Developing Global Managers- Case Study Task 2 | Summative Coursework Brief- 2024

The Case Study: Closing the Gap.  Preparing executives for assignments in Malaysia.

Etan Ines-Davies was holding a meeting with the five most senior employees in Talent-Driven, a HR consultancy he had established five years ago. Prior to establishing the consultancy he had held a very senior and well-rewarded position as a HR executive with a MNC US-Belgium company. He had been based in Brussels at the headquarters of Cornex but had desired a return to California where he originated from. Before becoming a consultant Etan had been responsible for managing talented candidates in the MNC. This included training and developing the engineers and project managers for the global pharmaceutical and chemical company particularly for its subsidiaries in the Far East, Africa and South America. 
At the meeting Etan reminded his senior colleagues that there were two main reasons which had underpinned his decision to set up the business and leave the MNC.  One of which was that he increasingly found himself invited to deliver specialised training sessions on expatriate programmes that were designed and led by independent training organisations and even other MNCs. This led him to recognise that there was a gap in the market for specialised HR executives such as himself who had genuine expertise to prepare employees for expatriate assignments particularly to growing economies such as Malaysia, where he had originally met his wife Anna. Second whilst Cornex board operated an international mobility programme. This usually consisted of a straight exchange of employees between different operation sites with very little pre-departure training as it was not considered critical in the eyes of the board as the best employees would rise to the challenge whiles the weaker ones would sink. Etan considered based on his experience of working and managing in different global locations that pre-departure preparation was indispensable for success regardless of whether it was a short-term or long-term assignment. In setting up the Talent Driven consultancy his belief that pre-preparation was essential for international assignments became a key operating principle.  Thus the focus of Etan’s consultancy was offering to design and deliver in-house pre-departure training programmes for global companies. In particular he targeted US companies who were expanding in growing developing economies in South America, Africa,  Middle East and Asia.

The approach by the MNC:  problems with employees’ pre-departure training

Etan wanted to explain to his managers that a recent event had reinforced his view that the emphasis he placed on the training of expatriates was absolutely necessary. Etan informed them that he had been recently contacted by the current US operation manager of Cornex, the company he had previously worked for, who told him that the organisation was becoming increasingly concerned about the high numbers of employees who were failing to adapt to working and living abroad and they would like him to consult with the current HR Director about potential solutions. The HR director informed him that as a result of disquiet of the increasing failure of expatriates she had conducted a training needs analysis audit with 40 managers and engineers who had returned home from postings abroad in the last eighteen months. She forwarded the document onto Etan and now he wanted to discuss it with his senior employees. 
The audit provided an essential insight into the pre-departure training of the employees. Notably only 25 of them had received any formal pre-departure training from the 40 who responded to the audit.  Further investigation had not revealed any specific reasons why the other 15 employees had not received any training. The training records also indicated that the pre-departure formal training was itself very variable with no consistency over time allocated to the training as indicated in the below table. Again no reason as to why the different in length of pre-departure training occurred existed. 
Table 1. Length of pre-departure training received by the 25 employees 

The training needs analysis audit provided further details about the nature of the pre-departure training received by the above 25 employees. This included various training methods such as lectures and tutorials.  The content of these sessions contained basic language assistance, access to online material about Malaysia and cultural awareness workshops delivered by an outside training agency. Prior to their postings four of the 25 employees were offered the opportunity to go to Kuala Lumpur  for a short field trip. This gave them the opportunity to meet colleagues already based there. It also gave them the chance to see organisations and places in that were linked to their assignment. Unfortunately, because of the variance in pre-departure training it was not possible to evaluate the effectiveness of the pre-departure training they had received.  However, some anecdotal evidence indicated that: 
‘I did access online training materials but this in no way helped to prepare for what I found when I was sent abroad’. 
Thus of the 8 employees who had received online access to training none found it of any real value to help them deal with cultural differences between the US and countries in South America. 
A question that aimed to identify future training indicated that the 40 employees who had returned from assignments abroad asked them what were the two biggest challenges they faced when working there,  a summary of their responses to this question is presented in Table 2.
Table 2. The ‘two biggest challenges’ faced by the employees (N=40) during their assignments abroad

*Total number of responses is 80, that is two responses per employee)

The implications of the analysis 

It was at this point that Etan announced that on reading the fairly scathing independent report on pre-departure training the Board of Directors of Cornex decided that training for employees who were going on assignments in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia needed to be a priority for the company. The board’s decision was to bring in a consultancy with expertise in this area. It was opportune that the independent investigation into current shortfalls in the training programme had unearthed from the archive some documents that Etan had written when he was an HR executive that detailed his concern with the limited nature of Cornex training practices before sending employees on assignments abroad. The board also found it helpful that when Etan had left them to establish his own consultancy it was in order to deal with this already designated gap in training. 
Etan then confirmed that he had been commissioned by Cornex to design and facilitate a 10-day long pre-departure programme for 10 engineers and project managers who will be taking up assignment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the next 12 months. He told his team of senior executives that using the information they already had from the independent analysis, he wanted them to put together an initial draft of what this training programme should look like for Cornex. 
Adapted from Debrah & Rees 2011 cited in Harzing and Pinnington, International HRM Practices 2011.

Global Leadership Training Programme Malaysia:  Outline Template 

Outline of Strengths and weaknesses of 10 day training programme for Malaysia justified with academic cross-cultural management literature