to the pre-departure CCT and very few expatriates in the sample received any training in New Zealand. Similarly, the family is considered a fundamental factor for the success of expatriates; however, in the sample, neither spouses nor children received any training before or after their arrival in New Zealand.

The research is limited by the sample small size. The study’s inconclusive highlights the need for further research to explore the influences of local residents, colleagues and neighbors on expatriates’ adjustment. Similarly, further studies are also required to ascertain the effectiveness of CCT in helping support expatriates’ performance and adjustment in New Zealand.

The present study suggests that opportunities do exist for multinational companies (MNCs) to better prepare their expatriates for assignments by integrating more effectively issues related to cultural awareness into their CCT. Specifically, experimental CCT methods that emphasize the host country’s culture are most valuable. The CCT technique should be tailored to the cultural distance between the host nation and expatriates’ country of origin and to the nature of their assignment.

Given the existence of many MNCs in New Zealand, it is surprising that the issue of CCT in this context has received little research attention. The current study endeavors to address this gap. This paper hopes that the findings may also be useful for consultants and human resource managers in MNCs who are involved in preparing expatriates for foreign assignments in Australasia, especially New Zealand.

Organisations operate in diverse cultural environment, which is a challenging task due to absence of cultural knowledge and difficulty in adapting the native culture that usually leads to expatriate failure. In this context cultural intelligence plays an important role in the adjustment of employees. The purpose of the study is to examine the mediating role played by cultural intelligence between cross-cultural training and cross-cultural adjustment relationship. It further analyses the moderating role of cross-cultural training and types of expatriate between cultural intelligence and cross-cultural adjustment relationship.

Set in a large culturally diverse emerging economy context, data have been gathered from 530 managers working in banking sector. Data have been duly assessed for reliability and validity.

The results revealed that cultural intelligence mediates cross-cultural training and cross-cultural adjustment relationship. Evidence from the analysis further suggests that cross-cultural training and types of expatriate moderate the relationship between cultural intelligence and cross-cultural adjustment. Lastly, the managerial and theoretical implications have been put forth for practical and academic perusal.

The study is cross-sectional in nature and data have been collected from single source.

Organisations should design such training programmes, which motivate the managers to successfully complete out of home state assignment and help them to adapt in the cross-cultural situations.

Culturally intelligent employees/managers are able to communicate with people belonging to diverse culture, which results in building trust, loyalty and cordial relationship amongst the people. This will create the feeling of unity in the society thereby bringing national as well as global peace.

The study develops the extant literature on cross-cultural training and types of expatriate as effective intercultural instruments to enhance the capability of the managers to interact and adjust in host region environment.

Sending staff to international locations can be costly for employers as well as employees if the expatriate staff members fail in their ability to assimilate themselves or are unable to work within the construct of the foreign culture. From a strategic perspective, failed overseas deployments can have serious implications in both the firm’s reputation and unnecessary costs. We examine this issue within the context of deployments to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Questionnaires are used to examine the factors relating to expatriate leader adjustment in the UAE. The experiences of expatriate managers in the UAE are discussed.

Our study found that well-structured pre-departure training had a positive effect on expatriate managers’ adjustment to working in the UAE. Mentoring was also considered to be highly effective as a means of preparing employees for an overseas deployment. A number of useful guidelines have been developed from the experiences of the expatriate managers surveyed in our research.

Practical implications The results provide notable implications for organizational leaders facing a posting to the UAE and human resource management specialists preparing people for work in the UAE. It also provides a practical model to be used by expatriate leaders to facilitate their adjustment to the UAE culture.

Although there has been much research on cross-cultural adaptation, relatively little has been written on practical managerial adaptation, specifically in the UAE. This article helps address this imbalance.

This research aims to provide an updated meta-analysis of cross-cultural training effectiveness through quantitatively reviewing the links between cross-cultural training and three outcomes: adjustment, cultural intelligence and job performance.

Drawing from 37 independent samples from 1991 through August 2021 involving a total of 7,040 trainees, the author adopt random-effects meta-analyses method to assess the relationships between cross-cultural training and three outcomes and examine potential moderators (i.e. training phase, training method and rating source) that influence these relationships.

The meta-analytical results mainly support our hypotheses. Cross-cultural training -adjustment exhibits a medium and significant positive effect, whereas cross-cultural training is positive significantly related to job performance and cultural intelligence of small effect sizes. Training method and data source significantly moderate the cross-cultural training's impact on cultural intelligence and performance correspondingly.

This study considers longitudinal statistics for measuring cross-cultural training effectiveness, breaking down the inadequacy of cross-sectional measurement and covers sub-dimensions of cross-cultural training outcomes to provide more comprehensive and advanced evidence of cross-cultural training effectiveness for the latest 30 years.

A key reason for the return of expatriates before the official end of their foreign assignment is the uncertainty and frustration resulting from poor cross‐cultural adaptation. The literature provides this general, normative view without much to say about the interpersonal conflict expatriates experience in the workplace abroad caused by cultural differences. Our exploratory study finds that conflicts with co‐workers in host countries occur frequently causing high stress and discomfort, and provides three specific sources of conflict as recounted by sample managers. The implications of our findings include: selecting expatriate managers with high emotional intelligence, providing extensive pre‐departure cultural training that consists not only of cultural facts but also interpersonal skills such as active listening, conflict management, and ethical reasoning, utilizing sensitivity training techniques to better prepare managers for new situations, and sending the expatriate on one or two pre‐sojourn visits to familiarize themselves with the host culture and workplace norms even before the actual expatriate assignment begins. An additional implication is training the host‐country workers, particularly those who will work most closely with the expatriate manager, on home country cultural beliefs and workplace norms. We aim to stimulate managerial thinking and further research on the workplace conflicts that challenge expatriates managers.