Task
As outlined earlier, expatriates are assigned to foreign operations to fulfil specific tasks. Hays14 identified four such tasks:
•The chief executive officer , or subsidiary manager, who oversees and directs the entire foreign operation.
•The structure reproducer carries the assignment of building or reproducing in a foreign subsidiary a structure similar to that which he or she knows from another part of the company. He or she could be building a marketing framework, implementing an accounting and financial reporting system, or establishing a production plant, for example.
•The troubleshooter is the individual who is sent to a foreign subsidiary to analyze and solve a particular operational problem.
•The operative is the individual whose assignment is to perform functional job tasks in an existing operational structure, in generally lower level, supervisory positions.
Interesting presentations on executive performance management have recently been provided as part of a wider discussion of ‘corporate governance’. Issues of performance criteria (an over-reliance on shareholder value’ models of executive performance) and the evolving roles, responsibilities and institutional safeguards to assure a complete, accurate and unbiased assessment of top level managers are widely cited for this critical task group.15
In a recent review of cross-cultural performance management systems, Caligiuri identifies four basic types of international assignments: ‘technical assignments ’ – short-term knowledge transference activities, said to make up 5 to 10 per cent of expatriate assignments; ‘developmental assignments ’ – focusing on in-country performance and the acquisition of local or regional understanding by the assignee, said to make up 5 to 10 per cent of assignments; ‘strategic assignments ’ – high-profile activities that focus on developing a balanced global perspective, said to make up 10 to 15 per cent of assignments; and ‘functional assignments ’ – described as more enduring assignments with local employees that involve the two-way transfer of existing processes and practices, said to make up between 55 and 80 per cent of assignments.16 Accurately assessing performance in the tasks inherent in technical and functional assignments may well involve a limited number of sources and focus on more concrete output criteria (projects completed, contracts signed, etc.)