Work Abroad

Work abroad
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Work Abroad
As business organizations globalize and participate in international business, it is imperative to understand other cultures and adapt to them. Many businesses are getting more and more involved in international travel and business. Consequently, many companies are increasingly assigning some of their employees to positions and roles in foreign countries. Sometimes, this can lead to the difficulty of culture shock, and the complexities of working and communicating effectively with those from another cultural environment (Earley & Singh, 2000). This paper outlines the training that I would require before travelling to Beijing, China for assignment, and how my company would evaluate this training.
If my company posted me to work in Beijing, China for two years, the training I would require is Cross Cultural training. Relocating to a different country and experiencing a different culture could be very difficult (Zinni, Jackson & Mathis, 2011). This training will adequately prepare me for the Beijing assignment. It would have a positive effect on my improvement of skills, relational, perceptual and self-maintenance. In turn, this would facilitate my adjustment to the new cultural environment and improve my job performance. The most common and effective ways of smooth cultural adjustments include sociability, emotional stability, need for structure, need for cognition, tolerance of ambiguity, previous foreign experience and training sufficiency. Providing cross-cultural training can help to facilitate these factors (Noe, 2002). Moreover, cross-cultural training reduces the severity of culture shock. In turn, this will cause me to become effective and more productive in the Beijing assignment. According to Phillips and Stone (2002), many employees of United States multinational corporations often fail to finish the full term of their abroad or overseas assignments, or have trivial performance during overseas duties primarily due to cultural adjustment complexities. This can lead to a problem particularly when a business matter needs to be taken care of while abroad. I would require a more extensive and comprehensive cross-cultural training, and this would significantly help in reducing the challenges that I might face while working cross-culturally in Beijing, China.
During the cross-cultural training course, two most important aspects will be considered as pointed out by Noe (2002). These are language barriers and communication styles. Language will be considered since English is not the primary language in China. Therefore, it will be imperative for me to obtain Chinese language courses and tips in order to prepare myself for the assignment, and to reduce the complexity of language barrier that I would encounter during my assignment. Secondly, it is essential to consider the importance of communication styles in the Chinese culture since this would help to decr...