International Business

Let’s take a look at what managers need to know about international business. Expatriate someone who lives and works outside his or her native country.

Expatriates who receive predeparture language and cross-cultural training make faster adjustments to foreign cultures and perform better on their international assignments. Unfortunately, only a third of the managers who go on international assignments are offered any kind of predeparture training, and only half of those actually participate in the training!

Documentary training focuses on identifying specific critical differences between cultures. After learning specific critical differences through documentary training, trainees can participate in cultural simulations, in which they practice adapting to cultural differences. Finally, field simulation training, a technique made popular by the U.S. Peace Corps, places trainees in an ethnic neighborhood for three to four hours to talk to residents about cultural differences.