Abstract

Cultural adjustment and intercultural effectiveness strongly influence interna-tional managerial issues, such as organizational success in a local firm, assignment com-pletion, cost of expatriation, and repatriation. Therefore, employees assigned to work inanother country need to prepare by learning about that country’s culture before expatria-tion. Much research has been conducted in the last few decades on the role of culture inexpatriation. This study examines how the attitude of expatriate managers toward theimportance of culture changes between the pre- and post-expatriation periods. This study isstructured as a two-step investigation: (1) pre-expatriation cultural preparation and (2)thoughts on the importance of culture after expatriation. The research sample was SouthKorean expatriate managers working in Turkey or the US. All participants were reached bythe trace method, and the interview data were analyzed in QSR NVivo software withcontent analysis. The results showed that expatriate managers’ attitude toward theimportance of culture changed as a result of expatriation. Pre-expatriation, some partici-pants did not prepare for the new culture. However, after the expatriation experience, allagreed that an understanding of the host culture was important during the assignment. Anoverseas experience allowed participants to understand the significant role played byculture in their adjustment to the new environment.

Keywords

Expatriate managers, Culture, Expatriate assignment and experience

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