Policy and Practice for the Global Enterprise, Research Paper Example

Introduction

A problem statement is a concise part of a research paper that often appears at the start of the paper. Its purpose is to describe the main problem that the paper seeks to bring to the attention of its audience. The problem statement gives outline of the general aspects of a problem and briefly discusses more details relating to those aspects (Creswell, 2013). A problem statement is indispensable in the field of research as well as in the business world. The research paper presents a problem statement in the field of International Human Resource Management (IHRM). Specifically it points out the post-expatriation issues which multinational companies fail to consider when recruiting expatriates.

Problem Statement

The world today has many organizations that operate globally and are managed centrally from their parent company. It is for this reason that international human resource management (IHRM) is the subject of investigation by many researchers. More specifically, researchers are concerned with the study of expatriates and the management of the expatriation process. The option of sending employees to work in foreign companies has advantages and disadvantages. The potential advantages encourage companies to prefer expatriates despite the fact that it might be two to three times more expensive (Briscoe & Schuler, 2004). There is an added dimension to the argument of costs and it is concerned with employee performance.  Companies incur huge losses in situations where employees fail to attain performance levels that their employers expect from them. Even if the employee performs as expected, basic costs involved hardly justify the whole process. The cost of training and remunerating employees are too high. It is for this reason that for the increased attention on this area of human resource.

There are numerous postulations that seek to explicate the fundamentals of employee management. However, a large fraction of scholars believe that management of differences between different cultures is the best approach to comprehending the experiences employees have when working abroad (Storey, 2001). These studies have outlined that the capacity to fit into the prevailing culture is the key to accomplishing the goals of the whole process. Dowling, Festing, & Engle (2008) holdthat around four in every ten corporate entities from Denmark believe firmly that failure of employees to adapt to local culture is the prime reason for the expatriation-repatriation process failure. These results help shed more light on the issue of IHRM but studies into the topic in the country are rudimentary at this stage.

Intensive studies into the management of different cultures started around three decades ago. Since thenan ever increasing number of companies have requested their human resource to invest more in ensuring that that they follow all necessary steps to prevent wastage of resources. One of them includes the application of research models that have been proven to work. The relevance of this area of human resource has encouraged scholars to delve more into discovering new ways of increasing the efficiency of the expatriation-repatriation process. They have proved that both quantitative and qualitative methods ought to be applied in a multi-disciplinary approach (Briscoe & Schuler, 2004). A lot of scholars have concentrated mainly on aspects of expatriation which affect the adaptation of employees to foreign cultures.

Storey (2001)discusses a model that categorizes the expatriation process into three dimensions. The first is the job which employeesare going to do including the job responsibilities of the worker. The second is the relationship between employees and other people who have different cultural backgrounds. The third takes a general approach to the process of expatriation and repatriation. A lot of researchers have drawn inspiration from this model and have used it to expand their research on the same topic. The aforementioned model is not inclusive of all the factors that influences the process. They are only concerned with factors which affect the process of employee adjustment in the foreign country. Researchers have investigated the process narrowly though quantitative methods and only pointed out a detailed account of factors which influence adjustment into foreign cultures.

In particular, the investigations do not explicitly give the merits of adjusting to foreign culture but explain the implied worth of adjusting to foreign culture. I call this focus narrow because other important dimensions to do with outcomes of expatriation are ignored. Some of these aspects are equally important, if not more important than those involved in the process of adjustment. Indeed a small percentage of studies have concentrated on consequences of expatriation and this explains why many companies spend at least twice the amount they would have spent on recruiting local employees (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2008).

The results of expatriation include job satisfaction, dedication, staff turnover, and output. Satisfaction is one of the main factors that affect both dedication and output. Satisfaction also affects staff turnover, though its relationship with staff turnover is indirect (Storey, 2001). Job satisfaction refers to the extent to which the job a person does meet the needs of employees. It affects motivation of employees. Motivation in turn affects dedication or commitment because motivated employees tend to work harder. Satisfaction is also relatedto staff turnover through an inverse relationship. For instance employees who are more satisfied tend to like their job and wish to continue working with a company which allows them to develop their work life balance. High satisfaction increases output per employee as motivated employees work harder.

Many companies in Denmark have realized the importance of considering post expatriation factors when budgeting for expatriation. They are currently conducting numerous surveys to determine the extent to which employees are satisfied with their jobs. It is a common practice which is increasingly becoming popular and many corporate entities are willing to pay surveyors as they now understand that it will directly affect their performance. The costs of the studies are included alongside those incurred by the parent company as the process is centralized to increase effectiveness (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2008). The results of the studies are used by surveyors to advice managers about the financial costs of employing the services of expatriates over the expatriation-repatriation cycle with a high degree of accuracy. They recommend to the managers what they can do in order to make the lives of expatriates more fulfilling for themselves and for the company.

The above problems lead us to the main objective of the thesis which is to examine the pre-expatriation and post-expatriation factors which affect the process of adjustment in foreign countries. The focus will be on expatiates from Denmark working in different countries with different cultures. In particular, the study will describe an approach that will incorporate both the pre- and post-expatriation factors. The model is inspired by a comprehensive evaluation of scholarly research. With the basis of expertise knowledge emanating from the model, I will give the Human Resource Managers for Danish companies with advice on how to manage the whole expatriation-repatriation cycle. Many researchers have already discussed and recommended precursors of adjustment. Therefore, I will focus on post-expatriation factors which determine the process of expatriation. I will also explain how they will affect dedication, satisfaction, and ultimately the output of employees working in foreign countries.

Conclusion

A problem statement gives the reader a good insight of what a research paper is going to talk about (Creswell, 2013). In the research paper, the problem statement enables thereader to understand that the main researchable issue is the failure of scholars and IHRM to invest in understanding the importance of consequences of expatriation.  Therefore it enables the writer to summarize the objectives of the research and how the research will be conducted.

References

Briscoe, D. R., & Schuler, R. S. (2004). International human resource management: policy and practice for the global enterprise (Vol. 5). Psychology Press.

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage.

Dowling, P., Festing, M., & Engle Sr, A. D. (2008). International human resource management: Managing people in a multinational context. Cengage Learning.

Storey, J. (2001). Human resource management: A critical text. Thomson.