Role of Expatriate and Inpatriate

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Hello friends.

Now, let’s talk about the “international recruitment and selection process” …

Well, when we talk about the international recruitment and selection process, first of all, we need to identify which staffing approach is most suitable for a particular case.

It should not happen that where you have to use a geocentric approach, you are using an ethnocentric and vice versa. Okay.

Then, you need to determine which recruitment method is best suited for you?

Do you want to go through internal recruitment, do you want to go through online job boards? Or do you want to use any referral mode? So, you decide that and approach the process accordingly. Okay.

Then, “allocate your budget”. How much are you willing to spend on a particular position? Based on that, you can approach people, you can decide the entire recruitment method, and move ahead with the process accordingly.

After that, the process is quite simple. You just need to “evaluate the candidates”, shortlist them and finally close the hiring process and discuss the paperwork.

Generally, the paperwork will include the “immigration process, visa process”, then you need to register the identified package for that particular international assignment and to have the contracts. For how much time will that person be in that particular country? Then, how will the repatriation take place? So on and so forth. All of this is included in the paperwork.

Now, you might have noticed that I used the term “repatriation” several times. 

When we talk about the “types of candidates”, then generally, we have 2 types of candidates. “Inpatriate” and “Expatriate”.

We generally call inpatriates “inpat”. And these are the candidates that come from a foreign country and who are temporarily or permanently residing and working in a different country.

The best example of this is a citizen from India who is working in the US. That person can be called an “inpat”. Because we don’t know if that person has citizenship in the US or not.

The second type of candidate is “expatriate”.

Now, “an expatriate is a person who is temporarily or permanently residing and working in a country other than that of their citizenship”.

Well, if we want to understand the difference between the inpatriate and expatriate, then generally, inpatriation happens when you send a candidate from any other location to the head office. It is defined by a certain time period and called inpatriation.

Whereas expatriation is without any specificity, whether the person would be working in the head office or the branch office, there is no specification, the person goes to another country where he or she does not have citizenship and works there for the stipulated time period. (Clear, so far?)

Now, once the person is asked to come back to their country of origin. For example, you are sending a US citizen to work in Saudi Arabia for 3 years. After 3 years, the person would be repatriated to the USA. That is what repatriation means. We also talked about inpatriation and expatriation.

So far, we discussed what are inpatriates and expatriates? (Correct?)

Now, let’s try to have a deeper understanding of their roles.

First of all, the role of an expatriate is to “improve local market knowledge”. Well, say, for example, any expatriate starts living in the export territory, they start getting a deeper understanding of the local market, they gain the knowledge of the business practice in that particular area, they also get to know about the cultural factors.

So, the employee who tries to conduct the business from the headquarters will not have the same insights and knowledge as the expatriate because the expatriate is in the working field and understands things and he will obviously have much more experience in that particular market. (Got it?)

Well, “this local understanding and awareness help the organizations to reduce the risk and avoid mistakes that could limit market success”.

Now, let’s say for example when the MNCs launch their advertising campaign, they need to be very sensitive about any particular location, otherwise, their entire marketing campaign fails.

I am sure you might have heard and seen a lot of these examples. For instance, suppose if any product is showing a change, it is mentioned left to right but when you advertise the same product in any middle eastern country, it will be otherwise because the change that is shown left to right here, there it will be shown right to left. So, this might be an issue somewhere. (Getting my point?)

Therefore, you need to have a deeper understanding. Generally, expatriates help in achieving that so that you don’t make any mistakes in your prospective markets. Okay.

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The next role that expatriates play is “instilling the company culture”.

Now, what happens is, that “expatriates work very closely with the overseas subsidiaries, distributors, agents, and joint venture partners to ensure that they also understand the culture of the parent company, and understand their standards and values as well.”

So, when an expatriate goes to that subsidiary market or to that local market, he starts working as a bridge by easily identifying the cultural differences there.

What happens is that if there are any misunderstandings or any wrong interpretations, then they can be controlled to a great extent. And it is ensured that the customers continue to get a consistent standard of service in that particular market and the quality is not compromised. Okay….

The next role is “transfer of knowledge”.

Generally, the expatriates transfer their knowledge and skills to their overseas partners. Now, suppose you are setting up a manufacturing operation.

Now the expatriates can help in establishing the corporate working practices, quality standards, tools and techniques to be used, and the patents that are developed by the parent company.

And, when the expatriates start working with the local distributors or agents, they can provide a lot of insights into how the product was developed?

As they have the market knowledge and market intelligence, they can deliver it in their headquarters easily so that joint programs can be developed in case there are some major gaps to be bridged? And if the market penetration needs to be increased, then also the expatriate plays a major role. (Got it?)

Then, the last role of the expatriate is to “develop management talent”.

Well, the employees that are sent for overseas assignments are considered important assets for the organization because they start establishing their management skills and competencies in the local market as per the parent company and location standards.

Now, the second aspect here is that the “expatriates start learning to recognize and understand the diversity of the local market” and according to the tweaks that have to be done, they start establishing the standards of the company by making those tweaks effectively. Okay.

And along with this, they also start “developing the leadership and interpersonal skills that are required to manage or collaborate with multicultural teams”.

And finally, they also help in the development of management talent to expatriate assignments and enable those talents to also excel in the global market. (Understood?)

Come, now let’s have a look at the “roles of the inpatriates”.

Basically, the inpatriates share the local knowledge with the headquarters staff very effectively and they facilitate a dialog because sometimes what happens is, the headquarters staff has very faint knowledge about the groundwork realities.

The inpatriates inform the headquarters staff in detail about the intelligence from the local market and how the mode of operation should be used.

This is the knowledge transfer of inpatriates. (Right?)

Now, what do the inpatriates take in return from the headquarters? They start developing a detailed knowledge of the corporate culture of the headquarters that is followed there as well as the mastery of the future management tasks that will come in the organization.

So, what happens with this is whenever key positions need to be filled in the future, inpatriates and expatriates will be considered because they have a very wide variety of exposure, and experience, and they know different markets very well.

So, from that point of view and according to their expertise, they will be picked as to where they should be placed. Okay.

And, if you have any queries or doubts, click on the discussion button below and get your questions answered, discuss them with your fellow learners and share your experience as well.

Thank you.

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