Middle management in a foreign land: experiences of Italian
middle managers working as expatriates.
Luca Ottonello
Dissertation submitted to Oxford Brookes University
for the partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
October 2010
I
DECLARATION
This dissertation is a product of my own work and is the result of nothing done
in collaboration.
I consent to the University’s free use including online reproduction, including
electronically, and including adaptation for teaching and education activities of
any whole or part item of this dissertation.
Luca Ottonello
Page length: 100 pages
II
AKNOLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank first of all Sylwia Ciuk for her immense
patience in helping me develop this dissertation, knowing my academic
writing skills needed her help every step of the way to get to the appropriate
standard. Special thanks should also be given to Dr. Roberto Ottonello for
providing the necessary finances, connections and access to gather the
necessary resources for this dissertation. The author would also like to thank
Dr. Carcauso for helping him obtain all the necessary interviews in such short
notice and always being accommodation in the author requests all the time.
Furthermore he would like to thank Stephanie Cabiddu for the work done in
helping the author transcribing the majority of the interviews done for this
dissertation. The author would also like to thank Carlotta Ottonello for the
work done on some of the transcriptions knowing she had to sacrifice some of
her holidays to do so. He would also like to thank Marina Mercenaro in
supporting him both in surviving and getting through the long work that this
dissertation has been. And finally the author would like to thank Dr. Joy
Butcher for all the psychological support and great help she provided
throughout the dissertation.
III
ABSTRACT
Middle management in a foreign land: experiences of Italian middle
managers working as expatriates.
Luca Ottonello
October 2010
The following research is aiming at the qualitative study of middle
management expatriate experiences. This research aims at analysing the
expatriate middle managers and focusing on their experiences, how they
interact with different cultures, their reasons to be there, their struggles and
anything that may shape the way they experience their permanence in a host
country. The sources to be used for the study will be Italian middle managers
working abroad for their company, this will give a good view of how southern
Europeans behave as expatriates, which is by its self an under researched
area. Sources will be based on primary data as there is very little secondary
data available on the selected topic as the literature review will explain. The
research is not a comparative approach between top and middle
management abroad, but an explanation of the detachment of middle
management study, from top management in the area of experience as
expatriates which is under researched. Hopefully this will start a new area of
study which will benefit the middle managerial community working in host
countries.
IV
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
AKNOLEDGEMENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
ABSTRACT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1 Theme of the dissertation 5
1.2 Middle management expatriate experience 6
2 LITERATURE REVIEW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1 Introduction to the literature 10
2.2 The research type and analysis of the expatriate experience 13
2.2.1 Positivistic research as compared to qualitative 13
2.2.2 Expatriate experience analysis 14
2.3 Stages of adaptation in expatriate assignment 15
2.3.1 The ‘Expatriate U Curve’ 16
2.3.2. the stages of the curve 16
2.4 The problems faced by the expatriate manager and the family 19
1
2.4.1 adjustment problems 19
2.4.2. The spouse 23
2.5 Problems deriving from the background culture 25
2.5.1. Inability to cope with larger responsibilities 25
2.5.2 Expatriate experience, the cultural background influence 27
2.6 Summary and observations 30
3 METHODOLOGY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1 Introduction to the methodology 33
3.2 Research approach 33
3.2.1 Philosophy adapted 34
3.3 Data collection 35
3.3.1 Obtaining participants collaboration 36
3.3.4 Research objectives 37
3.3.4 Individuals chosen for sampling 37
3.3.5 Questions 39
3.4 Interviews 40
3.5 Findings structure and data analysis 41
3.6 Access, ethics and reliability 42
3.6.2 Ethics 42
3.6.3 Reliability and generalisation 43
3.7 Limitations 44
2
3.8 Summary 45
4 FINDINGS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.1 Introduction to findings 47
4.2 Support and training of middle managers 48
4.3 Top in the office middle on the field 57
4.4 Middle man is not the same as top man 62
4.5 Summary 67
5 DISCUSSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.1 Introduction to the discussion 69
5.2 Middle management expatriate experiences 69
5.2.1 Abandonment and isolation 70
5.2.2 Being an expendable resource 71
5.2.3 Being the lone middle man 73
5.2.4 Lack of expertise and training 76
5.3.5 Endangerment and cultural awareness 78
5.4 Summary 81
6 CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3
6.1 Research objectives 83
6.1.1 Middle management expatriate experience 83
APPENDIX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
REFERENCE LIST. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Theme of the dissertation
The following dissertation deals with the topic of middle management
expatriates experiences abroad. The author researched the area of expatriate
experiences, a field that has received increasingly attention from researchers
due to the companies having several branches in host countries. The
expatriate has become one of the main areas of company constant
application and an area of high investment risk as it has been stated that
more than 25 to 70% (Black et al. 1991) of expatriate assignments fail and
have to deal with early returns back home. The research done on the topic of
expatriation is quite wide due to the previously stated need for such research
now days, it normally focuses on cultural adaptation (Richards 1996), stages
of adaptation (Lysgaard 1955) and many specific areas which involve the
psychological and physical adaptation and problems through which the
expatriates go through while on assignment. The author has identified an area
in the expatriate experience body of research that has been overlooked or
superficially researched; this was the experiences of middle managers
expatriates. This is where the research done by the author comes in, it has
been focused only on the middle manager expatriate experience giving a
clear differentiation between middle and top as previously supported by Sims
(2003), resulting in clear differences as the dissertation will explain in the
following chapters. The author has created a short introductory chapter which
makes the reader understand the reasons behind and the research its self in
the next few chapters.
5
This last is an explanation why the author decided to explore this area of
management and to explain the background and nature of expatriation and
the experiences of managers, plus the problems specific to the area of middle
management. This chapter will explain the following: why the author showed
interest on the topic of middle management and the personal reasons to start
a research on the topic. The topic of experience as qualitative data and its
uses and purpose of the analysis of the experience. A set of reasons why this
area of management in expatriate context needs to be analysed and areas
where such analysis is absent. A set of questions aimed at answering the lack
of information on the middle management experience as expatriates. The
positive outcome of having a research on such area.
1.3 Middle management expatriate experience
The area of expatriate experience has been researched only superficially
according to Osland (1995). In many cases it was researched using a
quantitative approach which denotes a lack of qualitative research on the
topic, such as empirical evidence instead of qualitative evidence which the
author intends to use. The research may give new ideas on how to operate
with expatriates which seem to be the most common job situations in a
globalised world now-days. There have been many out branched studies on
top management expatriates, expatriates in or from China and U.S.
concentration on their experiences abroad. But very little has been done for
European middle manager expatriates experiences abroad and very little
research has been done on the specific area of middle management. The
reason may be that the middle management experience has been mistakenly
considered the equivalent of the top management experience, or there may
have been research in areas where the middle management was treated as
equal to the top management, or the authors may have analysed middle
6
management but just generalised it as management. According to the
author’s findings there are differences in both problems and areas of work,
this may be due to the company or the culture and location researched.
Despite some limitations in the data, there was evidence which made it clear
that middle management is a separate research area on its own. The author
intends to cover to a certain extent an overlooked area of the literature which
will be very evidently highlighted in the next chapter.
As the area of expatriation is so wide, the author has decided to concentrate
on the single topic of expatriate experience. This seems to be the one least
researched as it creates a need for direct contact with expatriates and their
physical time to answer to questionnaires and interviews. This area has the
least level of information available, the next few paragraphs will deal with the
topic of direct experience and why it is such an important area of expatriation
studies.
There is a area where more research may be done in the expatriate research
as the next chapter will outline, the middle management has not been
addressed in the study of expatriates. Regardless the different situation,
different aims and nature of middle management compared to top
management, the two have been often clustered together in the research
done on expatriation. There are situations where experience has been
analysed but very rarely or not at all on the area of middle management.
The author spotted a need for more detailed analysis of the middle
management experience, the contemporary literature on the topic doesn’t
specify or differentiate the differences between top and middle management
experiences abroad, the author has critically analysed the literature on the
topic and highlighted areas of interest that may need further research or that
7
have not been looked at yet. There research focused on the way the
expatriates perceived their experience as middle managers and the
recollections of those experiences focusing on the feelings that they had
about the company, their abilities, the country and their situation as a whole.
Therefore the research is focused on an area of research which is rarely
looked at and that creates many opportunities for further studies due to this.
The objectives of this paper will be the answers to the following questions:
To critically review the literature on middle management expatriate
experiences.
To explore the experiences of expatriates working on middle
management positions.
To explore the implications for organisations that send their middle
level managers on expatriate assignments.
The author believes that this research will open a new area for further studies
to be conducted as the role of the middle management has been often
underestimated or overlooked by the academic bodies. The businesses do
need to know how to deal with their problems and to train them according to
the needs, that they can gather by analysing the experience of the middle
managers that they send abroad. This research will open a new area of
management which will enable the middle managers to have a better
understanding of their role as expatriates and give them a guideline on the
problems and challenges that they will face once abroad.
The dissertation will start by analysing the current body of literature on the
topic of middle management expatriate experiences, it will then be followed by
the methodology used to analysed the data, then the findings will be
presented and briefly explained, followed by the discussion in which the
8
findings will be thoroughly analysed and the conclusion in which the
dissertation objectives will be answered.
9
Chapter 2
Literature review
2.1 Introduction to the literature
There are many wide researches on several sections of expatriation which
vary from company expenses on expatriate management to the analysis of
female expatriate managers. The topic its self is extremely wide therefore the
author has decided to analyse only one of the main topics in detail. The area
of expatriate experience its self is quite wide as the experience branches out
in problems faces, company relationships and the expatriate’s psychological
endeavours. The topic that the author will analyse is the middle management
expatriate experience, this will be focused on an area which up till now has
been under researched due to many authors undergoing the research from a
top management angle or a company angle. The research will be based
specifically on middle managers and the literature review as a consequence
will be analysing every aspect of the expatriate experience general research
looking for areas where the middle management expatriate experience has
been analysed. Chapter two aims to synthesize the literature on the topic of
expatriation experience as the main topic, with particular emphasis on the
middle management experiences. In the first chapter, the author has
introduced the topic of expatriate experience, and gave reasons why there
should be more research done on middle management, in order to have a
more comprehensive set of information which gives the sense of what really
happens abroad to the middle management. This can be used towards the
improvement of effectiveness of a level of management, that has been left
practically untouched in the area of expatriate direct experiences abroad.
10
However the author found appropriate to branch out to different areas of
expatriation research due to the different topics that add to the analysis of the
experience. There has been a need to examine the literature on the U curve
by Lysgaard (1955) as in most of the literature examined is the main tool of
analysis and needs to be thoroughly understood. According to the review of
the literature carried out, the author has clearly identified a lack of information
on the area of middle management in the context of expatriates, making it
evident that there is very little research done on the topic. The wider concept
of expatriation is very highly researched especially from the point of view of
the companies adapting. The companies tend to look at the managers from
an external point observing them but not asking about their experiences, this
gives an external view, there is no insight in the reality of the way managers
work. The author needs to concentrate on the area of experience of the
expatriates from their own point of view, such material is very limited as it will
be evident throughout the literature review. The key elements of this literature
will be based on the different perspectives and topics that have been studied
until now, in order to identify areas where more research is needed and the
right perspective to utilise in this particular case:
The stages of adaptation in expatriate assignment, this sub section will
explain the theory of the U curve (Lysgaard 1955) which is directly connected
with the expatriate experience analysis due to its representation of the
expatriate psychological journey from the beginning to the end of the
expatriation period; such theory can be used to divide logically the experience
analysis and extrapolate the end results in a coherent way. The research type
and analysis of the expatriate experience, this sub section will cover the
approach of interpretation and analysis done on the topic by previous authors,
investigating the nature of the analysis, the different paradigms used and the
11
type of analysis its self; for example quantitative as opposed to qualitative and
the different advantages and disadvantages of each. The problems faced by
the expatriate manager and the family, this sub section will analyze problems
that arose from the previous studies on expatriate experience abroad and
reasons why these happened; the author will use this literature in order to
compare and contrast middle management problems to top management
which is the one normally analyzed and will try to understand if there are
similarities or differences between the two conceptions of problems.
Furthermore this longer literature section will be used by the author as
backbone of the entire dissertation basing most of the observations of the
analysis in the analytical chapter on previous theories and studies reviewed in
this core section which covers the psychological and practical aspects of the
experience of expatriates abroad. Problems deriving from the background
culture, this sub section has been created by the author in order to analyse
the effect that the expatriate background culture influences his or her
experience in a host country, as the research will be mainly based on an
Italian multinational, there will be a need to analyse the previous literature on
the problems or differences that cultural background create for the expatriate.
Women in expatriate management, this sub section is one that the author
considered very carefully, and decided just to mention as there are many
studies on gender differences (Hartl 2004), but they show an almost
imperceptible difference between genders apart from the fact that there is a
lack of women expatriate managers without actually giving the reasons for
this. On the other side an area where due to the difference in responsibilities
and training like middle management experience as expatriates hasn’t been
looked at. The next section will be dealing with the methods of analysis
commonly used for the topic of expatriate management experience.
12
2.2 The research type and analysis of the expatriate experience
2.2.1 Positivistic research as compared to qualitative
Following the problems represented in the commonly used method of the U
curve by Lysgaard (1955), the author has realised that many of the authors
using this method were taking a purely positivistic approach, which doesn’t
cover the experience of the expatriates themselves according to Osland
(1995) there has not been sufficient nor adequate research on the experience
side of the expatriation spectrum. According to Osland (1995) the research
has been done form a positivistic approach which ignores the experiences of
single expatriates and focuses on the general quantitative data forgetting the
value that the qualitative data could represent as it gives details not present in
quantitative. Other authors have also written about the problem of lack of
qualitative research, for example Richardson and McKenna (2002) have
talked of a shortage of qualitative research which could aid furthermore the
study on particular situations and experiences of individuals abroad; providing
details on which to base research on. The qualitative research according to
Osland (1995), can give rise to paradox analysis, which is impossible to
obtain trough the quantitative method of research, a paradox is a situation in
which the expatriate has to deal with a contradictory or mutually exclusive
situation having to mediate between two cultures facing many integrating
problems with the host country’s culture. Richards (1996) and Suutari and
Brewster (2001), have also emphasized the importance of qualitative analysis
in the finding and interpretation of paradoxes both in the immersion of the
expatriate in the host country culture and his adaptation and interpretation of
the culture. Richards (1996) and Suutari and Brewster (2001), also described
even if not directly how the different stages of the U curve although commonly
used, have the fault of not giving a qualitative description of how the
13
expatriate experiences the situation, as the theory divides the experience into
separate distinctive stages, while in the actual experience they are rarely
divided.
2.2.2 Expatriate experience analysis
Following the argument of the use of qualitative as opposed to quantitative
analysis in the literature as explained in Osland (1995), there are several
authors which use quantitative analysis in order to explain the way in which
expatriate experience their stay in a host country, for example Tung (1987)
analysed the expatriate experience and way of life by analysing 144 senior
managers in multinationals and he came to the conclusion that the expatriates
spend the first period being worried about the family situation and the
problems that might arise form an experience in a new country, and the last
few months thinking about the future career that he or she will expect to have
once the assignment is over. This short explanation shows exactly what
Osland (1995) was talking about, it has no direct insight in the why the
expatriates experience those worries, and produces a restrictive analysis
which does not give an insight in the experiences of the expatriates.
Furthermore the research was carried out on senior managers only
emphasizing the complete lack of research on the area of middle
management which until now in the literature review has not appeared once.
Other authors like De Cieri (1991) have expressed a factor that influences
greatly the expatriate experience and success, she described the expatriate
process being on that is not suitable for everyone, through his research, she
found that expatriates with appropriate family support, self esteem and social
support were more successful and had a better experience; this was done
trough qualitative analysis in order to determine the factors that influenced
this positive outcome; but once again not on middle management. Another
14
researcher that studied the effects of expatriate experience was Welch
(2003), he analysed the further problems faced by the expatriate which are
not normally present in the host country and found that there is a much higher
influence by the employer on the expatriate due to the fact that when abroad
his or her decisions influence the way in which the expatriate lives with his or
her family and unfamiliar demands; which make the expatriate experience
stand out from a normal change of job. Osland (1995) describes the
expatriate experience as an adventure which starts as lonely and difficult and
carries on in ambiguity, mystery, language adaptation and cultural adaptation.
From this last set of problems, two main problems spark that are a result for
expatriate experience, one is the inability to adjust tackled by authors like
Sparrow (2003) and Osland (2000), and branch out to the spouse and
children problems Selmer (1998)due to adaptation which are main factors
influencing the expatriate experience in a host country.
The author will now get into more detail passing from how the data was
analysed to the data its self and the findings in the literature connected to
expatriate experience; the starting point will be the U curve (Lysgaard 1955)
as it is one of the main methods of analysis of the expatriate experience
according to the literature.
2.3 Stages of adaptation in expatriate assignment
The U curve (Lysgaard 1955) is a commonly used method to analyse the
experience of expatriates, it covers several stages of their psychological
endeavours, although it has limitations due to the fact that many expatriates
don’t go through some of the stages for example the sojourner by Richards
(1996) or the stages combine with each other in some cases making a
combination of learning and adaptation or even culture shock and learning
15
like in Richards (1996), Osland (2000). The U curve describes the different
stages the expatriate goes through from the day he or she arrives to the day
he or she leaves, this U curve can be a very useful tool when analysing the
stories told by the expatriate middle managers as it points out the main
factors that influence their experiences and gives us a sort of psychological
analysis of the subject dividing the superfluous information from the extremely
important one (Lysgaard 1955).
2.3.1 The ‘Expatriate U Curve’
According to a popular theory first presented by (Lysgaard 1955) the stages
of adaptation and experience for an expatriate, can be represented and
analysed by a set U curve, through which the expatriate goes through from
beginning to end of his transfer in a host country. Many authors utilise the U-
curve as means to measure the expatriate experience, as Black and
Mendenhall (1991) supports, this curve shows the different common stages
through which the expatriate goes through, from the start of his appointment
as manager abroad. There are several stages in this U curve, and depending
on several factors; these stages can last longer or shorter periods of time.
These stages were written by Oberg as honeymoon, crisis, recovery and
adjustment (Oberg 1960), and further on integrated in (Lysgaard 1955) U-
curve.
2.3.2. the stages of the curve
Honeymoon: This is when everything is new and exciting and the
psychological mood of the expatriate is at its best trying new things, seeing a
different environment, it’s a mix of euphoria, novelty, fascination and
comparison with own culture (Lysgaard 1955).This initial stage seems very
simplistic and doesn’t give an option of having an initial negative impact nor a
16
different reaction which may vary depending on the subject; the initial
questions for the candidates later on in this paper will be based on this
concept and the author will test the theory on the field in order to confirm or
dismiss this period of high happiness and fascination when the expatriate
arrives in a new land. The assumption taken that the expatriates go through a
honeymoon period in which as described by Lysgaard (1955) they find
everything new and exciting in their work abroad, at the beginning might be
according to the author a direct result of the way in which companies choose
the people that have to be sent abroad; according to Webb and Wright (1996)
the companies have to chose in advance the candidates who have the best
qualities in character which makes them perfect for a job abroad. Furthermore
the training in culture or language may be insufficient and the expatriates may
feel unable from the beginning to continue the job; therefore there are doubts
on the consistency of the honeymoon period. Culture shock: Right after the
honeymoon stage, which doesn’t normally last very long, a prolonged period
of culture shock starts. In many cases, the period where most expatriates fail
their intended assignment by either going into paranoia or discovering that
they lack the skills to survive this stage and decide to return in safer grounds
back home due to inability to adapt (Richards 1996). This involves the
manager noticing many cultural differences or simply work place behavioural
differences and comparing them up to a paranoid level, hostility arising
between managers, employees and host country business as well, this leads
to hostility and negative criticism, which have a huge negative impact in the
relation between manager and employees. This, as stated in Cornway and
Briner (2005) can be resolved by close collaboration with the company,
supporting the psychological contract (which includes beliefs perceptions and
obligations; which are not in a form of written contract but in a sort of mutual
understanding between employee and employer), the training and just by
17
listening and taking into consideration the expatriates concerns, without
ignoring them as not important. These views are all positivist in approach, not
something that is appropriate to an experience related research due to their
generalising approach; on the other hand such view expressed in both
Cornway and Briner (2005), Cullinane et al., (2006) set up a question which
may be interesting in a constructivist approach, is this an appropriate
solution? Have the middle managers in expatriate assignments experienced
such approach and has it been successful, or are they feeling a need for it at
all? This will be another topic which will be approached in a qualitative way in
chapter four. Learning: If the culture shock phase is overcome, the next slow
upwards step is the learning process, which will create a manager able to
intake cultural changes and adaptations easily. In a way the stranger as
interpreted by Richards (1996) will reach the point where he has ceased to be
an external observer and will get involved in the dealings of the natives
becoming more than just an outsider and will start interacting in the
appropriate way learning the way to get in the inner circle and getting
accepted. As a result of this drastic change, all the negative attributes that
hindered the manager previously will disappear or will be noted more easily
by the manager and will be set aside. The main concept which seems obvious
and according to the author while reading trough Osland (2000), Richards
(1996) actually considered as one of the main factors, is the language, which
enables the better understanding of the culture and builds up confidence. This
is then followed by a logical increase in network as socialising and better
understanding of the culture, which finally results in a good level of comfort on
the manager’s side (Cummins 1996).
Adjustment: if all the previous stages have been passed, the next one is a
simple consequence of adaptation to the environment using the acquired
18
skills and knowledge to perfect the understanding and productivity of the
manager, although this part seems overly optimistic and utopian according to
the author, the skills and communication abilities acquired might distance the
expatriate from the home country company and even tempt him or her in
remaining in the host country at this point leaving the home country company
(Staff Journalists, Singapore 2009). The manager’s work becomes more
stable, he or she accepts the culture, adapts to the differences and becomes
more involved and enjoys his or her work just like in the honeymoon phase,
only this time there will be no downwards curve, as he or she has a strong
base on which to build the approach with the working environment (Lysgaard
1955), this is a double bladed issue which leads to many expatriate middle
managers not adapting anymore to the home country once they are back as
chapter 4 will explain. The U-curve put a large emphasis on the expatriate’s
problems which manifested in the culture shock section, this was quite
simplistic and many factors influenced the problems faced by the manager in
this situation according to many authors, and this is what the next section is
going to analyse.
2.4 The problems faced by the expatriate manager and the family
2.4.1 adjustment problems
A large number of authors (Sparrow 2003, Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2000,
Richards 1996 and Osland 2000) have tackled the inability to adjust of the
expatriate, and they closely connected this factor with the psychological
contract which is the informal contract established between the employer and
employee on mutual respect and fairness (Rousseau 1996). According to
(Coyle-Shapiro et al 2000)there is a trend now-days that companies have
ignored the expatriates concerns and this put the expatriate into a lonely
isolated position, where they have no support and by themselves are unable
19
to adjust to the new environment, this problem could be easily be tackled by
the company by giving training, moral and participatory support, maybe
through better contracts which include such practices, this would diminish the
risk of failure and on the long run it would result in a profit for the company its
self. Further research has been done on the inability to adjust of the
expatriate, this research shed light on other factors that influence the way in
which the expatriate does or doesn’t adjust. This research considered the
expatriate as a stranger in a new land, and connected all the different
inadaptability problems of the expatriates to the one of a stranger (Richards
1996). One large problem of the stranger is that he has a tendency to become
paranoid and anxious towards everyone surrounding him or her in the new
working place when his or her training and the culture shock phase start;
disabling any possibility of further integration or coherent reasoning (Lysgaard
1955).This problem may be due to other reasons which may depend on the
character of the person him or herself or cultural myths brought by the
expatriate from his home country as the findings in chapter 4 suggest.
One of the main warnings of (Richards 1996) from the beginning was that
expatriates who were forced to go abroad were the more vulnerable to this
kind of psychological problem; therefore suggesting that expatriates to be
effective should be excited of having to go abroad. There are several
symptoms that result from a severe culture shock; these can be obsession
with the level of cleanness of the food and water, great frustration over minor
problems like lateness, movements, reactions, the idea that people hate or
take advantage of the expatriate and finally complete rejection of learning and
associating with the new environment (Brislin et al. 1976). All of these factors
influence the performance of the expatriate to the point that he or she is
unable to reason or produce coherent thoughts and may fall into a state of
20
abnormality, completely removing the chances to succeed in an alien
environment. According to Richards (1996), the research now days done on
the adaptation of the expatriate to a new environment is not as reliable as it
should be. Instead of relying on actual expatriates in the alien environment
situation, the researchers tend to use research students as test subjects for
this problem. Once again the situation of middle management hasn’t been
analysed or divided between top and middle management again. There may
be differences in reactions due to different social background or different
training, that could be taken from middle management experience, but again
this aspect is overlooked in favour of a more general approach to the
analysis.
Going on further in the analysis of the stranger, if the psychological problems
are not considered for a moment, there are several actions that the stranger
has to take in account in order to be accepted in the alien society. The
stranger is an individual that tries to be permanently accepted in a society
completely different from his own. He has initially a superficial understanding
of the culture, things taken from studying books, listening to other people’s
experiences, all things that give an outside view of how the alien culture is but
don’t give enough to integrate a person in the environment. The best
approach that the stranger can have according to Richards (1996) is to have
no actual assumptions of the culture and have a neutral observant approach,
at the beginning, so that he or she can integrate all the cultural differences,
without the problem of rejection. The main problem according to Schutz in
Richards (1996) is that the stranger is doubtful of the loyalty of the people in
the host country and he is objective he sees things but doesn’t really
understand them in the same mindset as the natives do and therefore this
makes him even more sceptical of the customs and the way people interact in
21
the alien land (Richards 1996). One of the problems with the stranger is that
he or she is narrow minded, lacking the skills and social knowledge that
enables the expatriate to interact and needs to develop interact in a way that
he or she is allowed by the host culture to learn their customs, intake and
make his own the new culture; without, at the same time, losing his own
culture or rejecting either one. There is a risk that the expatriate might lose
interest in his own culture and refuse contacts or treat them as suspicious. On
the other side according to Richards (1996) locals might mistrust or be less
open seeing that the expatriate can understand them and their culture too
much, hiding certain insights that the expatriate might find advantageous; for
example Japanese employees and colleagues might find it suspicious almost
offensive if the expatriate had too much insight in their culture and might start
closing up and not sharing many things with him or her. The other extreme
could be a total rejection of belonging to any culture form the expatriate,
getting a feeling that he or she is too different to both the original place of
origin and the host country at the same time and this may end in a very hard
to resolve psychological black hole that renders the expatriate in adjustable
(Osland 2000). The research done, on the problems of adjustment in host
countries, has been fairly limited by the fact that most empirical data has
come from U.S. expatriates, this data put the main emphasis on the inability
of the expatriate to integrate in the host country culture, due to major
differences between the expatriate’s culture and the one of the host country.
This concept becomes more of a problem the more the culture is distant from
the one of the expatriate, until reaching the point that the expatriate is
completely unable to adjust, as he or she will be unable to know or be able to
identify the proper behaviour required in the host country (Suutari et al. 1997).
In other research by Richards (1996) there is a sort of expatriate who seems
to be the superhero of the expatriation community, this is a certain
22
psychological set of mind that is very rare and has outstanding results when
he is placed in an alien environment. The Sojourner, as described by the
journal article by Richards (1996), has the innate ability to enjoy unfamiliarity,
impossible situations and adventure without ever looking back or thinking
about their own isolation.
The fact that most of the research was done on U.S expatriates and as
previously stated on some research students and not actual working
expatriates, has been a quite clear indication that the area of expatriates has
been only barely analysed, especially in regards to direct expatriate
experiences, as only a real expatriate could share his or her personal
experiences in a host country. This problem enlarges in the area of middle
management, where it seems no research at all has been done, unless the
general allegations to expatriate managers were meant to include middle
management too. The author finds this very unlikely, as the collected data
seemed to come from positions of top management.
2.4.2. The spouse
The other large problem according to Selmer (1998) is the inability of the
spouse to adjust, this is a problem that all companies considering expatriation
should consider carefully. This problem can materialise in different ways, the
spouse might not like the culture of the new country or not be able to adapt to
it quickly, or she might not know the language and be unable to socialise
easily. Another problem could be that she or he has career expectations or a
job of his or her own (Selmer 1998).
An early study showed that most of the cultures in southern Europe have a
very close connection with family and the spouse, there is no decision taken
without the consent of the family, therefore if the expatriate goes abroad and
the spouse doesn’t like the environment or doesn’t adapt to the new area, the
23
expatriate starts having problems (Hofstede 1928). Due to the unreliable
nature of Hofstede’s research that was limited to IBM companies and not a
large variety of companies therefore, this may need to be verified trough the
findings and analysis of data in the next chapters. Most of the research done
asking the effects of family on expatriates experience abroad has identified
the importance of such area in the expatriate’s success as supported by
authors like Black and Gregersen (1991), Selmer (2001) and Selmer (2000).
The family has to be motivated to move abroad, they have to be taken great
care of and learn the language, integrate as much as the expatriate does in
the new country, and to a certain point, a happy family can create
opportunities of friendship with the locals, therefore according to many
expatriates having a harmonised family situation abroad is a great help its self
(Suutari et al. 1997).
There are other factors which are more internal to the expatriate, that is the
fear that the family might not be able to adjust to the new situation, this sense
of extreme responsibility that the expatriate might have not had back home
because then he had support by friends, the government, and the cultural
environment on the family its self and some of that burden was taken away
from him or her. Once placed abroad all the responsibility for success or
failure of every family member that followed the expatriate, ends on the
expatriate himself, making it a very stressful factor which needs to be dealt
with or the expatriate might end in a permanent state of anxiety and
uncertainty for the future of his or her family (Osland 2000).
The family aspect of the expatriate experience has been another under
researched, and at times not even considered as a problematic factor by
some companies according to certain scholars, the companies take a
systematic approach to the selection of the candidates, without considering
24
the complications of the family and what type of training needed by the family
its self (Scullion et al. 1999). According to Farquhar (2009) there are many
cases that the family experience is a complete integration with the host
country, and this on the other hand created temporary advantage for the
company but later on problems as all extremes do. For example, in Singapore
according to research by Farquhar (2009) there is a high level of expatriates
remaining and their children integrating and deciding to remain in the area;
this at the beginning affects the manager’s performance in a positive way and
the family harmony and peace enable him or her to concentrate more on the
job at hand. But as the time passes the expatriate has become so integrated
due to his or her family that any attempt to re impatriate the manager will be
met by resistance or even end up in the manager leaving the company for a
local job. As a result most companies don’t take preparatory steps and the
expatriates experience frustration and failure in the family situation, which
goes to add on to the extremely high failure rate of expatriates abroad, which
is quoted to be between 25-70% according to various researchers (Black et
al. 1991).
Following the family problems, the literature moved on to a more personal
characteristic of the expatriate which greatly influenced the expatriate
experience making it different depending on the country of origin, this was the
expatriate background culture.
2.5 Problems deriving from the background culture
2.5.1. Inability to cope with larger responsibilities
This is a problem that appears depending on the personal traits of the
manager and the culture he or she comes from at the same time. The main
factor that seems to appear in most literature is the fact that there are
25
managers with different emotional drives centred on individualism or
collectivism, masculine or feminine culture, high position or low positional
drivers all these terms will be explained further on in this section(Tan et al.
2005). Depending on the what drives the manager, he or she will have a
different approach or reaction to several situations and the factors previously
mentioned will impact on the manager’s ability to cope with responsibilities.
According to (Tan et al. 2005) there is no real need to change a person’s own
culture to be culturally accepted and effective with the people in the host
country, but just explain himself in his or her own cultural way, avoiding
gestures or words that in the host culture may result in embarrassment or
offence. Without losing the initial values and persona that the manager had
before he became an expatriate.
The cultures that seem to be mostly affected by problems, dealing with larger
responsibilities abroad according to many authors like (Tan et al. 2005, Glanz
2003 Kaye 1997), seem to be mainly based in Asia.
It is also due to the fact that the Chinese culture in particular has just recently
opened to the world as the market was only opened in the 18 th century, and
this caused a shock when the different western and eastern cultures found
themselves on the same ground, due to the collective nature of China and the
independent self centred culture of the west (Kaye 1997). The Japanese
approach to management creates a problem in dealing with large
responsibilities too, this is due to the fact that the briefing given to Japanese
managers is quite the opposite to the briefing given in western countries; they
are advised to keep a low profile not draw attention, not take any risk and
work in collaboration with everyone without competitiveness. These factors
downplay the role of a manager dealing with large responsibilities and can be
seen as a weak approach by a western society, in direct experience,
26
Japanese expatriates seemed to need a further explanation by the host
country managers to be able to understand why they were not being
successful, and in these cases it was found that the advice given in Japan on
how to behave was exactly the opposite of what it was required (Glanz 2003).
This example shows that current training in some areas is either given based
on cultural approaches which are not suitable for the host country or no
training is given at all to these individuals putting them in an extremely difficult
position when faced with larger responsibilities, this will be further analysed in
chapter 4 with the question on the training received by the middle managers
before taking the position abroad.
2.5.2 Expatriate experience, the cultural background influence
First of all, what are the problems which arise from expatriation for the
expatriate himself? How do these influence his or her experience? The theory
researched by the following Bartlett et al.(1998), Suutari et al. (1998), kaye
(1997) divides the expatriate failure reasons according to three main
geographical regions, which cover the entire globe as it extends onto the two
main continents excluding Africa where little research has been done and
may be an area of interest for future research: US multinationals, Chinese
firms and European firms. These areas relate to the research on experience
of expatriate managers due to the fact that each possesses completely
different cultures and the experience perceived by one area might be
completely different from the other, bringing the author the need to analyse
each area with particular interest (Critchley 2001).
The main recognised reasons for their failure are the manager’s inability to
adjust, the spouse inability to adjust, other family’s problems, manager’s
personal maturity or emotional stress and the inability to cope with larger
27
overseas responsibilities (Bartlett et al.1998). The studies on expatriate
experience in a host country which relate to the background culture seem to
centre more on the effect that the expatriation has on them when they move
to U.S. or China or simply round Europe and in turn all the expatriates in the
papers that deal with the subject either more or come from those countries, a
large bulk of the research resides in the Asian area compared to European or
North American expatriates these were studies made by Selmer (2000),
Selmer (2001), Selmer (2002) and Selmer (2004).
There seems to be a single author writing on the cultural background
influence on the expatriate experience, and Selmer (2000) seems to focus
only on a particular culture which is the Chinese as main area of research.
This seems to be very hard to find direct expatriate experience data, by this
the author intends data that includes detailed qualitative stories and
interviews which give an overall idea of the experience. Most of the data
seems to be quantitative based on a yes or no basis. According to Kaye
(1997) Chinese managers overseas, have difficulties adapting to the new
environments, coping with larger responsibilities, have as above personal and
emotional problems, then there are cases of technical inability and the most
common the inability of spouse to adjust (Kaye 1997).
All these difficulties come from the different levels of job satisfaction that the
expatriate has and the levels of non job related satisfaction; the lower each
one of these is the lower is the performance of the subject; but this is from a
quantitative point, there may be different results in a qualitative analysis was
to be done. This information has been mainly accumulated using
questionnaires and not direct interviews and various observations, the author
still finds it quite restrictive as it doesn’t give a detailed direct experience
explained by the expatriate himself (Palthe 2008). The research was done in
28
order to understand if training in this kind of cultural area was useful in order
to decrease the time or level of culture shock (Lysgaard 1955), in a specific
cultural area like China (Kaye 1997). The research was although done in a
quantitative way and the author struggles to see how this can aid the research
on culture shock if the reasons for the decrease in culture shock were not
analysed in a qualitative method. This gives evidence of a very vague and
detached quantitative research on the experience area in general which may
result in generalisation on the topic, or erroneous assumptions due to the
restrictive nature of the research (Glanz 2003). These have the particularity of
having one recurrent reason: the inability of the spouse to adjust, this has
been generally stated in many articles the author has reviewed for example
Selmer (1998), Osland (2000), Scullion et al. (1999), but there was no real
concrete evidence that this was the only problem influencing the experience
of the expatriate. However for example, research by Selmer (1998) done on
expatriate experience and the factors influencing their job performance, has
emphasized the importance of the family and spouse adaptation as one of the
major factors, together with social adjustment and cultural adjustment. There
is no central emphasis that the spouse adaptation is the only crucial element
in European nationals adaptation, all the other factors present in all the other
cultures are also present. Therefore, it seems that more research is needed to
come to the commonly known conclusion that the spouse is one of the main
problems for European expatriate managers (Suutari et al. 1998). All of these
problems are correlated with the manager’s continental culture, which
influences greatly his or her needs, to the point that expatriation becomes
impossible and qualitative data may enable us to understand what exactly
those points of influence are as opposed to a quantitative research that may
just give us the generalised picture (Hanson, 2008). As it can be seen from
the list of nations, there are four main topics to be tackled in order to avoid
29
expatriation failure, which branch out in several more complicated and various
topics which need to be analysed in detail trough qualitative analysis, these
are: inability to adjust, family, inability to cope with larger responsibilities,
technical inability and in all instances the spouse adaptation is a major
problem.
All of the previous analysis was done on top management experience in a
host country depending on where the manager came from, either from
Europe, U.S. or China, each one of the areas according to the research
carried out, had a particular problem during his or her experience as an
expatriate; the author of this dissertation will analyse the experience as an
expatriates of Italian middle managers as there seems to be no research
done on this particular geographical area on top of the lack of research on
middle management experience. The author found it appropriate to include a
small section on women in expatriate assignment as there is much literature
on the topic despite the evident small numbers, it is a topic that should not be
ignored as in some companies it might with time become a larger issue.
2.6 Summary and observations
The literature analysed in this chapter has analysed various areas which are
all useful for the analysis of the middle management expatriate experience:
The U-curve by (Lysgaard 1955), gives an outline of the things that need to
be analysed chronologically in questioning the candidates; giving us a focus
on the various psychological aspects of their experience.
There was a predominant use of quantitative analysis trough a positivistic
point of view in the review like for example the analysis done by Tung (1987),
a method that pushes towards generalisation although it has a proportionate
representation and doesn’t give a reason for the choices and experiences of
30
the analysed managers; this creates a need for more qualitative analysis and
a more constructivist approach to the topic as authors like Osland (1995)
support. The various areas of problems, like the cultural differences between
continents following (Bartlett et al.1998, Suutari et al. 1998, kaye 1997), give
an idea of what to look into what problems and what cultural psychological
aspects will have a key influence on the experience. The inability to adapt
section will give the reader and the author areas to look out for when reading
the analysis as it covers all the problems that an expatriate may face once he
or she arrives in a new country (Sparrow 2003, Coyle-Shapiro, J. et al., 2000,
Richards 1996 and Osland 2000), and this will guide the questioning of the
candidates in order to see if there is a difference in the experience of middle
management compared to the top management. The difference in sexes is an
aspect that is still quite vague to the author due to the absence of clear cut to
the experience descriptions in the given articles (Hartl 2004). It seems that
most of the research done on expatriate experience has been external
observation form a third party without asking questions personally or receiving
answers in a way that could have explained the feelings, the real experiences
of the managers living abroad. All the research was a quantitative set of
questions with yes or no answers that couldn’t go deeply in analysing the
problem. Furthermore the methods of analysis of the expatriate experience
like the U curve (Lysgaard 1955), give an assumption that all those stages
occur and that every expatriate has the same type of experience regardless of
the country where he or she is stationed or their cultural background.
The spouse which seems to be a very highly influencing factor on the
expatriate experience was only analysed as a problem and again from
external observations, without analysing how the family adapted or
experienced the new country and what effect this had on the expatriate
31
manager; and furthermore the situation of children and their cultural change
and influence on the expatriate manager was not touched at all. The inability
to cope with larger responsibility was only analysed under an Asian context,
without looking at other cultures in more detail, for example a very high
percentage of the research done was either of expatriates emigrating in Asia
or Asians trying to integrate with Western systems, there are many other
cultures to analyse which have large differences with the typical Anglo-Saxon
managerial community but none of them were mentioned. Surprisingly, the
only research which seemed to look at the area of experience in a qualitative
way was the one done on expatriate academics, as it analysed the
experience and the reactions of the expatriates at such experience without
drifting towards generalisation or problem centred accounts. Lastly, as the
author expected, there was no analysis of the middle management expatriate
experience at all. All articles mixed the middle and top management
experience or the middle management was not even considered, an approach
that the author finds generalises the role of the managers and doesn’t
consider the differences in career advancement, the different trainings, the
difference in social status and even culture in some cases. Also the
motivations to become an expatriate may be completely different form the
ones of a top manager. On the light of such findings, the author intends to
analyse in further detail the difference in expatriate experience that the middle
management has, compared to the top management, a study that seems to
be completely absent in the literature that analyses expatriate experience.
32
Chapter 3
Methodology
3.1 Introduction to the methodology
This chapter aims to create a research methodology to investigate the middle
managers experience as expatriates, focusing on an Italian petrol company
and its middle managers sent abroad. The methodology starts by presenting
different types of research methods and some philosophical issues
characterising them, the purpose of such presentation is to identify and
describe and justify the approach taken for this research. The following
section will analyse the information sought and the research objectives that
characterise the structuring of the questions used in the interviews. After this,
the author will focus on the individuals chosen, the primary research and
questions chosen, in order to give the reader a detailed account of the several
choices made in order to collect the most appropriate data. Subsequently, a
list of the questions used in the interviews, with further explanation of why
they were structured in such way, will be given. Right after this last part,
access, ethics and reliability will be tackled in order to ensure the quality of
the research its self and give an overview of the problems that characterised
this research. And lastly a conclusion section will summarise and clarify all the
important key points of the methodology.
3.2 Research approach
Positivism and constructivism are the paradigms discussed in this first part
headed philosophy adapted, followed by the style that the author used for his
analysis and findings presentation, which is storytelling and narrative styles.
33
Following this, a set of different research methods of data collection has been
developed to address the research questions as stated in the following
sections.
3.2.1 Philosophy adapted
The philosophy used by most writers which have been analysed by the author
in the literary review is one of positivism. It is a philosophy that searches the
truth of how things really are, a general view of the behaviour of the targeted
subjects, companies or countries.
The positivistic approach is fundamentally based on quantitative data,
questions of why how and for what reason behind the results are rarely
tackled as such philosophy doesn’t cover such area (Cohen, Maldonado
2007). It is argued that the positivistic approach has a limitation that gives a
general view of the facts but lacks the outlining reasons of why a certain event
happened, why the results are those found. The quantitative data is a set of
numbers taken with the help of direct questions, which lack the background
information to the why and how of such answers (Hanson, 2008). The
philosophy that the author intends to use in his work is one of constructivism.
This philosophy is based on the assumption that individuals create new
knowledge trough their experiences adding to the one which already exists
regardless of the framework or previous knowledge that they possess (Kim,
2005). This particular philosophy is appropriate to the author’s research due
to the fact that he has interviewed managers who had various previous
experiences but through their experiences abroad created new knowledge
which they used to succeed in their assignments. This is a philosophy that
goes hand in hand with the qualitative analysis, therefore requiring all the
particularities that quantitative analysis lacks, like for instance the why, how
parts of the analysis which the author considers important for the complete
34
analysis of a middle management expatriate experience analysis (Hanson,
2008). The overall idea of this research is to give the reader a detailed
recount of what happened to the participants how they felt, how they reacted
why they chose to take certain decisions; and as a result to identify in each
instance the key moments of experience that can be key to understand how
the middle management adapts to an expatriate environment and what the
problems are. All these will be only possible to acquire by using qualitative
analysis and constructivist approach which is according to philosophical
theory the best for an analysis on direct experiences (Matthews, 2004).
3.3 Data collection
The author intends to research the recollections and descriptions of
experiences where, why and how the candidate felt or reacted that way in that
particular moment. The author as therefore performed a one to one interview
with each of the 10 candidates asking a set of questions which enabled the
candidates to give a log explanation of their experience as middle
management expatriates. All the interviews were done in a face to face
situation with open ended questions . This will be in order to not only obtain
the statement from the selected people, but also in order to get a sincere on
the spot reaction to the questions, taking in account body language and
expressions (Denzin, et al. 2005). This way of interviewing enables the author
to have a direct and more open answer than if on the phone or trough writing,
it is always better to be able to see a person in order to obtain more genuine
answers (Kannonier-Finster, 1998). The questions have been aimed at
obtaining a set range of answers which are in line with the objectives stated in
the methodology, the author wanted to be able to capture as much
information as possible giving enough space for the candidate to talk freely
and express his or her feeling on the subject and his or her experiences,
35
either by telling stories or by simply having an open conversation spawned
from the set questions.
3.3.1 Obtaining participants collaboration
Due to the author’s previous dealings in the Italian petroleum business, there
has not been any need for official request from the university or the author
himself, this is also possible due to the nature of the research which doesn’t
require details on the company its self risking industrial spying suspects, the
entire research and interviews were based on the personal experiences of the
managers completely disconnected from the details of company running. The
author had direct access to all the required resources and the personnel, this
was done throughout the first week of July when all the middle managers
working abroad will be going back to Italy in order to have their holiday break,
these were 10 middle management male managers (due to the lack of female
expatriate middle managers, which may be an area of further research in the
future). All the managers ranged from different backgrounds in terms of
education and experiences, but all of Italian nationality due to the base of
origin of the company. This provided the reader with a wide range of
backgrounds and furthermore an analysis of the Italian middle management
cultural adjustment into other countries which has not been observed in many
cases before and may spark interesting results. The author did not have much
time to look for a substantial amount of candidates to interview, the initial idea
was a sample of 15 middle managers but due to the short time given, the
period of the year when all the middle managers were going on their annual
leave and availability problems of the possible candidates; the author had to
decrease this number to 10. On the other hand, the data collected was
surprisingly rich and the result was that the findings and analysis were very
comprehensive on the subject in question.
36
3.3.2 Research objectives
The research objectives will be the answers of the following four questions,
which will enable the reader to have a full view of the middle manager
experiences as an expatriate compared to the normal recount of top
management experiences abroad:
To critically review the literature on middle management expatriate
experiences.
To explore the experiences of expatriates working on middle
management positions.
To explore the implications for organisations that send their middle
level managers on expatriate assignments.
The research objectives will be answered trough the analysis of the findings
which the author obtained through a set of semi structured interviews as the
following section aims to explain.
3.3.4 Individuals chosen for sampling
The sampling of individuals has been carried out based on an Italian
petroleum business with international branches which range from African
countries throughout Asia, South America, and many other areas of the globe.
Having access to such a broadly expanded company had enabled the author
to obtain samples of individuals who have been on assignments abroad or are
still working there at the moment. The company employs a large number of
middle management individuals who are sent abroad for various reasons and
with a great variety of backgrounds. This had positive implications towards the
research as it gave a true variety of data without restricting it to a single type
of manager with a standard background or psychological status and
education. The individuals chosen to carry out this research are 10 middle
37
managers who have just come back from their assignments abroad, or are
still abroad and have come back for their annual holidays.
The reason to have such an apparent small sampling is because it is thought
that research is not sampling research” (Stake 1995). The author doesn’t
want to give a proportionate representation of numerical yes or no data, the
content is the most important thing to analyse in this research. Therefore
instead of having a simple yes or no questionnaire given to a large number of
people, the author used a few candidates and obtain detailed stories of their
personal experiences abroad as middle manager in a narrative style
(Peltonen 1998). Some of the candidates are people very well known by the
author and they will be completely open and relaxed talking with him, they
might suggest topics and problems themselves as they are middle
management but also have been in many countries and in many positions.
They are all either on assignment abroad at the moment or just retired from it,
with a significant intercultural adaptation background and a tendency to speak
freely about anything in the company. The author has also spent a long time
at the work place with some of the expatriates while in Africa, Venezuela and
Germany and saw how they adapted to the culture and surroundings while on
expatriate assignment, therefore having a tactical advantage in the analysis of
their experiences. The author believed that with a good familiarity with this
people much better information could have been obtained, the positions that
they hold now days have gone up to top management for some, but they all
have been or still are middle managers and have experience of being one.
The author was aware of the double edge of interviewing people well known,
as the familiarity might have lead to misleading results or bias; therefore half
of the people being interviewed were completely unconnected and unknown
to the author until the time of the interview; this enabled the research to be
38
covering both types of candidates avoiding bias results (Lindlof, Taylor 2002).
The age range of the candidates varies between 30 to 60 years, as the case
study company has a strict policy of management being at least 30 years old
and the pension age in Italy is between 60-65 depending on type of work and
time spent studying before work.
There were no female managers in the company in line with the studies done
by Hartl (2004), the reasons of such lack of female presence has been
analysed in the literature review and this is the proof that such situation is still
present at the moment in multinationals. Due to this fact the author was
unable to find female middle managers to interview. The length of service
abroad is from the minimum of 3 years contract to 20 years in the same
position abroad. The locations where the interviewed managers have worked
varies from Africa, Europe, South America and Asia, therefore covering a
large geographical area giving a very inclusive overview.
3.3.5 Questions
Before even starting the questions, the author had a short conversation with
each candidate explaining the purpose of the research without being too
specific in order to get genuine responses. A conversation on the time spent
abroad, and general questions on current problems or things happening to the
candidate was the next step, all with the aim of putting him at ease and have
a fluent and relaxed conversation once the questions start.
The questions have been quite problematic to create as the author wanted to
have the feeling of the experiences projected to the reader, most of the
previous research regardless being applied to other types of managers or
other genders didn’t give a feeling that it was a real experience being told, it
was more a stream of disconnected stories which answered the objectives set
39
by the author but didn’t give a direct connected story that flowed uninterrupted
(Osland 2000) and in other cases it was a chronicle of an outside observer
(Black et al. 1991). In other cases it was merely empirical data which gave a
detailed amount of yes or no answers which seemed quite limited and no
actual reason for the answers unless extrapolated by the authors of the
articles (Palthe 2008).The author aimed to use the previously outlined
questions to obtain an answer to all the objectives set in this research and at
the same time project the feelings and experiences through which the
managers have gone; to the reader him or herself, as direct as possible so
that it could be easily understood by the reader. Furthermore by having
interviews the author believed that there may have been an opportunity of
genuine reaction or drifting into areas and problems that might not have been
even considered, as a result some of the open ended questions sparked
interesting discussions. The time to ask questions and have responses was
between one hour to an hour and a half, this is due to the fact that the author
intended to have a few candidates more candidates but was unable to obtain
as many as he originally intended therefore he aimed to have a very high
level of qualitative data to analyse from each; therefore the key words were
quality not quantity in this research.
3.4 Interviews
The questions asked in the interviews were all based on several aspects and
objectives as explained below. There were four main objectives in the
research that the author was carrying out, each of these objectives through
analysis of both the philosophy of constructivism and qualitative data
gathering, created several questions specifically aimed at answering
collectively one of the four main questions. The structure was as follows:
40
Icebreaker questions, these have been used in many combinations
depending on the subject and how familiar the author was with the manager;
the use of these were both to answer the background information and training
that the manager received before his assignment; partially answering one of
the objective questions. Research open ended questions, the author hasn’t
been very specific in some of the questions regarding the position of middle
management, this is because there was a need to see if there was a different
reaction and answer compared to the one given in the literature by top
managers. These questions were all based on the need for the objective
questions to be fully answered through a combination of the answers
received. The candidates were assured that all the information will be used
just for research purposes and not to measure their job performance in any
way, so that he answers can be as sincere as possible. All the information
was gathered in Italian as the author is native in the language, it was then
transcribed and analysed in order to obtain a clear sample of middle
management experience as expatriates.
3.5 Findings structure and data analysis
The findings structure has been done trough the method of thematic coding,
the data will be divided in several sections which match with each other
depending on topic, type of response, issue raised and frequently recurring
words which may summarise the area which the candidates were talking
about. Subsequently the data will be organised in a down scaling sequence;
starting from the overall main topic, going on to the important issues in the
topic and finally the causes of those issues; giving the reader a detailed and
comprehensive analysis of the topic and allowing the author to explore every
aspect of the interviews in the detailed level needed in order to conduct
qualitative analysis. The data analysis following the findings is structured
41
following the dissertation main objectives, explaining through the findings the
areas of interest, the conflicts or confirmations of previously analysed data by
other authors (Saunders 2007). The author in this chapter, analysed the parts
of data that can give an answer to the dissertation question, and connected it
to previous research in order to compare and contrast the differences or
similarities in the data gathered.
3.6 Access, ethics and reliability
3.6.1 Ethics
There are several problems connected with qualitative analysis when ethics
are concerned. The first is anxiety and distress, the person interviewed might
feel uncomfortable with some of the questions asked during the interview; this
may cause moments of anxiety or situations when he is not inclined in
replying, but as he is being interviewed he will feel the need to reply despite
his emotional situation. Another issue is the misinterpretation of the data
provided, the author may interpret through the theoretical spectrum some
issues raised by the interviewed candidate in a way which is not in conformity
to what the candidate meant. Furthermore this may lead to generalisation and
creating flawed data due to misinterpretation. The third main problem in
ethical issues when talking about qualitative analysis is the possibility to
reveal to others the identity of the candidate breaching his right to anonymity;
which in some cases may cause him some harm in the working environment.
The last major problem is the fact that the author is related to an important
gatekeeper in the company and such knowledge by the candidates may have
influenced the way they acted or replied to certain questions (Birch et al.
2002). The access to the interviews and the data has been obtained through
official channels, including the access to the building in which the interviews
42
were carried out has been authorised by the company its self providing a
visitor pass to the author and by signing the official visiting and purpose
papers provided.
3.6.2 Reliability and generalisation
There have been two main problems which the author needed to tackle on the
reliability and generalisation of the research. The first problem has been that
the author himself has been in the position of expatriate, although just as an
expatriate son living with his expatriate family. This pushed the author to
interpret the experiences of other expatriates in the way he interpreted his
own experiences, which may have resulted in the experiences being distorted
or stylised by the author old memories. Another problem resulting from the
author’s previous experiences has been the fact that he could have taken for
granted certain knowledge of expatriate experience while the reader as a non
expatriate might not know about those details and result in general confusion
in some instances. These two problems were mainly resolved by keeping the
personal experience as an expatriate out of the mind of the author simply
interviewing as if everything was new and never experienced before, only
concentrating on the answering of the research objectives without risking a
recollection of previous experience. The second problem was the
generalisation and personal grievances that some of the candidates
expressed while being interviewed. When doing background research on the
candidates in order to make certain that they were reliable for his research,
the author has questioned the personnel manager of the company and found
two main problems. The first was that some of the expatriates felt they were
not ready to leave their place abroad and blamed the company for their
problems once they got back to the central office, this resulted in some going
into depression and bitterness in the way they saw things. This was solved by
43
carefully looking out for superfluous comments that had nothing to do with the
experience but only with personal critical views disconnected from the
experiences themselves. The third has been the style of speech of some of
the candidates which talked as if everyone abroad does what they have done
or the natives behave all in a certain way in selected countries.
This can be avoided by eliminating the general terms in the interviews and
substituting them with phrases that stress the personal view of the
interviewed. Other general problems that occurred were the ones due to the
size of the samples used to write the findings and the analysis of this
dissertation; the initial suggested number was 15 but it had to decrease to 10
as due to the time provided and the fact that many managers were starting
their annual holidays in July, the author had to decrease to 10 candidates.
This problem was tackled by making more open ended questions aiming to
acquire the longest and most detailed interviews possible; which resulted in a
very thorough amount of data which was so substantial that the author had to
set on a side some for further research on the topic. The other general
problem was the difficulty that spawned form the qualitative method analysis,
the author had to limit the information acquired as it was composed by very
long recollections which at times included superfluous data or data that was
not connected to any of the objectives. Such problem resulted in time being
lost in both transcribing and selecting the right information with the risk of
drifting in areas not needed for this research.
3.7 Limitations
The research was quite limited by the amount of space provided, the author
managed to acquire a substantial amount of information from the interviews.
The information gathered from the interviews was so substantial, despite
44
being from just 10 candidates instead of 15 as initially planned. Some of the
interviewed managers gave many details and long explanations as the
interviews were up to an hour and a half long, but in order to include all those
lengthy explanations the author would have needed a much larger page limit.
This resulted in some information being deducted from the dissertation, and if
the page limit and research was to be done in larger scale and limit, much
more interesting information may be analysed and utilised in this area of
research. Another substantial limitation was the time allowed to finish the
research, all the interviews were organised in the period of middle to end July,
when all the middle managers were going on their annual leave. This limited
greatly the amount of interviewees available, something that may hinder the
results and limit greatly the comparison between top and middle management
as there are many situations documented on top management but very few
on middle management.
There was a limit on the capital available for research and travelling to the
facilities to meet the middle managers was costly and as privately funded the
project remained very small despite having the potential to be a substantial
project. Lastly, the research was based on just one multinational company
based in Italy, and if more time and more resources were to be available it
would have been a positive step to include other companies and other
nationalities in the research, in order to have a more well round proportionate
representation.
3.8 Summary
The research has been characterised by a constructivist approach in order to
examine in detail the experience of the middle managers, as this approach is
very well indicated through research to the application on qualitative analysis.
45
The analysis has been done mainly on primary sources, therefore interviews
with managers; due to the fact that in the literature there was no mentioning of
middle manager expatriate experience and therefore had to be taken from the
field. The findings and analysis have been presented in a storytelling and
narrative approach mixture in order to obtain a direct recount of the
experiences form the managers themselves and a direct analysis through the
narrative of the author. The questions are very open ended, unstructured as
explained above, in order to obtain the best direct and sincere reactions and
responses from the managers; this has been coupled by the fact that they
were face to face in order to describe the full extent of the reaction of the
candidates to the questions. The objectives of such research have been to
answer the three questions mentioned in the objectives section of the
methodology, to the fullest extent possible. All the generalisation, ethical and
reliability problems will be dealt with accordingly as mentioned in this
methodology section, ensuring the quality and high standards required for
such research.
46
Chapter 4
Findings
4.1 Introduction to findings
The following findings will be presented in the following structure: from the
starting problem which is connected to the difference of experience of the
middle manager compared to the top management expatriates, to the main
problem areas that characterise this difference and ending in the problems
that create this problem areas for middle manager expatriates. All the
managers interviewed for the purpose of anonymity have been given pseudo
names and will be called as listed in the appendix section 2. The author
identified three main peculiarities in the way middle managers experience
their expatriate assignment as compared to previous research done on the
experience area.
The first main peculiarity is the fact that according to the majority of the
interviewed middle managers, there is no training or support prior and during
their stay abroad, this creates problems with the language learning, the family
adaptation and communication, the cultural barriers and the danger
assessment of the middle manager expatriates.
The second main difference is the fact that most of the interviewed middle
managers were sent on the field in dangerous zones as opposed to top
management that was placed in a central office in the foreign country doing
office work and dealing with middle managers and workers from the office
mainly; this resulted in the middle managers having to travel in person to
47
dangerous zones with no organised aid from the company at times and with
no protection and far from any area where they could ask for help.
The third and final difference was the middle man position, the middle
managers as opposed to the top managers, have the problem of dealing with
both the top and the workers and having to support and satisfy both which
causes several ethics problems and at the same time when sent on expatriate
assignments the middle managers have greater responsibility but at times no
flexibility in the way they have to deal with the problems that arise, the top
management gives a task and the middle has to act upon it without any space
for argument.
The next section as previously explained in the introductory part of this
chapter, will analyse one of the three main persistent problems encountered
during the interviews, the lack of training.
4.2 Support and training of middle managers
During the interviews, the author came across a constantly recurring problem
that every middle manager interviewed talked about, this was the complete
lack of training prior and during the expatriate assignment. One of the
questions asked by the author was if the middle manager had received any
training before going on his assignment abroad; out of ten middle managers,
ten replied no training at all.
No, I didn’t receive any training before going there, I didn’t even speak
the language, and I had to learn it through my own means very
quickly.... (Ron, Personnel manager).
Another expatriate was just told the place where he was going to be
transferred and the technical problem he was supposed to deal with, any
48
other information was not mentioned, for example political situation, or cultural
training needed or any dangers the middle manager might have encountered.
All I was asked was if I wanted to go in Africa to deal with a the
software problem... The one of the millennium bug you know, and I
thought it would have been a new exciting experience so I jumped in
(Jack, I.T. manager).
Both these statements emphasize a perception of lack of training and
isolation from the central office and the company as a whole, with no support
given, making the middle manager experience problems in a harsher
environment as a whole. Some of the middle managers as mentioned above
had problems with dealing with the local language, the training wasn’t
provided by the company and they had to learn it through their own means
without any support; and at times it ended in embarrassing situations or
misunderstandings that cost the expatriate middle manager time and effort.
There was another instance, this was in Algeria, where I kept on
asking for a sample of a particular product to my subordinate and it
took me a while to get him to bring it to me... I kept on asking it in the
same way, ‘Champion’ every time I was looked at strangely and he
never brought me the sample....
Then I realised; in Italian sample is campione, but in French the right
word is echantillon, and I had sent this poor fellow on weird errands for
quite some time.... (Jim, Commercial manager).
There were other instances where the expatriate was sent in a new country
with no language training and a basic knowledge of the language, the
problem was that he had to learn it through his own means and in a very short
49
period of time as he was dealing with technical issues that needed a particular
terminology which is not taught at basic level.
The first time I went abroad it was in Algeria my second language was
English not French although I had very little basics from high school;
therefore the first fifteen days were a bit of a headache for me; just a
mix of incoherent sounds.... My job didn’t just consist in doing a job but
also teaching it therefore with no knowledge of the language it was
quite hard and excruciating to do for the first three months.... (Ron.
Personnel manager).
According to some of the middle managers that later on became top
managers stated that top managers received language training or already
possessed the appropriate language knowledge to start the assignments;
while the middle managers did not possess or receive any language
knowledge this may be an interesting area of study as this comparison does
not appear to be frequent in academic research. The language didn’t only
cause problems in the job area, but also in particular occasions it created
embarrassing body language misinterpretations which if dealt in the
inappropriate way it might have created very problematic situations for the
middle manager expatriate.
In Italy we have the expression... [The manager lifted his arm in an L
shape crossing with the other arm as he explained it is a common
expression in Italian culture]... It is a curse, a swear in Italian, and you
normally react by hitting the guy or shouting at him here... But in Arab
countries it means hello! How was your day!... Now just imagine what
a misunderstanding might have caused if dealt with by a more direct
Italian (Jimmy, Project coordinator).
50
The body language problem was one of the common cultural problems faced
by managers which did not differ from the experience of top managers in the
literature as it was a process of cultural integration. The author noticed
another area of difficulty that was common between many of the interviewed
middle managers, this was the family related problems. There was a general
feeling that the family of the middle manager was not considered by the
company in question, in some cases it was impossible for the expatriate to
communicate with his family at normal day times or spend some time on the
phone on days when the family was free because the country where the
expatriate had been sent didn’t consider such day a non working day.
For example in Arab countries Sunday is our Friday, this seems at first
a very small change, but on the long run you feel tired, you know that
when your family is free and you can call them can share some free
time with them over the phone, you actually can’t because it is not
Sunday here, it’s just another working day and you have no time...
(Ron, Personnel manager).
In 4 out of the 5 cases in which the expatriate managers talked about their
family situation while on expatriate assignment the middle managers were
sarcastic in a nervous way, they joke about their family problems which ended
in a divorce for all 4. The level of attachment to the topic that they had was so
intense that they kept on talking about it after the interview asking the author
to place a section in his paper dedicated to expatriate divorces due to the
company.
The best memory I recall from my assignment? ..... (Laugh).... My
divorce, I was with my partner before I was sent on assignment
abroad, she seemed like a great person when we were together; then
51
as I spent time away she changed and I was so happy when I got rid
of her... ask my friend next door, he was an expatriate too, same
ending, it’s the expatriate curse..... (Alfred, Payroll manager).
In the case of the middle manager it seems like the family situation is not
even considered by the company in question, not only the family is not trained
or supported, but it is not considered as if the expatriate should have to deal
with the problems deriving from it himself; and this as the interviews
suggested end in a divorce for the middle manger. The area of divorces
resulting from the expatriation of middle management is an under researched
area which may be worth exploring in further studies on the topic. In some
cases there was a tendency to endanger without warning or choice the
children of the expatriates. Some of the interviewed managers moved their
children at a very young age to a new and dangerous location with no
information on how they were going to deal with their needs or how they were
going to protect them from harm.
I moved in Zambia with my two months old twins, they were crying for
the whole trip there and I had to pack 2 trunks 55 Kg heavy each,
paying something like two million Liras at that time Italy still had Liras;
of excess luggage.... then when I arrived there I realised they didn’t
sell any nappies for children so I had to ask every person that came to
visit me from Italy to bring a pack of those.... (Robert, Personnel
director).
This last statement supports the complete lack of support given to the
expatriate middle managers as opposed to the top managers normally
analysed, this may be a particular case associated to the subject company or
may be a middle management case. It is not possible to verify it as the
52
research is carried on only one company. In other cases there was a lack of
food and water and the manager had brought his family with him, and he had
to go through a distressing experience to provide for them without any support
or warning that it could have happened by the company.
It was quite a while ago, but I still remember in some places where
there was lack of food especially fruit, and water and you had to deal
with it yourself the company didn’t deal with this it was always your
problem.... In Iraq I had to ask the Turkish black market to import a kg
of apples for my family paying them 600 thousand Liras in order to get
them... Or I had to go and look for water with any mean possible while
there, as it was always needed (Jack, I.T. manager).
This lack of support depicts an area of negligence in the company attention
and care for the expatriate middle manager and his family. This is a social
contract negligence, which generally in relations to expatriates in a company,
its manifested by respect and mutual understanding. Following the social
contract problems, the third consistent problem occurring is the lack of
training and support from the company compared to the support given to the
top management as the majority of the managers interviewed stated. In some
cases the cultural barriers in terms of etiquette behaviour and religious beliefs
and rules that hindered or endangered the workforce. In these cases, there
was a risk of offending the locals because the expatriate didn’t have a training
in how to react in an appropriate way that could have befriended the locals.
There were several differences in our cultures, for example when an
Arab allows you to see his daughter it is a great honour, you should
show very deep respect for a person that allows you to see her in
Saudi Arabia, or, when an Indian belches at the table it’s not actually
53
rude, he is saying that he appreciates the food you have served him
and he expects you to do the same if you liked his food... or if your
wife shows her legs in an African country its very provocative for me
more than showing her breasts... we had no training in this and many
times I personally messed up out of ignorance and trust me it was very
embarrassing and out of place.... (Ron, Personnel manager).
This is an area of common difficulty for both middle and top management
which the author didn’t find differences in and this is due to the nature of the
problem its self, cultural details so particular may only be an individual
experience form manger to manager. These difficulties resulted in the
following further problems related to the lack of knowledge of problems
particular to the host country or culture. There were other cases where the
expatriate middle manager had to deal with problems inexistent in his home
country due to different religious beliefs and also due to different climate, he
had no training nor warning by the company; there was no guide provided to
deal with these cultural issues.
There was a particular situation where I had to push my bravery very
far, it was in Saudi Arabia, during a Carem period, during this
particular period the people in that area could not eat nor drink during
the day time.
The problem was that we were working on some structures up on
extremely high poles with a temperature that touched 50 degrees and
in a desert area therefore you can imagine the extreme heat that the
workers had to endure… I tried to convince the workers to drink and
eat because they would have possibly died by fainting and falling from
that height without any food and water, but they wouldn’t listen it was
54
such a deep religious belief that it was not possible to change their
mind... (Ron, Personnel manager).
The middle manager has the same task as the top of integrating and adapting
to the host culture, although the means and support to do so is diminished or
not provided by the company in question. Lastly on the topic of support and
training, there was a lack of knowledge needed for danger assessment, the
middle manager expatriates were sent with their own means and no training
or warning to countries where the slightest mistake would have cost them
their lives. One problem was the assessment of the character of the
expatriate middle manager by the company before they sent him to the
expatriate assignment. In some cases a very calm and relaxed person can do
a job where a very proud and driven person might fail ending in dire
consequences due to the cultural expectations and costumes of the host
country as one of the interviewed managers explained giving a real life
example as follows.
He (His collegue) passed by customs had a ticket to go back to Italy,
the customs guy told him to open the bag, he did it then the customs
guy rummaged took everything out and dirtied everything; then with a
disgusted face he pointed at the guy to close the bag and go... The
guy started complaining for the treatment, the customs guy simply
pointed at him and two guards took him away in a van, he never took
that plane... You either need a guide to tell you what to do or you are
born to do it I have seen people with no training like me getting out of
that situation just out of common sense. (Alfred, Payroll manager).
The manager already had to be aware of the dangers, a preparation that is
normally given by the company to top managers according to the interviewed
55
middle managers but not considered crucial for middle managers by the
company in question. The middle manager in this case knew what to do due
to previous experience in the field which he had done by himself, but he
specified that initially he didn’t have the training, and if he had not had the
common sense as he stated, he would have been in the same situation as
that person he described. In other cases always due to the lack of preparation
according to the manager, the expatriate was unaware of the situation of the
country and continued to behave in the same way as he behaved in his home
country, resulting in a high risk for himself as the following statement explains.
The first thing that I noticed when I went out that night and decided to
head back as a consequence was, that the level of danger was
enormous compared to Europe, you could not walk round at night and
I was always used to do that in Rome, which made me homesick very
soon (Sonny, Personnel manager).
There were some situations resulting from this lack of preparation as
previously explained, where the expatriate witnessed and experienced
shocking episodes unexpectedly and he looked very shocked even after
years talking about it, something that the training provided to top management
according to him spared the top managers.
Then depending on the country and the situation there are very heavy
problems that linger in your mind all the time; like when I was in Iraq if
I made a phone call, I could hear the Iroquoian controller clicking in
the background to listen in to my every conversation.
56
Another time I woke up went in my garden and saw a guy in uniform
running through it and then another one in the same uniform just ran
by and shot trying to shoot him in my garden...
One of my co-workers had a gun pointed at his head for a lift in his
car, I saw a person being axed to death... those were pictures you
never forget... (Robert, Personnel director).
The difference with the top management according to the interviewed
managers who later on moved to top management positions is the protection
and danger assessment situation. Whereas a top manager is in the office
dealing with managerial problems and delegating tasks, the middle manager
has to go on the field, unprotected as he is not provided by the company of
appropriate protection.
4.3 Top in the office middle on the field
In many of the interviews carried out, the expatriate middle managers had
very direct experiences on the field, they never talked of working in the office
and delegating or doing any desk job unless it was in a placement in Europe.
The difference in assignment was also emphasized by the comparisons done
by the middle managers who later on got promoted to top management; they
explained that the job as middle manager was much more isolated and on the
field while the one that they did later on in life as top managers was much
more office based. Most of the expatriate middle managers recollected many
memories and experiences of facts happening on the field, in deserts, in the
refinery core stations or on the areas where new bulks of refineries were
being built, when they talked about African countries especially there was
never mentioning of being in an office; which compared to the experience that
they recollected later on as top managers was exactly the opposite.
57
As top managers most of the work was done in the office and the rest
delegated to middle managers to deal with on the field. Furthermore there
was no substantial aid given to them by the central office or the top
management when they were sent on assignments on the field, most of them
described the trips and experiences like an isolated individual having to deal
with all the problems with his own means or perish trying because there was
at times no possibility of communicating with the company. On the other
hand, if sent in an expatriate assignment in Europe the work was very similar
to the one done in the central office, this data does not coincide with some of
the main theories that don’t divide the middle from the top management
experiences due to most of them being based in the European continent and
Asia. The main point expressed by the interviewed managers is that
according to them Europe is not an expatriate assignment but just a change
of office in a similar area.
Europe was quite normal almost boring as I could not see any
difference and it didn’t feel like going abroad, a bit more like changing
region in your own country... (Sonny, Personnel manager).
This short statement differs from some of the main papers on expatriate
management experiences possibly due to a different country of origin being
analysed (Italy) or peculiarities in the company being analysed. This phrase
from one of the interviewed middle managers summarised the views of many
of the other managers interviewed; none of them considered Europe as an
actual expatriate assignment. The picture changed drastically when they
talked about an African assignment. When the expatriates talked about Africa
they recollected an adventure, something completely different from the normal
office job that they recollected in Europe.
58
The place where there was an actual huge difference was Africa,
when I arrived I felt I was in a different world, a different environment
all together. I felt the difference immediately, I had to get used to being
one of the few white people, I was easily spotted and all the attention
was focused on me wherever I went, there was no way of being
anonymous... (Jack, I.T. Manager).
The difference between middle and top management was easily spotted in
the African continent, the expatriate middle managers were sent on the field
to deal with many problems on their own.
After the problems we had with the plane, we ended up in the wrong
town, and somehow we managed to communicate with the person we
had to meet, after a few hours of travelling by car we reached the
destination... a guy came in the bar shouting riots! Riots! We were
literally picked up by this guy put in the car and ran while people Sunni
and Shiites were killing each other on the street... there was no way
we could get help there we were on our own helped by random local
people fortunately... (Robert, Personnel director).
The inability of communicating and receiving help from the central office and
the fact that the middle managers had to resolve matters with their own
means, shows a gap between the help and dedication of the company
towards the top management compared to the middle management. When
talking about Africa the expatriate was in a dangerous position, there were
actual physical problems and it was not something that could be fixed by
improving the psychological adaptation of the expatriate. That was the
experience of a middle manager dealing with company relations with clients,
59
they had to go on the field and risk their lives with no means of
communication, the recollections presented by middle managers when they
reached top management positions were very different.
I was in the office while at work, I had many problems with the locals
especially at the beginning when they thought that with riots they could
take over and obtain higher salaries... and because I was young they
didn’t respect me, but I was trained for these things and I dint even
have to move from the office to get them to understand that it wasn’t
going to work... (Sam, Managing director).
There were situations where the middle managers had problems finding food
and water, they were sent on the field to direct constructions of service depots
with no warning by the company of the food supply being low and the water
not being readily available or even clean.
I was sent to deal with the construction of service depots, practically in
the middle of the desert... I arrived there after a long trip and the guy
accompanying me said we might have not found lunch today as the
food had already been eaten. We arrived there he talked to a guy that
after an hour or so managed to get us something that looked like a
piece of meat.. he picked some forks from other people he said they
didn’t need them anymore, and then gave us water from a jar which
was full of flies that a guy kept on throwing out with a spoon... (Luther,
Personnel manager).
In this case if the manager was not careful and considerate about what he ate
or drank he would have been in high risk of contracting a disease; there was
no means of getting food from a reliable source either therefore it was not a
60
paranoia situation it was real. This was an experience that had a large
difference from the recollections of the top managers in the cafeteria provided
in the host country, in Africa it was still poor food but compared to the middle
managers on the field it was clean and readily provided.
Another problem faced by the middle managers compared to the top
managers was the knowledge of hygienic rules, including diseases, hospitals
and cleaning habits. The top management generally brought their own
medicines, they had a private doctor to deal with their problems and didn’t
have to go to the local hospitals or deal with diseases without medicines as
the middle managers were barely informed of any medicine needed.
A middle manager was forced to go to the hospital for treatment and many
times the situation worsened.
He (the middle manager colleague) was sent to the hospital when he
got hurt one time, I didn’t manage to stop them from taking him to the
hospital as they said they could cure him and practically dragged him
there... he stayed on that bed maybe 10 minutes... there is a fly in
Africa that lays eggs in things you put out to dry and if you don’t iron
them you get the maggots under your skin and they eat you alive... he
got so many of them in those 10 minutes it took him weeks to kill them
from his back... (Ron, Personnel manager).
There were also treatments that were provided by the doctors in Europe that
the private doctors and people with experience in Africa knew had negative
effects, but the middle managers did not have any aid provided by either
private doctors or anyone knowing this problems, as they were just sent
abroad with the details of the technical things to fix; and they were expected
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to start immediately on the project management on the field without any time
for adaptation.
I was given Lariam tablets before going to Africa and I kept on taking
them as the doc said I needed them to avoid getting malaria... I was
never visited by a doctor there was no regular check up unless you
paid for it but I felt fine and I carried on working on the project... after a
few weeks I felt my liver being really painful and swollen... I paid a
private doctor out of my own pockets and he told me to immediately
stop taking those tablets as they kill your liver, he said better getting
malaria than using those... (Arthur, Project coordinator).
This may be a good area for further research as there is no substantial data in
the literature about the difference in medical treatment between middle and
top management. There is little research done on medical assistance in
expatriate assignments despite the problems present in the findings which
clearly depict an area that needs further research to aid the expatriates, in
particular the middle managers.
4.4 Middle man is not the same as top man
Many of the interviewed middle managers expressed moments of frustration
with their communication and negotiation between the top management and
the employees under them. The main problems consisted of the direct orders
from the top management which in most cases were not negotiable and the
need for the employees to survive in low pay and low employment
environment. This problem was further on increased by the occasional
situation where the expatriate middle manager has never directed a large
amount of employees before the expatriate assignment and therefore does
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not possess the skills or the familiarity to deal with large numbers in an
unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar problems. The following quote pictures
the typical concern of a middle manager sent abroad with no experience on
large projects and in several countries dealing with a large number of
employees.
My first contact with a foreign country was in 1998 I was a analytic
accountant for the company before I was catapulted in a completely
different environment in 1998. I was then assigned to a completely
different role when I was sent abroad as the project leader of an IT
software implementation and update in Africa. As all the systems in
Africa were really old the company decided to change all of them
instead of attempting to update them and were all based in Kenya,
Tanzania, Ivory coast, Nigeria and later on we would have had to
import them in South Africa. With the number of employees and such
a large area to deal with I was quite confused, I was there just given a
task and no further instructions on how and I had to fulfil it with my
own means... (Jack, I.T. manager).
There is no real insight in the experience of expatriate middle managers and
their problems with coping with larger responsibilities nor on top management;
most of the research done was on the way they reacted culturally and how
they dealt with the larger problems. Most of the data was quantitative and
didn’t give a direct recollection of facts. For example in Tan et al. (2005)
analysed the factors of masculinity and femininity behaviour influencing the
expatriate decision making and the influence that he or she has on the
employees and furthermore analysed the fact that managers don’t need to
change their own culture to be accepted and followed by a larger amount of
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employees but interact with them explaining themselves in their own cultural
way avoiding gestures or phrases that might offend the employees. There
was a mixed response to the impact of increased numbers of employees and
larger responsibilities, the company didn’t use any criteria that divided the
selection for middle managers to send abroad on skill and experience basis.
Some like the manager in the following quote, were trained to deal with large
numbers and already in middle management roles in the home country while
some others as previously quoted had no previous experience.
Before going abroad I was responsible of dealing with the
maintenance of the fuel depots in Italy.. I was already coordinating
maintenance personnel after six months that I had been recruited by
the company, I therefore already had a middle managerial start in my
home country... (Ron, Personnel manager).
The second main problem that was repeatedly present in the interviews was
the ethic question, this consisted of orders being given to the middle manager
by the top manager which influenced in a negative way the relations with the
employees or had an unethical nature due to the top manager possessing a
large amount of independence from the central office and therefore taking
advantage of it.
There were some in the company with zero ethics, they had such a
way with people... there was a lot of corruption and very little
sensitivity, keeping a clean record was so difficult as some looked for
personal advantages some just wanted to get you something to do so
that you were out of the way it was so difficult to deal with... (Alfred,
Payroll manager).
64
This problem worked also in the opposite way, the situation on ethics was
influenced by the employees that due to low payment rates, political situations
in the country and unfair treatment from the top management policies or
simply the government policies, didn’t have any privacy, trade union
protection, job security and in some cases no food. There were some
instances where the host country government as partially owner of the
company influenced the way the manager had to deal with employees and
with the management its self to a point that the manager had no control over
the company and had to submit to the government’s will regardless of
company or ethical losses.
With Chavez there were so many problems in Venezuela, as soon as
someone was suspected of being against the regime he was
immediately fired by the company and we could not do anything
against it as they commanded there, as they had 51% share of the
company under government control... we had to both deal with new
recruits and accept what the government gave us regardless of skills...
(Sam, Managing director).
This particular area of government interference on ethics and business
running in a negative way, seems to be rarely analysed and would be an
interesting area for further research as it opens up new and unexplored
problems for the expatriate managers.
The following is data not previously analysed in other journals or academic
papers and therefore a very unexplored area of both top and middle
management; as they are both affected although it seems middle
65
management due to the fact that it lacks power and authority does not have
the same protection as top management has.
This situation created a problem for the middle manager as they had to deal
with unqualified employees as the top management under the government
rules employed them only due to political faction; and at the same time the
middle management had to dismiss qualified workers due to suspicions from
the government side. The problem persisted with the relations with the top
management if it was a government and multinational joint company; as the
privacy of the middle managers was constantly breached and every decision
was judged according to phone tapping and co-worker spying.
Then depending on the country and the situation there are very heavy
problems that linger in your mind all the time... Like when I was in Iraq
if I made a phone call, I could hear the Iroquoian controller clicking in
the background to listen in to my every conversation... (Ron,
Personnel manager).
There were situations where due to the poor quality of life and low pay
permitted by the government or the company its self and therefore the top
management, where employees resulted in stealing form the company.
This put the middle manager in the difficult situation of accusing and removing
individuals from the company due to stealing despite their skills and their
precarious nature. This was a decision reserved to the middle manager which
gave them a choice of disregarding directives from the top management and
the government to fire the employee in order to keep a good relationship with
the employees or fire the employee caught stealing and adhere to
governmental and company regulations.
66
After some time I noticed there were a few problems that were
becoming uncontrollable, there was a tendency to give loans at an
uncontrolled rate which was making the company lose quite a lot; and
employees being caught stealing... this was due to the constant need
of people for more money for food and kids etc.. As I was middle
manager I had the difficult task of making the top management happy
by not spending too much on workers and at the same time helping
these people to survive... (Alfred, Payroll manager).
This ethical dilemma is one peculiar to the middle management position as a
top manager in an expatriate position as explained by the manager in this
case, would have delegated the task of dealing with the employee to the
middle manager.
4.5 Summary
In conclusion there were several peculiarities that made the middle manager
stand out in his expatriate assignment, one was the lack of training received
from the company in question, the other was the lack of set criteria for
choosing the expatriates to send abroad. There were cases of expatriates not
being trained or able to deal with large numbers of employees, cases of
expatriates not knowing the language, being unable to behave in a way
acceptable by the host country culture with dire consequences to the
expatriate himself. Then there were problems with the support given to middle
managers expatriates in order to perform their task, they were often left
isolated with no food or water; and in dangerous countries with no aid from
the company even in cases of airplane tickets or security assessment in an
area. The problems persisted with the hygienic conditions and the preparation
in order to avoid contracting diseases or parasites. The last set of problems
67
peculiar to the middle management position in an expatriate assignment was
the ethical dilemma of following the top management directives regardless of
ethics due to being too far from the core company, the problem of keeping
morale up and keeping employees from starving without using extra capital
not allowed by the company its self. And finally the problems with dealing with
governments that disregarded ethics and were partially owners of the
company or disregarded capital gains or even the security of the workplace in
defence of government party support as in the example in Venezuela.
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Chapter 5
Discussion
5.1 Introduction to the discussion
The analysis chapter will focus on the issues raised by the findings of this
dissertation, all will be presented in two sub sections explaining the main
issues that emerged from the findings and the implications of such issues to
the body of research on expatriate experience. Furthermore the analysis will
compare and contrast the findings with the literature presented by previous
authors on the topic of expatriate experience, pointing out areas unexplored
before and areas where the findings may differ from the main body of
literature and reasons why. The sub sections will follow the main objectives of
the dissertation, one will be on the description of experiences of middle
management expatriates and the other will focus on the peculiarities of the
experiences in middle management expatriation.
5.2 Middle management expatriate experiences
The main characteristics of middle management expatriate experiences were
many times comparable to the ones described by the body of literature on
expatriate experience. There were many instances in the findings where the
middle managers encountered problems and difficulties, which according to
the middle managers, were made even harder to overcome due to the lack of
company support as compared to the top management. The data extracted
from the findings enabled the author to isolate some core topics extracted
from the more general topics in the findings these were: abandonment and
isolation, being an expendable resource, being the lone middle man, lack of
69
expertise and training, endangerment and cultural awareness. All the stated
new areas were part of the findings general topics and present all the time,
making them the main factors to be analysed and discussed in order to gain a
deeper knowledge of the expatriate experience. The following section will
focus on these themes as reported by the middle managers.
5.2.1 Abandonment and isolation
In many instances there were descriptions by the middle managers of
situations where they had to get through the difficulties presented in front of
them with their own means, for example the manager describing the problems
in getting on the plane and the riots in areas completely isolated from the
central company, both through the comments of the expatriate middle
manager and the evidence of abandonment by the company, the overall
experience description was one of abandonment and self preservation on the
expatriates side. The middle management recalled experiences in many
cases in the findings were in line with the research done by Coyle-Shapiro et
al. (2000), who in their research they emphasized the custom of companies
now-days to send expatriates (top managers or middle managers, the point
was not clear in the research, but might be a common problem with both
types of managers) into lonely and isolated positions with no training nor
support by the central office. Richards (1996) observed that, the expatriate
manager left in an alien environment has to adapt and integrate on his own
means, with no mention of a higher authority supporting his endeavours. The
support that this point has towards the author’s initial query about the
difference between top and middle management experience is unclear, as
both Coyle-Shapiro et al. (2000) and Richards (1996) seem to have analysed
an area of management which did not coincide with the one researched by
the author. This might have been due to different geographical area, different
70
companies analysed or maybe different ranks of management. Both authors
specify that in some cases the isolation feeling and the lack of support is
present, they do not say what are the characteristics of the managers
experiencing these difficulties. The interviews give a feeling of abandonment
by the company. In such situation the expatriate doesn’t feel like a needed or
appreciated part of the company but just an expendable asset.
5.2.2 Being an expendable resource
There were many instances when talking with the middle managers, where
the feeling of just being an expendable resource to which the company would
have never invested any extra capital to support. This was a development of
the feeling of abandonment, many of the managers as a result of being left to
deal with problems without company support came to the conclusion that they
were just an expendable resource and lost their trust and at times respect for
the company its self. One of the evident areas was the family support which to
the middle managers was a very important point to be supported in as the
psychological wellbeing and the reason for having taken the expatriate job
was the family for many of the middle managers. According to Osland (2000)
the family situation is a very stressful factor on the expatriate psyche, it
influences the concentration that the expatriate has on the job he is
performing for the company abroad. Scullion et al. (1999) suggested that
companies now-days do not consider the family as a factor to add in to the
training that is given to the expatriate and the situation due to family problems
is undermined or overlooked. The findings in this dissertation suggest that the
family situation was rarely considered by the company in question, there was
no consideration for the wellbeing of the children of the expatriate as some
middle managers explained, they were asked to go to a new country with very
young children without having an idea of dangers and problems they were
71
going to face once in the host country. One middle manager gave the
example of the impossibility to find nappies for his daughters, this created a
situation which at the beginning could have been avoided just by informing
the manager in advance. In the area of top management the middle
managers explained that basic support was given to help with the family
situation, but in their cases the company only asked them to move in the host
country regardless of family needs or situation. There were instances where
the middle manager interviewed talked sarcastically about his family situation,
blaming the company inadequate training and support for their divorce with
the previous partner; and some became very emotional about it stating that
they were just expendable resources. The further factor that the author
noticed about the divorced middle manager expatriates was that once back in
their home country they seemed unhappy with their work and generally
negative about everything, giving a feeling of wanting to go back to the host
country. This may have been a random reaction or a particular behaviour of
those interviewed middle managers or it may have been directly connected
with the loss of family life suffered due to the company inadequate family
support methods. This point is not clear as the research has been done on a
small sample and only one company but it may be an interesting area for
further research. Farquar (2009) did an extensive study on families of
expatriates remaining in the host country even after the assignment was
finished for the manager but it seems there was no mention of divorces
problems, this may due to the different company he was analysing or different
type of managers. In most research done by Black and Gregersen (1991),
Selmer (2001) and Suutari et al. (1997) there is evidence of harmonised
family situations, support, being taken care by the company and even
language support for the family. In all the interviews that the middle managers
stated there was no support present for the family by the company in any
72
tangible way therefore outlining another difference between top management
and middle management in the analysed company. Top management
analysis by the previous authors like Black and Gregersen (1991), Selmer
(2001) and Suutari et al. (1997) showed evidence of support in successful
expatriate experiences. The lack of support for the middle manager’s
expatriate family raises the question, is the middle manager just an
expendable resource and therefore no investment on his wellbeing just a
waste of resources for the company? The abandonment and treatment which
lead the middle managers to think that they were an expendable resources
had a substantial effect on their effectiveness on how they performed on the
job, the lack of support resulted in the managers having training and
preparation problems which resulted in a lack of expertise and training.
5.2.3 Being the lone middle man
Another theme was the managers having difficulties pulling their authority
both with top managers and with employees at the bottom creating a situation
of being the middle man that cannot do much. There was a tendency on the
middle manager finding himself in frustrating situations where the employees
were unsatisfied and the top managers were not listening to the concerns of
the middle management, this seemed to be against the principles of the social
contract ideal situation. The social contract ideal situation would be treating
the expatriate as an important asset giving his life importance as Rousseau
(1996) explained in the context of psychological contract. In the case of the
middle manager expatriate, the situation worsened according to middle
managers due to the distance from the main office which allowed some top
managers to disregard ethical rules which resulted in the employees suffering
as a consequence. There was an ethics problem present also in Sims (2003),
the problem that the middle manager is not listened to and that the top
73
management issues orders without asking for a second opinion or ignoring
one if suggested by the middle manager. Although there is no mentioning of
ethical issues concerning this top bottom relationship in the managing area.
Depending on the area where the middle managers were sent, the top
management was not the only ethics infringing party in the company, but
there were instances where the government of the host country disregarded
ethics and forced middle managers to employ and fire employees depending
on political inclinations or leaders changes of mind, which were explained by
one of the managers in the Venezuelan example. This issue of ethical
misbehaviour and problems resulting in a high negative impact on the middle
manager expatriate experience which seems to be an under researched area
worth looking into in future. The main reason for this ethical issues being
under researched seems to be the lack of difference given to the expatriate
experiences either being in Europe or in a developing country according to
some of the interviewed managers. The feeling of abandonment as a
consequence made the middle managers ask themselves the question of
being an expendable resource for the company, this mainly due to the lack of
interest that the company had on their well being. These difficulties might
have sparked form the fact that the continental situation was different from the
European one as many middle managers interviewed explained.
Most of the papers written by Suutari et al. (1998), Suutari and Brewster
(2001) and Glanz (2003), considered experience in Europe an expatriate
experience just comparable to going to another continent as they described
problems typical to the U-curve by Lysgaard (1955). On the contrary, the
middle manager interviewed by the author did not manifest any of the
problems documented by the previously mentioned authors. This might be
because the experience in Africa impacted more as the culture difference was
74
greater than in Europe or due to their different country of origin as Suutari et
al. (1998), Suutari and Brewster (2001) and Glanz (2003) did not analyse
Italian management. There was nothing comparable to a usual every day
office life and some of the main theories by Suutari et al. (1998), Suutari and
Brewster (2001) and Glanz (2003), were applicable whereas in the work the
middle managers did in Europe there were rarely signs of adaptation
problems and none of the adaptation problems and experiences described by
the previous authors were mentioned. One of the peculiarities in the middle
management situation was that there was no visible help from the company,
they were left in a strange land just as explained by Richards (1996) to
integrate in the culture and deal with the problems themselves. These were
stories similar to the ones present in Osland (2000) with the hero’s tales, the
difference although is that he talked about people travelling very near in
Europe and the problems and experiences were associated with stress and
exaggerations or misunderstandings by the expatriate, whereas in the African
situation, these problems were not an exaggeration but a very common
everyday life routine. Furthermore in this different environment there was no
recollection of office work it was all on the field which reinforces the idea that
middle management has a different experience compared to the top
management documented by Suutari et al. (1998), Suutari and Brewster
(2001) and Glanz (2003), Palthe (2008) which concentrate on office work.
During many of the interviews many of the middle managers never talked
about any of the problems involving office work, it was all based in deserts, in
the refinery production structures or while working on machinery, which
supports the point that the job done by middle managers in this case was all
on the field. Top management don’t distinguish the intense expatriate
experience outside of Europe to the less impacting one in Europe due to the
nature of their work according to the interviewed middle managers that later
75
on progressed to top management, this is because top management spends
much more time in the office performing tasks that can be easily transferred in
the European environment. In other words the experience perceived by the
middle managers in Africa was much more on the field, presented with
cultural difference in some cases very problematic, while whenever they
talked about the experience in Europe it was like a recollection of what they
would have done in the home country, no differences or cultural issues were
highlighted; as a matter of fact many of them did not refer to the re
impatriation as going back to Italy, but as to going back to Europe.
On the other hand, there were also some managers that connected their
problems and different experiences to the lack of expertise and training, this
was less connected to the difference in continental culture but more on the
language problems and general technical skills that they lacked.
5.2.4 Lack of expertise and training
There were many instances where the middle manager expatriates, due
according to them to the lack of interest and abandonment by the company,
where the middle manager expatriate lacked the appropriate training to
perform the given task. The expatriates were in many occasions blaming the
company for many of their short comings or problems encountered, most of
these were associated with training which they should have received before
going to the foreign country. Most of the problem was related to the language
training that the company didn’t provide to the middle manager as it
considered them an expendable resource which therefore was not worth
investing in order to provide skills to enhance performance. The area of
language training and understanding is not present in many papers published
by authors analysing the expatriate experience like Richards (1996), he was
76
never specific on language problems but generally on cultural understanding
and the need for integration, unless he underlined the language problems
under the mutual understanding discussion. Other authors like Glanz (2003)
and Selmer (2000) focus on social, emotional and responsibility problems but
nor specifically any problems related to the language learning or
understanding. The middle managers interviewed by the author have all
manifested a concern and difficulty in language learning and understanding,
this was not due to their ability to learn a language but due to the complete
lack of preparation supplied by the company according to them. There were
instances where the middle manager was sent to a new country for example
Algeria in one of the cases in the findings, where he did not know French and
he was there to do a very specific technical job which required extensive
knowledge of the local language. He had received no training nor help by the
company in language training and had to result in privately learning the new
language with his own means. The same expatriate, supported by the
statement of another expatriate who developed into a top manager later on,
stated that top managers received the needed language training and also had
personal tutors available before and after arriving in the new country. There
were also body language related problems, this was a point raised by
Richards (1996) with the manager having to understand and integrate in the
host culture through observation. Furthermore Kaye (1997) associated this
problem with the fact that expatriates need to adapt to new environments
when faced with a completely different culture and this can be a long and
difficult process depending on the expatriate nature and the support provided.
This last point suggests that in this case the middle managers who are not
chosen trough an appropriate criteria according to them and are not
supported or trained in the local language, both verbal and body language;
77
are at a substantial disadvantage compared to top managers when
experiencing language and cultural adaptation in the new country.
5.3.5 Endangerment and cultural awareness
In the findings there were many examples of problems with cultural
adaptation, it seemed to be one of the main themes as every single one of the
interviewed middle managers started with the cultural adaptation problems
despite the questions raised. One was the hand gestures that in Italian meant
an insult and in Arabic meant farewell.
In other cases the appropriate behaviour to have even when being mistreated
by the customs authority, being spied upon on the phone or having a soldier
running through the manager’s garden shooting another person. All these
situations need a deep understanding of the local culture in order to avoid
ending in a dangerous situation according to many of the interviewed middle
managers. There was a feeling of fear and pity for other people that were not
so lucky to come back, when the managers talked about the cultural problems
that they had to go through. One of the managers was being kept under
surveillance on the phone constantly, that he explained was a standard
procedure in Iraq but the psychological fear and worry that if he said anything
they wouldn’t have liked they would have gone to take him from his house
was always there. There were other instances where the expatriate had to
witness people being axed to death, or tortured in front of him, or being
mistreated without him being allowed to do anything without ending in the
same situation, it was a process of understanding when not to react and when
to accept that it was a normal everyday thing in the host country.
The cultural understanding and integration is a concept analysed in Lysgaard
(1955) U-curve model, this behavioural differences are part of the culture
78
shock part of the analysis in the U-curve. Authors like Richards (1996) have
explained similarly that during this part of the expatriate life, the manager has
a difficulty to understand and react in an appropriate way to such behaviour
and needs time to adapt and integrate the host culture in his own.
Furthermore Critchley (2001) expresses the need for the expatriate to analyse
each area with particular interest as all cultures present differences which
need to be absorbed and understood by the expatriate in order to do his job.
The cultural adaptation problem persisted in many of the interviews carried
out by the author supporting the fact that there was a general cultural
adaptation problem which was indifferent between top or middle management
affects all expatriates. Although, according to the middle managers
interviewed the top management had received more warnings and at times
teacher support for cultural understanding once they arrived in the host
country and the middle managers never received such help. In the context of
cultural integration the research done by Suutari et al. (1997) and Richards
(1996) give a similar view on the topic, a common ground between middle
management and top management.
Top and middle managers are strangers to the new culture as explained by
Richards (1996) and need to integrate and make the new culture their own
before they can adequately interact with the natives and perform their duties.
Once the manager has understood the culture he can bend the rules and
keep his own way of behaving while at the same time respect and follow the
cultural differences. The only main difference pointed out by some of the
interviewed managers was that the criteria for choosing middle managers
expatriates was not based on cultural adaptation, appropriate skills and
qualities to deal with another culture but it looked like a random process.
79
To support this is the example of the expatriate middle manager’s colleague
who got arrested at customs because of being culturally inappropriate for the
customs authority; and according to the middle manager, training which was
given to top managers or a more careful recruitment selection as it was
reserved to the top management would have avoided. From the detailed
descriptions by the interviewed middle manager, the author associated their
problems to culture shock as explained by Lysgaard (1955) where the
expatriate manager finds himself in an unfamiliar situation that threatens to
make him return home before finishing his assignment. In this case the
expatriate was comparable to the research done by Richards (1996) as he
experienced many of these traumatising situations but used them to develop
himself instead leaving to go back to his home country. Many times they are
unprepared as they have not reached the personal maturity to deal with such
problems as Barlett et al. (1998) supports.
The examples given by the interviewed middle managers highlight how such
lack of training can turn the middle manager expatriate experience in a failure
due to minimal cultural clashes. The problem of training then resulted in
another major disruption on the middle manager expatriate experience, this
was characterised by the verbal and body language difficulties. In the work
done by Barlett et al. (1998) it is mentioned that the manager’s maturity and
understanding is a main factor of success in an expatriate assignment,
according to the managers interviewed it seemed that when the company
chose middle managers, they didn’t consider factors like appropriate
maturity. Previous experience and skills in order to survive in environments
which are very hostile for the managers, and this didn’t give enough time to
analyse the situation and adapt to it like suggested by Critchley (2001).
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In some cases the managers have to adapt to an hostile environment without
having the awareness of the dangers present and in the particular cases of
the interviewed middle managers that had been in Africa, there were
instances where a very consistence in hygienic rules was needed in order to
survive in the environment.
The middle management experience differs from the theories by Lysgaard
(1955), and Richards (1996) on the culture shock and paranoia stages where
the manager has problems considering water clean, food adequate for
consumption. The reason for this difference may be due to the different area
of origin of the managers, the different type of manager or a different host
country as the ones analysed by the previous authors as there was a real
need for an almost paranoiac behaviour in order to avoid diseases and
dangers.
There were points similar to the paranoia situations presented by Lysgaard
(1955) and Richards (1996), but in this case cleaning obsessively and having
a high emphasis on hygienic rules was not a paranoiac display by the middle
manager but it was a needed ritual every day in order to avoid situation of
parasites and diseases.
5.4 Summary
There were several areas of interest in the findings that gave a feeling of the
experience of a middle manager as compared to a top manager normally
analysed. The first area was the one regarding the feeling of abandonment
and isolation, in many of the interviews the middle managers considered
themselves not being looked after by the company and having to rely on
themselves for the positive outcome of their assignment and at times for their
own survival. The other predominant feeling that the middle managers
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expatriates expressed was the feeling of being an expendable resource for
the company and the top management, this was directly connected with the
feeling of abandonment, they were not looked after by the company according
to them, and furthermore their wellbeing was not the top priority. The family
situation which was the main reason for some of them to accept the expatriate
assignment was not looked after, and at times it was even upset by the
company lack of family support abroad. The middle managers constantly
expressed the feeling that they were alone battling between top management
and employees in a situation where both top and bottom did not listen to the
middle management advice and influenced the way the middle management
could perform its tasks in a negative and unproductive way. In some of the
interviews there was also evidence of ethical breaches from both top and
bottom resulting in the middle manager being in a stressful and powerless
situation.
The lack of expertise and training impacted on the middle manager’s ability to
deal with several situations like cultural clashes, dealing with large numbers of
employees or even performing regular tasks that they were able to do in the
home country; for example training employees was greatly hindered by the
fact that some middle managers could not speak the local language. The last
part of culture clashing was the result of lack of training in cultural awareness,
which put the middle managers in a position of being open to dangers
resulting from misconceptions of the local culture or misbehaviour in the eyes
of the local culture. Furthermore there was no training nor looking after in the
area of hygiene and diseases that could be contracted in the host country
which could have resulted in the middle manager contracting some diseases
and being in a position of health danger.
Chapter 6
82
Conclusion
6.1 Research Objectives
The research objectives stated in this dissertation were three: the first was a
critical review of the literature on middle management expatriate experience
which was quite under researched. The second question was on how the
middle management perceived his experience as an expatriate, which was
answered substantially by the findings as the following paragraphs will
explain. The other was the question of peculiarities that separated the middle
managers experiences from the top management.
6.1.1 Middle management expatriate experience
There were many areas of literature touched in the findings and the
discussion, Lysgaard (1955) U-curve problems especially relating to culture
shock were ever-present in the data, but differences were noted due to
different geographical areas researched and different cultures and cultural
reactions to the new country. Also instances which resembled Richards
(1996) were present, involving the manager having to integrate and adapt in
the new environment. But despite being at times similar to the research
already done on the topic, the middle management experience was different
especially in the area of trust and support by the company and the top
management, resembling the findings from Sims (2003) but in a different
wider context and a much more difficult environment. Throughout the
dissertation there were many areas of interest that expressed the difference
and peculiarity of the middle managers experience. The main findings showed
that the feelings that the middle managers had while on expatriate
assignment were the main factors of difference in the expatriate experience,
83
as they highlighted the problems and differences faced by each manager.
There were a set of evident areas from the findings, the first was the feeling of
abandonment and isolation, this may have been a peculiarity of the company
examined, but there was evidence from the explanations of the interviewed
middle managers that the managers had experienced long periods of
complete isolation both from the office and from the core company, and at
times even from their families. Some of the middle managers found
themselves isolated in areas where there were riots running for their lives, or
in deserts without an appropriate supply of food and water; each time having
to deal with the problems in complete isolation and no means to communicate
with the core company or even the offices situated in the host country. This
resulted in the middle managers having a feeling of being expendable assets
throughout their foreign assignment, the isolation feeling was according to
them due to the company not being willing to look after them, this problem
extended to family life.
Some middle managers had no means of communicating with their families
that they couldn’t take with them due to the danger of the working place.
Other middle managers had their families with them, but without any support
from the company ending in them having to find ways to support the family
with their own means like the example of the impossibility of finding nappies
for children in one country, or fruit for long periods of time and having to
spend large amounts of their salary for survival. As a result form being seen
as an expendable resource, the level of respect and interest in the middle
managers seemed to be very low at the working place, putting them in a very
difficult middle man position where in many cases they could not deal either
with the top management or the employees.
84
This was because the top management was far from the central office
according to them and there was no means for the company to keep them in
check. On the other side the employees were starving and needed support
and the middle manager could not provide that support due to the lack of
pressure that he had on top management, creating ethical issues that crippled
the employee/management relations. This situation was only particular of the
African experience that middle managers had, they seemed to consider an
expatriate situation only the one experienced in a developing country;
whereas when they talked about European assignments it was simply like
going to another office in their home country, there was no difference, it was
not considered and expatriate assignment. As a result the problems of lack of
expertise and training were only present when talking about developing
countries, as skills never needed in Europe were needed there.
There was a large emphasis on spoken and body language, many of the
middle managers were sent in areas where it was already very difficult to get
employees to focus due to religious, cultural and political harsh situations
which had higher emphasis in developing countries. This was increased by
the problem of not being able to communicate with the employees and made
the managers having a feeling of lacking the abilities to deal with the
employees themselves and sometimes resulted in spending the middle
manager’s own money to get the language training needed as the company
didn’t supply it. The last area that was constantly present in the middle
manager’s expatriate experience was a partial result of the lack of training,
there was no cultural awareness and as a result in developing countries this
may have resulted in the endangerment of the expatriate, some recollections
emphasized on the need to understand the culture in order to avoid offending
locals which in some occasions resulted in the incarceration of the expatriate.
85
Some other were emphasizing the need for the expatriate to have an almost
paranoiac care of hygiene and diseases due to the high risk of getting sick on
assignment.
Many of the mentioned issues in expatriate experience were particular to the
middle management analysis and were not present in previously analysed
research, this may due to the particular nature of the candidates and the
company which was Italian, and there has been little research done on Italian
companies, or the particular nature of the company its self, but due to the little
time available and only one company being analysed, the author admits
further study may be needed to verify these findings. As a conclusion, there
were many new areas of research that sparked form the analysis of middle
management experience abroad, the fact that the information was so rich and
full of details was due to the use of qualitative analysis which enable the
author to analyse the feelings and problems in much greater detail than it
would have been possible with quantitative due to its nature in having short
and precise answers all interpreted through statistical analysis.
The middle management experience had many new areas and differences
from the top management counterpart, one was the feeling of abandonment,
the isolation and self preservation and survival which was not present at this
level in other research. Another was the new topic of Europe not being an
expatriate assignment according to many expatriates, this may open many
more areas of research as the topic was just superficially analysed. The topic
of being the middle man between both the company the top management, the
government and the employees creates by its self a new research area which
promises to be very wide and rich in data.
86
As a follow up to the data collected in this dissertation, there is an opportunity
here to open new areas of research based on the developing countries
expatriate experience, the middle management different experiences and
hardships, the support given to middle managers on expatriate assignments,
in some cases even the selection criteria of middle managers based on skills
and ability was a very under researched area which may have many new
areas of research to explore.
The summary of the conclusion on this dissertation is that there is very little or
no research that focuses on middle management expatriate experience at the
moment, the middle management experiences are unique and have many
new areas of research which have not been looked at before. And there is a
substantial difference between middle and top management experience in
expatriate assignments. These differences make a large impact on the way
companies need to deal with the middle management, it seems from the data
gathered that the companies may need to give more training in cultural
behaviour and language to the middle managers before sending them abroad.
This will enable the company to protect the safety of its middle managers and
provide them with the skills needed for the job which at the moment seems to
be an overlooked area. The social contract is also another area to be
safeguarded by the company, in many instances in the findings the middle
managers gave a feeling of abandonment and loss of importance which
demoralised and alienated some of them to the point that they lost respect for
the company; which on the long run could have caused losses, damages or
even loss of personnel to the company. Therefore the suggestion is to look
more closely at expatriate middle managers, train them, make them feel part
of the company and appreciated and give them the psychological and
technical support that they are asking for.
87
Appendix
1. Interview questions.
How does it feel to be in a new country?
What did u do before going abroad?
Have you worked as a middle manager in other countries before or is
it your first time on this position abroad?
How are you finding the local people? Are there many differences
compared to your home country?
Research open ended questions
So, what do you normally do on a normal day at work; for example
your duties, the way you spend your lunch breaks etc..
Did you receive any training you think was useful in order to overcome
general cultural problems as a middle manager (may vary on position,
I won’t ask as middle manager but will use the right title of position,
e.g. Technical supervisor, personnel manager etc...)?
Why did you chose to take up this assignment abroad?
Are there any particular things that you enjoy about your current job
abroad?
Can you recall and describe any instances when you felt comfortable,
stressed or bored and why?
Is there any reason which would push you to prefer staying in your
expatriate position or go back to the central office?
Can you describe the first memorable memory you had from your
experience abroad outside of the work area?
88
Were there any events that left a mark in your memory during your
stay? It can be both job related or simply socialising.
Have you had any problem integrating in the new culture? If yes, can
you give me an example and a description of what happened?
How is your relation with the top management and your subordinates
abroad? Give me some examples if possible of interaction between
you and them please.
Do you feel you are taken in account every time you raise an issue?
Are there any instances that you can describe experiencing any
problems dealing with either personnel or top managers?
What were the differences between dealing with your assignment as a
middle manager compared to being a managing director? (This
question is reserved to people who have now gone to the position of
managing director).
2. List of managers.
Jack, I.T manager.
Jim, Commercial manager.
Ron, Personnel manager.
Jimmy, Project coordinator.
Alfred, Payroll manager.
Robert, Personnel director.
Sonny, Personnel manager.
Sam, Managing director.
Luther, Personnel manager.
Arthur, Project coordinator.
89
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