Expat Society

International business expert Rosalie Tung focuses on expat managers and career globetrotters.

In the 2003 Hollywood blockbuster The Last Samurai, actor Tom Cruise played the role of American officer Nathan Algren, a Civil War veteran who was sent to Japan in 1876 to help the Meiji Restoration government train its first Western-style army.

The plan derailed, however, when Algren was captured by samurai warriors – who ultimately instilled in him the value of their traditions and tactics. To the eventual chagrin of his American bosses, a converted Algren would soon become an advocate for the samurai military customs he was supposed to be modernizing — and an adversary to the Western army concept for Japan he originally championed.

Depending on one’s perspective, his story is either one of inspired cultural enlightenment, or an expat assignment gone horribly wrong.

Rosalie Tung, a professor of international business at SFU’s Beedie School of Business, is an expert in expat employees, and there is nothing surprising to her about The Last Samurai plot – nor the countless anecdotes of expat successes and failures abroad in the years since.

“As an expat employee, you have to find the right balance,” she says. In the modern context, that means “you need to mix with the locals, but you have to maintain enough distance so that your head office still trusts you.”

If there are significant cultural differences between an expat’s home country and the country they are working in, more likely they will maintain a significant separation from the host country community.

But the flipside is cultural assimilation – like the Last Samurai scenario – where an expat’s home country office comes to see their employee abroad as a traitor.

Not that these hazards are reason to shy away from work assignments abroad. Tung, who has previously served on the United Nations’ Task Force on Human Resource Management, has seen first-hand the transformation of job assignments as a result of globalization over the past two decades.

“The world used to be simpler,” she says, from her office overlooking British Columbia’s Coast Mountains atop SFU’s Burnaby Mountain campus.

Until the late 1980s, she points out, expat workers were often  nationals of head office working in a foreign country.

But the environment has changed. Expat employees can be nationals of countries other than that of head office.  Furthermore, increasingly people are choosing to work overseas instead of the traditional practice of being assigned from head office.

“It’s not just a benefit for companies,” Tung points out. “People are choosing to be more mobile. Regardless of where they are born, they are drawn to where the opportunities are.”

In fact, she says, “people will trade stability for mobility” – a career reality that is eye-opening in the wake of a global recession that seemingly made individuals more risk averse. Ultimately, however, many employees need and want the global-orientation mindset.

Tung, who has published widely on the subjects of international business and organizational theory in leading academic journals, has long studied the issue of expats. Her earlier studies focused on the policies and practices of multinational companies. That research path eventually led to her focusing on individuals who were going overseas in the context of acculturation.

In addition to the critical questions around company loyalty (between countries and offices), she has also closely observed the changes in financial remuneration for expats abroad.

While once upon a time these overseas employees made significantly more than their local colleagues, that pay gap – which “did lead to conflict, resentment” – has lessened in recent years.

Overseas assignments certainly don’t represent a get-rich-quick proposition. “People can still save when they go overseas, but money is no longer the primary motivation,” she says.

In a country like Canada, with relatively high immigration levels and a multicultural environment, the environment for companies and for expat employees – both coming and going – is particularly rich for study.

Returning to the home country

But Canada is only one of many countries that have come under Tung’s microscope for workplace mobility research.

Several years ago, Tung published an article in the International Journal of Human Resource Management entitled “Brain Drain versus brain gain: an exploratory study of ex-host country nationals in Central and East Europe.”

Her study, co-authored with Beedie School professor Mila Lazarova, examined the experiences and challenges encountered by a subset of expats – known as ex-host country nationals – upon their return home, after having lived abroad for an extended period of time. Ex-host country nationals (EHCNs) are defined as “people who share the same ethnicity/ancestry of those in the host country, regardless of their country of birth, citizenship and/or permanent residency.”

She found that in the case of these EHCNs, while they are typically more familiar with the language and culture of the host country, the dynamics they experience in living and returning to their country of origin after having been exposed to foreign practices are more complex than previous studies have suggested.

She also found that governments in transitional countries are very intent on attracting these EHCN workers who possess competencies and skills that are essential to facilitate further economic growth and development at home.

“From the theoretical side, when you look at cross-cultural studies, they always measure differences between countries,” she says. “But the ex-host country national raises a new set of issues with the way we are doing research in this area.”

Expat assignments for women: Challenges and change

Last year at Macquarie University in Sydney, Tung presented her findings on the complexity of doing business in Asia to management leaders from across Australia – in the process dispelling myths related to women on international assignments.

Tung’s studies have shown that women – in part because they put greater emphasis on harmony and cooperation with others in foreign settings – are better able to cope with living abroad.

The success of female managers abroad, it turns out, runs counter to out-of-date misconceptions that women don’t want overseas assignments due to family obligations, that other countries don’t want female expatriates, or even that they lack the skillset or competencies to succeed internationally.

In her studies, Tung has found no difference between men and women in terms of supervisor-rated performance falling down on the job. However, she did find that women encountered more problems related to adjustment, explained by the lack of support systems in place.

As Australia’s Human Capital Magazine put it after her presentation, Tung’s studies “have led her to suggest that female expatriates may in fact be the ‘model’ global manager. Additionally… that it is important to recognize that not all countries high on the gender inequality index behave in the same manner, and tailored training and support is the key to successful postings.”

For expats of either gender, Tung’s research reveals a nuanced and complex environment for work abroad assignments – but also a sense of optimism around the personal and professional benefits of going mobile.