international assignments course

• 02074940118
• [email protected]

Delivering A Successful International Assignment

Anne morris.

• 9 October 2019

IN THIS SECTION

• 8 minute read
• Last updated: 9th October 2019

Organisations deploy personnel on international assignment for many reasons. Whether you are addressing an internal skills gaps, supporting leadership development or looking to improve working relations across borders, for any international assignment to be successful, there will be a multitude of legal, immigration, tax and pensions risks to manage when sending employees overseas.

This article covers:

International assignment objectives, international assignment structures, employment law.

• Immigration options 

Assignee remuneration

Professional support for international assignments.

Global mobility programmes have traditionally been developed with a uniform approach, driven largely by cost management and operational efficiencies. However, organisations are increasingly taking a more flexible and bespoke approach to overseas assignments in order to attain advantage in areas such as compliance and talent development and retention.

While a one-size-fits-all approach to the fundamentals of mobility management may be a commercial reality, overlaying this should be areas of specific consideration and capability that can be adapted to the specific needs and risks of each international assignment. This allows for greater focus on the assignment’s commercial objectives and the agility to respond to the organisation’s changing global mobility needs .

From the outset of any successful assignment project, there should be clarity of objectives. Why as an organisation is the decision being made to invest in sending an employee to perform services in a different country?

International assignments can offer value in many areas, many of which typically present in the longer-term.

Internal knowledge transfer is a common assignment objective to address talent or skills shortages within overseas regions. Deploying key talent with specialist knowledge and skills to train and upskill local team members can help to resolve local labour or skill supply issues. The cost/benefit analysis can explore potential missed opportunities or delays resulting from shortages in the local talent market.

International assignments are also highly effective in building relationships and improving intercultural working. This could be relationships within an organisation, with local clients and intermediaries or local authorities. Face to face interaction remains highly effective and valuable in building influence on the ground and can offer significant potential for advantage over competitors.

Beyond relationships, value is also created in the knowledge gained by assignees working overseas, from insight into local customs and culture, improved language capability and a general understanding of how business is ‘done’ within the region and helping to adapt organisational protocol to suit the local environment. Combined with the assignee’s existing market and organisational knowledge, they can offer a global perspective with local details, bringing considerable potential to build competitive differentiation.

With clarity of objective, you can then consider whether an international assignment is the most appropriate solution . Is it possible to hire or promote locally? Would multiple, shorter trips be as effective in performance terms but with lower cost implications? International assignments demand significant investment and it will be important to assess cost projections against expected return and value to the organisation.

As well as clarity of objectives, a successful international assignment also requires clarity of contractual terms, both to manage the expectations and understanding of the assignee, and also for the mobility team to identify support needs and potential risks. 

Now more than ever, organisations are developing portfolios of mobility programmes to enable an agile approach to global mobility that responds to the organisation’s changing needs for international personnel mobility. Assignments come in increasingly different shapes and sizes, from permanent relocations or temporary exchanges, secondments or transfers to a different region or to a different organisation.

While organisations demand greater flexibility and agility from their global mobility programmes, underpinning the activity should be an appropriate assignment structure with a supporting contractual agreement that enables compliance with regulatory and legal duties.

When considering which structure to adopt, organisations will need to consider a range of factors including the type of assignment and the relevant environmental context such as regulatory, immigration, employment law, tax, pension implications. 

For international assignments, where the employee is moving from the home country employer to a host country employer, the employer could consider a number of assignment structures, including:

• The employee continues to be employed solely by the home employer.
• The employment contract with the home employer is suspended for the duration of the assignment while the employee enters into a new employment contract with the host employer .
• The employment contract with the home employer is terminated with a promise of re-employment at the end of the assignment while the employee enters into a new employment contract with the host employer .
• The employment contract with the home employer is suspended and the employee enters into a contract with an international assignment company (IAC) within the employer group
• The employment contract with the home employer is suspended and the employee enters into a contract with both an IAC and the host country employer.
• The employee remains resident in the home country and works in a host country under a commuter assignment.  

Each type of assignment structure offers advantages and disadvantages which should be considered in light of the individual assignment. For example: 

• Do employment laws in the host country require the assignee to be employed by a local entity? 
• Would the assignee be agreeable to ending their home country contract and starting a new agreement with a new entity in the host country? 
• Are there terms in the home country contract that would need protecting in any new agreement, such as restrictive covenants? 
• Which jurisdiction would prevail, the host or home country? 
• How would local laws interpret a situation where there is no contract of employment with the employer in the host country? 
• Issues such as income and corporate tax, pension and employment rights and responsibilities will need to be identified and assessed against the specific assignment objectives and budget and the assignee profile and circumstances. 

Employment law implications come hand-in-hand with selecting an appropriate assignment structure.

Home-country employment contracts for employees on assignment from the UK to an overseas jurisdiction should generally be interpreted under the laws of England and Wales. If a host country contract is used, there should be specific provision in the agreement to determine which jurisdiction would prevail. However, neither position is guaranteed, for example where issues of domicile arise which may supersede any contractual provisions. Again the need is to assess on an individual assignment basis.

As well as explicit contractual considerations, employers should also be aware of any statutory rights or implied terms under UK law that may continue to apply even in the host country.

Specific provisions may also need to be made to ensure confidentiality and appropriate handling of commercial and sensitive information. While this may be standard or expected for senior employees, those on assignment should also be considered for such terms relevant to the type of assignment and the commercial objectives of the project.

Immigration options

Successful international assignments will invariably require careful consideration of the immigration requirements. Governments across the globe are adopting increasingly protectionist stances towards economic migrants, as policies seek to favour domestic workers. This means business travellers and visa holders are now facing greater scrutiny when applying for work visas and when trying to gain entry at the border. 

Visa options and criteria vary between countries and are subject to frequent change. Where permission is required for the assignee to work in the host country, it will be important to ensure the assignee applies for the most appropriate route to meet the assignment need, whether that is a work permit or a business visitor visa. The immigration requirements and options will be determined in most part by the rules of the home and host countries, the nationality of the assignee (and any of their dependants who will be joining them overseas) and the nature of the activities the assignee intends to perform during their time in the host country. 

For example, a British citizen may be eligible to travel to the US to attend sales meetings and work conferences for up to 90 days  without having to apply for a visa but to conduct ‘gainful employment’ they would need to look at a specific work visa, such as the L-1 visa for intracompany  transfers. 

A further factor will be the specific requirements of the visa or permit. Work visas, for example, may require sponsorship of the employee by a local entity with valid sponsor status. The application process for work visas are typically resource-intensive and in many cases will require the employer to provide compelling evidence as to why the role or work cannot be performed by a worker resident in the host country. 

Preparation will, therefore, be critical, ensuring there is sufficient time to consider the relevant immigration options in light of local rules, and to then make the required application. Complications may also arise where the employee does not meet certain requirements under the local rules, for example if they have a past criminal conviction or negative immigration record. This will require careful handling and, depending on the host country’s rules, may require submission of a visa waiver to explain the issue and provide assurances of the employee’s eligibility by requesting a discretionary decision on the application.

Relocation packages are typically the biggest expense associated with an international assignment. While cost control will remain a concern, it is important for employers to ensure they are offering packages that are competitive within the market and that the package will support both the commercial objective of the assignment and compliance with associated legal and tax risks.

Home-based packages remain common, including those which may be markedly above local market compensation levels, particularly in circumstanecs where the assignment need is business-critical.

It may be possible however to look at offering a lower package than the home-based option, by either localising the package to harmonise with host nation levels or to develop a ‘local-plus’ offering that maintains a degree of competition, but this can be challenging to apply consistently across all assignment types and locations.

Again, consideration should be given to the individual assignment and the assignee. Millennial workers for example are generally understood to value international experience and the remuneration package may not be their primary concern where the opportunity for overseas exposure is available.

For organisations with a substantial cohort of international assignees and travellers, it may be more appropriate to build a compensation scheme specifically for globally-mobile personnel.

Importantly, assignees who will remain under an employment contract in their home country may continue to be subject to home country payroll while on assignment. This will also enable pension and benefits to be offered in the same way through the home country. Taxation, however, raises more complex issues, for example where withholding rules apply in the host country. This will require specialist guidance to ensure tax liabilities in the home and host country are correctly managed and met withiin the appropriate timeframes.

International assignments are demanding on the employer and the employee, but have become critical given the business imperatives to meet talent and development needs and achieve competitive advantage . 

Employers should not lose sight of the need to understand the specific risks of each individual assignment, which increasingly demand bespoke solutions. While compliance , efficiencies and cost control should be underpinned by a solid global mobility infrastructure of policies, systems and procedures, the current shift is away from a uniform approach to assignment management, instead moving towards more agile management of each assignment, shaped by the specific assignment objectives, budget and risks in relation to immigration, tax, remuneration and employment law.

DavidsonMorris’ specialist global mobility consultants provide expert guidance to employers on all aspects of international assignments, from programme management and implementation to strategic consultancy to ensure value and return on the mobility investment. We understand the commercial drivers behind mobilising workers and the need to ensure compliance without impacting return on mobility investment.

We work with senior management teams, HR and mobility professionals to develop strategies that ensure effective compliance risk management while supporting delivery of the organisation’s global mobility objectives. For advice on making the most of international assignments, speak to us .

Founder and Managing Director Anne Morris is a fully qualified solicitor and trusted adviser to large corporates through to SMEs, providing strategic immigration and global mobility advice to support employers with UK operations to meet their workforce needs through corporate immigration.

She is a recognised by Legal 500 and Chambers as a legal expert and delivers Board-level advice on business migration and compliance risk management as well as overseeing the firm’s development of new client propositions and delivery of cost and time efficient processing of applications.

Anne is an active public speaker, immigration commentator , and immigration policy contributor and regularly hosts training sessions for employers and HR professionals

• Anne Morris https://www.davidsonmorris.com/author/anne/ Immigration & Societal Contributions
• Anne Morris https://www.davidsonmorris.com/author/anne/ A Guide to the Study Visa UK System
• Anne Morris https://www.davidsonmorris.com/author/anne/ The Principles of Immigration Sponsorship
• Anne Morris https://www.davidsonmorris.com/author/anne/ The UK Points Based System: A Guide

About DavidsonMorris

As employer solutions lawyers, DavidsonMorris offers a complete and cost-effective capability to meet employers’ needs across UK immigration and employment law, HR and global mobility .

Led by Anne Morris, one of the UK’s preeminent immigration lawyers, and with rankings in The Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners , we’re a multi-disciplinary team helping organisations to meet their people objectives, while reducing legal risk and nurturing workforce relations.

Contact DavidsonMorris

Sign up to our award winning newsletters, we're trusted, trending services.

DavidsonMorris Ltd t/a DavidsonMorris Solicitors is a company Registered in England & Wales No. 6183275

Regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority No. 542691

Registered Office: Level 30, The Leadenhall Building, 122 Leadenhall Street, London, EC3V 4AB

© Copyright 2024

Website design by Prof Services Limited . 

• Book a Speaker

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus convallis sem tellus, vitae egestas felis vestibule ut.

Error message details.

Reuse Permissions

Request permission to republish or redistribute SHRM content and materials.

Managing International Assignments

International assignment management is one of the hardest areas for HR professionals to master—and one of the most costly. The expense of a three-year international assignment can cost millions, yet many organizations fail to get it right. Despite their significant investments in international assignments, companies still report a 42 percent failure rate in these assignments. 1

With so much at risk, global organizations must invest in upfront and ongoing programs that will make international assignments successful. Selecting the right person, preparing the expatriate (expat) and the family, measuring the employee's performance from afar, and repatriating the individual at the end of an assignment require a well-planned, well-managed program. Knowing what to expect from start to finish as well as having some tools to work with can help minimize the risk.

Business Case

As more companies expand globally, they are also increasing international assignments and relying on expatriates to manage their global operations. According to KPMG's 2021 Global Assignment Policies and Practices Survey, all responding multinational organizations offered long-term assignments (typically one to five years), 88 percent offered short-term assignments (typically defined as less than 12 months), and 69 percent offered permanent transfer/indefinite length.

Managing tax and tax compliance, cost containment and managing exceptions remain the three principal challenges in long-term assignment management according to a 2020 Mercer report. 2

Identifying the Need for International Assignment

Typical reasons for an international assignment include the following:

• Filling a need in an existing operation.
• Transferring technology or knowledge to a worksite (or to a client's worksite).
• Developing an individual's career through challenging tasks in an international setting.
• Analyzing the market to see whether the company's products or services will attract clients and users.
• Launching a new product or service.

The goal of the international assignment will determine the assignment's length and help identify potential candidates. See Structuring Expatriate Assignments and the Value of Secondment and Develop Future Leaders with Rotational Programs .

Selection Process

Determining the purpose and goals for an international assignment will help guide the selection process. A technical person may be best suited for transferring technology, whereas a sales executive may be most effective launching a new product or service.

Traditionally, organizations have relied on technical, job-related skills as the main criteria for selecting candidates for overseas assignments, but assessing global mindset is equally, if not more, important for successful assignments. This is especially true given that international assignments are increasingly key components of leadership and employee development.

To a great extent, the success of every expatriate in achieving the company's goals in the host country hinges on that person's ability to influence individuals, groups and organizations that have a different cultural perspective.

Interviews with senior executives from various industries, sponsored by the Worldwide ERC Foundation, reveal that in the compressed time frame of an international assignment, expatriates have little opportunity to learn as they go, so they must be prepared before they arrive. Therefore, employers must ensure that the screening process for potential expatriates includes an assessment of their global mindset.

The research points to three major attributes of successful expatriates:

• Intellectual capital. Knowledge, skills, understanding and cognitive complexity.
• Psychological capital. The ability to function successfully in the host country through internal acceptance of different cultures and a strong desire to learn from new experiences.
• Social capital. The ability to build trusting relationships with local stakeholders, whether they are employees, supply chain partners or customers.

According to Global HR Consultant Caroline Kersten, it is generally understood that global leadership differs significantly from domestic leadership and that, as a result, expatriates need to be equipped with competencies that will help them succeed in an international environment. Commonly accepted global leadership competencies, for both male and female global leaders, include cultural awareness, open-mindedness and flexibility.

In particular, expatriates need to possess a number of vital characteristics to perform successfully on assignment. Among the necessary traits are the following:

• Confidence and self-reliance: independence; perseverance; work ethic.
• Flexibility and problem-solving skills: resilience; adaptability; ability to deal with ambiguity.
• Tolerance and interpersonal skills: social sensitivity; observational capability; listening skills; communication skills.
• Skill at handling and initiating change: personal drivers and anchors; willingness to take risks.

Trends in international assignment show an increase in the younger generation's interest and placement in global assignments. Experts also call for a need to increase female expatriates due to the expected leadership shortage and the value employers find in mixed gender leadership teams. See Viewpoint: How to Break Through the 'Mobility Ceiling' .

Employers can elicit relevant information on assignment successes and challenges by means of targeted interview questions with career expatriates, such as the following:

• How many expatriate assignments have you completed?
• What are the main reasons why you chose to accept your previous expatriate assignments?
• What difficulties did you experience adjusting to previous international assignments? How did you overcome them?
• On your last assignment, what factors made your adjustment to the new environment easier?
• What experiences made interacting with the locals easier?
• Please describe what success or failure means to you when referring to an expatriate assignment.
• Was the success or failure of your assignments measured by your employers? If so, how did they measure it?
• During your last international assignment, do you recall when you realized your situation was a success or a failure? How did you come to that determination?
• Why do you wish to be assigned an international position?

Securing Visas

Once an individual is chosen for an assignment, the organization needs to move quickly to secure the necessary visas. Requirements and processing times vary by country. Employers should start by contacting the host country's consulate or embassy for information on visa requirements. See Websites of U.S. Embassies, Consulates, and Diplomatic Missions .

Following is a list of generic visa types that may be required depending on the nature of business to be conducted in a particular country:

• A work permit authorizes paid employment in a country.
• A work visa authorizes entry into a country to take up paid employment.
• A dependent visa permits family members to accompany or join employees in the country of assignment.
• A multiple-entry visa permits multiple entries into a country.

Preparing for the Assignment

An international assignment agreement that outlines the specifics of the assignment and documents agreement by the employer and the expatriate is necessary. Topics typically covered include:

• Location of the assignment.
• Length of the assignment, including renewal and trial periods, if offered.
• Costs paid by the company (e.g., assignment preparation costs, moving costs for household goods, airfare, housing, school costs, transportation costs while in country, home country visits and security).
• Base salary and any incentives or allowances offered.
• Employee's responsibilities and goals.
• Employment taxes.
• Steps to take in the event the assignment is not working for either the employee or the employer.
• Repatriation.
• Safety and security measures (e.g., emergency evacuation procedures, hazards).

Expatriates may find the reality of foreign housing very different from expectations, particularly in host locations considered to be hardship assignments. Expats will find—depending on the degree of difficulty, hardship or danger—that housing options can range from spacious accommodations in a luxury apartment building to company compounds with dogs and armed guards. See Workers Deal with Affordable Housing Shortages in Dubai and Cairo .

Expats may also have to contend with more mundane housing challenges, such as shortages of suitable housing, faulty structures and unreliable utility services. Analyses of local conditions are available from a variety of sources. For example, Mercer produces Location Evaluation Reports, available for a fee, that evaluate levels of hardship for 14 factors, including housing, in more than 135 locations.

Although many employers acknowledge the necessity for thorough preparation, they often associate this element solely with the assignee, forgetting the other key parties involved in an assignment such as the employee's family, work team and manager.

The expatriate

Consider these points in relation to the assignee:

• Does the employee have a solid grasp of the job to be done and the goals established for that position?
• Does the employee understand the compensation and benefits package?
• Has the employee had access to cultural training and language instruction, no matter how similar the host culture may be?
• Is the employee receiving relocation assistance in connection with the physical move?
• Is there a contact person to whom the employee can go not only in an emergency but also to avoid becoming "out of sight, out of mind"?
• If necessary to accomplish the assigned job duties, has the employee undergone training to get up to speed?
• Has the assignee undergone an assessment of readiness?

To help the expatriate succeed, organizations are advised to invest in cross-cultural training before the relocation. The benefits of receiving such training are that it: 3

• Prepares the individual/family mentally for the move.
• Removes some of the unknown.
• Increases self-awareness and cross-cultural understanding.
• Provides the opportunity to address questions and anxieties in a supportive environment.
• Motivates and excites.
• Reduces stress and provides coping strategies.
• Eases the settling-in process.
• Reduces the chances of relocation failure.

See Helping Expatriate Employees Deal with Culture Shock .

As society has shifted from single- to dual-income households, the priorities of potential expatriates have evolved, as have the policies organizations use to entice employees to assignment locations. In the past, from the candidate's point of view, compensation was the most significant component of the expatriate package. Today more emphasis is on enabling an expatriate's spouse to work. Partner dissatisfaction is a significant contributor to assignment failure. See UAE: Expat Husbands Get New Work Opportunities .

When it comes to international relocation, most organizations deal with children as an afterthought. Factoring employees' children into the relocation equation is key to a successful assignment. Studies show that transferee children who have a difficult time adjusting to the assignment contribute to early returns and unsuccessful completion of international assignments, just as maladjusted spouses do. From school selection to training to repatriation, HR can do a number of things to smooth the transition for children.

Both partners and children must be prepared for relocation abroad. Employers should consider the following:

• Have they been included in discussions about the host location and what they can expect? Foreign context and culture may be more difficult for accompanying family because they will not be participating in the "more secure" environment of the worksite. Does the family have suitable personal characteristics to successfully address the rigors of an international life?
• In addition to dual-career issues, other common concerns include aging parents left behind in the home country and special needs for a child's education. Has the company allowed a forum for the family to discuss these concerns?

The work team

Whether the new expatriate will supervise the existing work team, be a peer, replace a local national or fill a newly created position, has the existing work team been briefed? Plans for a formal introduction of the new expatriate should reflect local culture and may require more research and planning as well as input from the local work team.

The manager/team leader

Questions organization need to consider include the following: Does the manager have the employee's file on hand (e.g., regarding increases, performance evaluations, promotions and problems)? Have the manager and employee engaged in in-depth conversations about the job, the manager's expectations and the employee's expectations?

Mentors play an important role in enhancing a high-performing employee's productivity and in guiding his or her career. In a traditional mentoring relationship, a junior executive has ongoing face-to-face meetings with a senior executive at the corporation to learn the ropes, set goals and gain advice on how to better perform his or her job.

Before technological advances, mentoring programs were limited to those leaders who had the time and experience within the organization's walls to impart advice to a few select people worth that investment. Technology has eliminated those constraints. Today, maintaining a long-distance mentoring relationship through e-mail, telephone and videoconferencing is much easier. And that technology means an employer is not confined to its corporate halls when considering mentor-mentee matches.

The organization

If the company is starting to send more employees abroad, it has to reassess its administrative capabilities. Can existing systems handle complicated tasks, such as currency exchanges and split payrolls, not to mention the additional financial burden of paying allowances, incentives and so on? Often, international assignment leads to outsourcing for global expertise. Payroll, tax, employment law, contractual obligations, among others, warrant an investment in sound professional advice.

Employment Laws

Four major U.S. employment laws have some application abroad for U.S. citizens working in U.S.-based multinationals:

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
• The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).
• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
• The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

Title VII, the ADEA and the ADA are the more far-reaching among these, covering all U.S. citizens who are either:

• Employed outside the United States by a U.S. firm.
• Employed outside the United States by a company under the control of a U.S. firm.

USERRA's extraterritoriality applies to veterans and reservists working overseas for the federal government or a firm under U.S. control. See Do laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act apply to U.S. citizens working in several other countries?

Employers must also be certain to comply with both local employment law in the countries in which they manage assignments and requirements for corporate presence in those countries. See Where can I find international employment law and culture information?

Compensation

Companies take one of the following approaches to establish base salaries for expatriates:

• The home-country-based approach. The objective of a home-based compensation program is to equalize the employee to a standard of living enjoyed in his or her home country. Under this commonly used approach, the employee's base salary is broken down into four general categories: taxes, housing, goods and services, and discretionary income.
• The host-country-based approach. With this approach, the expatriate employee's compensation is based on local national rates. Many companies continue to cover the employee in its defined contribution or defined benefit pension schemes and provide housing allowances.
• The headquarters-based approach. This approach assumes that all assignees, regardless of location, are in one country (i.e., a U.S. company pays all assignees a U.S.-based salary, regardless of geography).
• Balance sheet approach. In this scenario, the compensation is calculated using the home-country-based approach with all allowances, deductions and reimbursements. After the net salary has been determined, it is then converted to the host country's currency. Since one of the primary goals of an international compensation management program is to maintain the expatriate's current standard of living, developing an equitable and functional compensation plan that combines balance and flexibility is extremely challenging for multinational companies. To this end, many companies adopt a balance sheet approach. This approach guarantees that employees in international assignments maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed in their home country. A worksheet lists the costs of major expenses in the home and host countries, and any differences are used to increase or decrease the compensation to keep it in balance.

Some companies also allow expatriates to split payment of their salaries between the host country's and the home country's currencies. The expatriate receives money in the host country's currency for expenses but keeps a percentage of it in the home country currency to safeguard against wild currency fluctuations in either country.

As for handling expatriates taxes, organizations usually take one of four approaches:

• The employee is responsible for his or her own taxes.
• The employer determines tax reimbursement on a case-by-case basis.
• The employer pays the difference between taxes paid in the United States and the host country.
• The employer withholds U.S. taxes and pays foreign taxes.

To prevent an expatriate employee from suffering excess taxation of income by both the U.S. and host countries, many multinational companies implement either a tax equalization or a tax reduction policy for employees on international assignments. Additionally, the United States has entered into  bilateral international social security agreements  with numerous countries, referred to as "totalization agreements," which allow for an exemption of the social security tax in either the home or host country for defined periods of time.

A more thorough discussion of compensation and tax practices for employees on international assignment can be found in SHRM's Designing Global Compensation Systems toolkit.

How do we handle taxes for expatriates?

Can employers pay employees in other countries on the corporate home-country payroll?

Measuring Expatriates' Performance

Failed international assignments can be extremely costly to an organization. There is no universal approach to measuring an expatriate's performance given that specifics related to the job, country, culture and other variables will need to be considered. Employers must identify and communicate clear job expectations and performance indicators very early on in the assignment. A consistent and detailed assessment of an expatriate employee's performance, as well as appraisal of the operation as a whole, is critical to the success of an international assignment. Issues such as the criteria for and timing of performance reviews, raises and bonuses should be discussed and agreed on before the employees are selected and placed on international assignments.

Employees on foreign assignments face a number of issues that domestic employees do not. According to a 2020 Mercer report 4 , difficulty adjusting to the host country, poor candidate selection and spouse or partner's unhappiness are the top three reasons international assignments fail. Obviously, retention of international assignees poses a significant challenge to employers.

Upon completion of an international assignment, retaining the employee in the home country workplace is also challenging. Unfortunately, many employers fail to track retention data of repatriated employees and could benefit from collecting this information and making adjustments to reduce the turnover of employees returning to their home country.

Safety and Security

When faced with accident, injury, sudden illness, a disease outbreak or politically unstable conditions in which personal safety is at risk, expatriate employees and their dependents may require evacuation to the home country or to a third location. To be prepared, HR should have an evacuation plan in place that the expatriate can share with friends, extended family and colleagues both at home and abroad. See Viewpoint: Optimizing Global Mobility's Emergency Response Plans .

Many companies ban travel outside the country in the following circumstances:

• When a travel advisory is issued by the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, International SOS or a government agency.
• When a widespread outbreak of a specific disease occurs or if the risk is deemed too high for employees and their well-being is in jeopardy.
• If the country is undergoing civil unrest or war or if an act of terrorism has occurred.
• If local management makes the decision.
• If the employee makes the decision.

Once employees are in place, the decision to evacuate assignees and dependents from a host location is contingent on local conditions and input from either internal sources (local managers, headquarters staff, HR and the assignee) or external sources (an external security or medical firm) or both. In some cases, each host country has its own set of evacuation procedures.

Decision-makers should consider all available and credible advice and initially transport dependents and nonessential personnel out of the host country by the most expeditious form of travel.

Navigating International Crises

How can an organization ensure the safety and security of expatriates and other employees in high-risk areas?

The Disaster Assistance Improvement Program (DAIP)

Repatriation

Ideally, the repatriation process begins before the expatriate leaves his or her home country and continues throughout the international assignment by addressing the following issues.

Career planning. Many managers are responsible for resolving difficult problems abroad and expect that a well-done job will result in promotion on return, regardless of whether the employer had made such a promise. This possibly unfounded assumption can be avoided by straightforward career planning that should occur in advance of the employee's accepting the international assignment. Employees need to know what impact the expatriate assignment will have on their overall advancement in the home office and that the international assignment fits in their career path.

Mentoring. The expatriate should be assigned a home-office mentor. Mentors are responsible for keeping expatriates informed on developments within the company, for keeping the expatriates' names in circulation in the office (to help avoid the out-of-sight, out-of-mind phenomenon) and for seeing to it that expatriates are included in important meetings. Mentors can also assist the expatriate in identifying how the overseas experience can best be used on return. Optimum results are achieved when the mentor role is part of the mentor's formal job duties.

Communication. An effective global communication plan will help expatriates feel connected to the home office and will alert them to changes that occur while they are away. The Internet, e-mail and intranets are inexpensive and easy ways to bring expatriates into the loop and virtual meeting software is readily available for all employers to engage with global employees. In addition, organizations should encourage home-office employees to keep in touch with peers on overseas assignments. Employee newsletters that feature global news and expatriate assignments are also encouraged.

Home visits. Most companies provide expatriates with trips home. Although such trips are intended primarily for personal visits, scheduling time for the expatriate to visit the home office is an effective method of increasing the expatriate's visibility. Having expatriates attend a few important meetings or make a presentation on their international assignment is also a good way to keep them informed and connected.

Preparation to return home. The expatriate should receive plenty of advance notice (some experts recommend up to one year) of when the international assignment will end. This notice will allow the employee time to prepare the family and to prepare for a new position in the home office. Once the employee is notified of the assignment's end, the HR department should begin working with the expatriate to identify suitable positions in the home office. The expatriate should provide the HR department with an updated resume that reflects the duties of the overseas assignment. The employee's overall career plan should be included in discussions with the HR professional.

Interviews. In addition to home leave, organizations may need to provide trips for the employee to interview with prospective managers. The face-to-face interview will allow the expatriate to elaborate on skills and responsibilities obtained while overseas and will help the prospective manager determine if the employee is a good fit. Finding the right position for the expatriate is crucial to retaining the employee. Repatriates who feel that their new skills and knowledge are underutilized may grow frustrated and leave the employer.

Ongoing recognition of contributions. An employer can recognize and appreciate the repatriates' efforts in several ways, including the following:

• Hosting a reception for repatriates to help them reconnect and meet new personnel.
• Soliciting repatriates' help in preparing other employees for expatriation.
• Asking repatriates to deliver a presentation or prepare a report on their overseas assignment.
• Including repatriates on a global task force and asking them for a global perspective on business issues.

Measuring ROI on expatriate assignments can be cumbersome and imprecise. The investment costs of international assignments can vary dramatically and can be difficult to determine. The largest expatriate costs include overall remuneration, housing, cost-of-living allowances (which sometimes include private schooling costs for children) and physical relocation (the movement to the host country of the employee, the employee's possessions and, often, the employee's family).

But wide variations exist in housing expenses. For example, housing costs are sky-high in Tokyo and London, whereas Australia's housing costs are moderate. Another significant cost of expatriate assignments involves smoothing out differences in pay and benefits between one country and another. Such cost differences can be steep and can vary based on factors such as exchange rates (which can be quite volatile) and international tax concerns (which can be extremely complex).

Once an organization has determined the costs of a particular assignment, the second part of the ROI challenge is calculating the return. Although it is relatively straightforward to quantify the value of fixing a production line in Puerto Rico or of implementing an enterprise software application in Asia, the challenge of quantifying the value of providing future executives with cross-cultural perspectives and international leadership experience can be intimidating.

Once an organization determines the key drivers of its expatriate program, HR can begin to define objectives and assess return that can be useful in guiding employees and in making decisions about the costs they incur as expatriates. Different objectives require different levels and lengths of tracking. Leadership development involves a much longer-term value proposition and should include a thorough repatriation plan. By contrast, the ROI of an international assignment that plugs a skills gap is not negatively affected if the expatriate bolts after successfully completing the engagement.

Additional Resources

International Assignment Management: Expatriate Policy and Procedure

Introduction to the Global Human Resources Discipline

1Mulkeen, D. (2017, February 20). How to reduce the risk of international assignment failure. Communicaid. Retrieved from https://www.communicaid.com/cross-cultural-training/blog/reducing-risk-international-assignment-failure/

2Mercer. (2020). Worldwide Survey of International Assignment Policies and Practices. Retrieved from https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/international-assignments-survey .

3Dickmann, M., & Baruch, Y. (2011). Global careers. New York: Routledge.

4Mercer. (2020). Worldwide Survey of International Assignment Policies and Practices. Retrieved from https://mobilityexchange.mercer.com/international-assignments-survey

Related Articles

Rising Demand for Workforce AI Skills Leads to Calls for Upskilling

As artificial intelligence technology continues to develop, the demand for workers with the ability to work alongside and manage AI systems will increase. This means that workers who are not able to adapt and learn these new skills will be left behind in the job market.

Employers Want New Grads with AI Experience, Knowledge

A vast majority of U.S. professionals say students entering the workforce should have experience using AI and be prepared to use it in the workplace, and they expect higher education to play a critical role in that preparation.

The Pros and Cons of ‘Dry’ Promotions

Hr daily newsletter.

New, trends and analysis, as well as breaking news alerts, to help HR professionals do their jobs better each business day.

Success title

Success caption

Call us today

Intercultural business training.

“…the single greatest barrier to business success is the one erected by culture.” —Edward T. Hall and Mildred Reed Hall

Intercultural training is key to global business success.

Whether you need to relocate an employee abroad on expatriate assignment, prepare your team for new market entry or merger integration, or ensure the effectiveness of your global virtual teams, Cultural Confidence can help your company minimize the risks and maximize the opportunities related to doing business internationally.

Cultural Confidence training helps:

•    Avoid costly misunderstandings, unclosed deals and damaged relationships

•    Reduce failure of international assignments and early return of expatriates

•    Speed up project completion and avoid lag time

•    Increase productivity and ROI

•    Leverage diversity and capitalize on differences

•    Gain a competitive advantage

Our intercultural business training programs specialize in the following areas:

INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS & EXPATRIATE RELOCATION

Living & working successfully as an expatriate.

Foreign assignments can be a major challenge for the assignee, the trailing family, and the company. This training helps international assignees and their families to smoothly adjust to their new life abroad and ensure a successful assignment. By building realistic expectations and developing culture-effective business practices, this guided adaptation will allow assignees to focus on their work, thrive professionally and personally in their new environment, therefore reducing culture shock and chances of premature repatriation.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Working effectively with a diverse workforce & managing expatriate risk.

Domestic success by no means implies success abroad. In fact, only about half of international assignments are judged successful and many assignments end prematurely. The main reason for such failure is not the lack of technical expertise or management skills, but rather cultural myopia and dissatisfaction for the accompanying spouse. Given that expatriate assignments are known as the “million dollar investment”, it is essential to be aware of the challenges and to know how to avoid such failures from the very start.

The focus of this workshop is on two key areas of HR function. Firstly, it aims to equip HR professionals with the intercultural awareness and knowledge necessary to effectively recruit, retain and develop a culturally diverse workforce. Secondly, it will provide crucial insight into the challenges of expatriate assignments from the company, the assignee and family perspectives. This knowledge will allow for an appropriate candidate selection as well as for the ability to provide the right support throughout the expatriation process, thus avoiding culture shock, assignment failure and premature return of expatriates.

GLOBAL VIRTUAL TEAMS

Communicating effectively with global virtual teams.

Global Virtual Teams face a number of complex challenges that are specific to interacting with members from different cultures, communicating via technology rather than face-to-face, as well as to working as a team. This workshop will enhance the effectiveness of global virtual teams by helping members overcome potential conflict due to cultural differences and miscommunications due to accents, colloquialisms and lack of nonverbal cues.

GLOBAL LEADERSHIP

Conducting business successfully across the globe.

This training will help executives dealing with international clients and counterparts to develop a global mindset, gain insight into foreign expectations and business practices, and develop culture-effective skills and strategies that will allow them to conduct business successfully across the globe.

Harnessing Cultural Diversity at the Workplace

Most companies work across cultures even within one office location and beyond the use of unified communications. This workshop helps multicultural local teams to work and communicate more effectively with each other. While enhancing team effectiveness and productivity, this program also helps break down barriers, resolve conflict, promote a healthy work environment and leverage new skills resources.

Our country-specific offerings span the globe and include:

USA · China · India · Brazil · Mexico · Germany · Italy · France · Czech Republic · Vietnam · Korea · and more.

Click here for a sample of our intercultural training programs with a focus on Germany.

Online seminar options are available upon request.

And because no company or individual is the same, we are always happy to custom-tailor our programs to your specific needs. Our clients include:

“The Cultural Confidence course provided much appreciated insight for our team to help us enhance our relationships with our customers and business partners in South America. Anna Katrina provided relevant course content and an engaging approach to the topics. With a challenging team to guide, she navigated us seemingly effortlessly and very professionally through the cultural landscapes that we strive to better understand.”

Kate Hood Major Global Shipping Company

“The training delivered by Anna Katrina certainly exceeded my expectations and gave me the confidence to feel more secure with my new job assignment as well as with living in Germany. The approach of Cultural Confidence prepared me for what was to come and the transition to Germany was seamless. Recommended … ”

Victor Reyes ThyssenKrupp AG

“Multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-talented: Anna Katrina Davey at Cultural Confidence leads seminars and workshops that meet the needs of each participant, stimulates thoughtful discussions that magically play out in missions abroad, and fosters skill development beyond the workshop/seminar description. Anna is engaging and brilliant, but, also sensitive to individual needs and interests of her trainees.”

Catherine MacDermott Professor of Business Communication, St. Edwards University

“Anna Katrina of Cultural Confidence delivered an eye-opening cross cultural workshop. I work with clients from every corner of the globe on a daily basis. Anna Katrina brings professionalism and passion for the intercultural, helping us move beyond our current perceptions. Anna Katrina also tailored the program to match our specific personal and business situation. I was able to instantly apply the new skills learned because of the customized training approach. I highly recommend contacting Anna Katrina if you plan to be successful in communicating across culture boundaries.”

Jaron Banks Alcatel-Lucent

“Riccardo nous a beaucoup apporté dans une approche inter-culturelle entre les Italiens et les Français. Son expérience internationale lui fait aborder les points essentiels d’une relation professionnelle internationale respectant les valeurs culturelles des acteurs nationaux. Beaucoup d’intelligence en plus !… Merci de cette belle rencontre !…”

Jean-Paul Bellec Thales Alenia Space

“Anna Katrina Davey and her consultants at Cultural Confidence provided our senior sales and marketing executives with a truly insightful intercultural training program on doing business with Latin America. It explained the issues I’ve encountered in my interactions with Latin American counterparts and helped us understand the preferred communication styles and business practices of the different countries in the region.”

VP Marketing Major Medical Device Company

“My family and I have recently relocated to Hamburg, Germany, as part of a new business opportunity. FMC contracted with Cultural Confidence (formerly Across Cultures) to provide cultural awareness training to support our transition process.

Anna Katrina’s experience, intelligence and communication skills have significantly aided in the transfer of her personal experiences to my family’s situation. We have utilized the material and information literally every day. Anna Katrina’s enthusiastic and first hand knowledge and communication skill have been a big part of a fulfilling experience.”

Clinton Metcalf FMC Technologies

“The cross-cultural training was not only informative, but most importantly, thought-provoking. Anna Katrina furthermore made it fun and interesting. As we depart for Beijing, we feel confident, prepared for the assignment, and ready to experience a fascinating new culture. Great program!”

Rich Garrity ThyssenKrupp China Ltd.

“The cultural orientation provided by Anna Katrina Davey gave me a much better idea about what to expect once I moved to Germany as well as confidence when working in my new environment.”

Ivan Mejia Adidas

Short-term Assignments

This online course provides a deep dive into all aspects of compensation and benefits, tax governance, immigration compliance and payroll considerations for short-term international assignments.

Short-term assignments (STAs) are evolving to become an essential means of moving talent for a wide range of purposes. For both employer and employee, they can also help to overcome mobility barriers typically associated with long-term assignments. However, short-term assignments have many tricky nuances and management of these can pose a major challenge for mobility teams.

Taught across five interactive modules, our online course will guide you through the basic principles of short-term assignments, and how to structure remuneration packages and navigate the various compliance challenges. By the end of course, you will have acquired the practical knowledge needed to deliver successful, compliant and cost-effective STAs.

Providing an engaging learning experience, this self-paced training incorporates case studies, quizzes and exercises to help cement your learning, which can be completed in your own time, from anywhere. 

Who this course is for and fees

Our online course is available to in-house mobility/HR teams or colleagues involved in managing their company's short-term assignments. Perfect for anyone new to mobility as well as those wanting to refresh their knowledge of all aspects of remuneration and compliance for STAs.

Course access and duration

The course is accessed via MyECA. Please sign in* to view your regional currency and to purchase the course (fees subject to tax, where applicable):

GBP 190 EUR 260 USD 310 AUD 390

*Don't have a MyECA account? Please sign up and select "I'd like to purchase online training". 

Offering excellent value for money, we provide access to the course for 90 days. Learners are given the opportunity to complete the modules at their own pace, with time to revisit topics and browse the additional resources listed to further aid their understanding. Experienced HR professionals looking to refresh and fill any gaps in their knowledge could run through the core learning content in around two hours.

Course content

Five bite-size modules to guide you through the key principles of delivering successful short-term assignments:

Topic 1: Background & context

Get to grips with the different types of short-term international work and their nuances

Topic 2: Compensation

Master the different types of allowances typically paid (incl. COLAs, per diems, and short-term allowances)

Topic 3: Support & benefits

Gain awareness of the typical relocation support and assignment benefits offered 

Topic 4: Payroll considerations

Become familiar with payroll considerations and how to deliver short-term assignment pay

Topic 5: Compliance considerations

Grasp how to navigate compliance challenges such as immigration and taxation for STAs

Buy training

Please sign in to register online for this course.

Terms and conditions

Access to ECA’s online training is subject to ECA’s Terms and Conditions for Consulting Services which can be found here .

One user per licence only. Refunds for yet to be started courses, or substitution of users is at the discretion of ECA. The course will remain open for a duration of 90 days from the first access.

The registration data you submit is for ECA’s use only as detailed according to our Privacy Policy .

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

A Successful International Assignment Depends on These Factors

• Boris Groysberg
• Robin Abrahams

Your marriage, your family, and your career will all benefit from advance planning.

The prospect of an international assignment can be equal parts thrilling and alarming: Will it make or break your career? What will it do to your life at home and the people you love? When you’re thinking about relocating, you start viewing questions of work and family — difficult enough under ordinary circumstances — through a kind of high-contrast, maximum-drama filter.

• BG Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School and a faculty affiliate at the school’s Race, Gender & Equity Initiative. He is the coauthor, with Colleen Ammerman, of Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021). bgroysberg
• Robin Abrahams is a research associate at Harvard Business School.

Partner Center

Compensation and Benefits: Essentials of International Assignment Management

• Reference work entry
• First Online: 28 April 2016
• Cite this reference work entry

• Juergen Czajor 2  

14k Accesses

Internationalization became an essential strategic dimension for companies to ensure profitable growth. International assignments play an important role to implement this strategy. As a consequence the number of international assignees is growing year by year; they work as interface manager between headquarters and branch office, as cultural ambassador, or as technical specialist to transfer knowledge. For ambitious and open candidates, a position in a foreign country and in a different culture can be an interesting step to further develop their professional career. International assignment management first of all needs a policy framework, defining the compensation and benefit package, especially the typical assignment allowances depending on distance to the home country and hardship of the host country. The administration of international assignments secondly requires standardized processes for all phases of an assignment, from selection to reintegration and with clear allocation of roles and responsibilities between all human resources partners involved. Organizations exchanging bigger numbers of specialists and executives between several countries work with centralized assignment management teams, who cooperate with local HR in the host countries and often use external partners for relocation, social security, payroll, and taxation to manage this complex task.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammer in Japan (DIHKJ) –Auditor – (2007) Expatriate versus Local, Vor- und Nachteile von Expatriates in japanischen Tochtergesellschaften deutscher Unternehmen. http://japan.ahk.de

Kast S (2010) Mapping the successful expatriation process. Diploma thesis at Eberhard – Karls – Universitaet Tuebingen

Google Scholar  

Morlok E, Dolles H (2005) Die Auslandsentsendung aus Sicht der mitreisenden Familie. JAPANMARKT Januar 2005 und Februar 2005

Sedlmayer S (2009) Expatriates – Eine kritische Betrachtung aus organisationaler Perspektive. Thesis at Universitaet der Bundeswehr Muenchen

Weber S (2010) Implementierung westlicher Standards an einem neuen Unternehmensstandort als Voraussetzung fuer den internationalen Mitarbeitereinsatz. Diploma thesis at Hochschule Pforheim

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Daimler Greater China, Beijing, China

Juergen Czajor

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Juergen Czajor .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Johnson Electric International, Murten, Switzerland

Matthias Zeuch

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Czajor, J. (2016). Compensation and Benefits: Essentials of International Assignment Management. In: Zeuch, M. (eds) Handbook of Human Resources Management. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44152-7_73

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44152-7_73

Published : 28 April 2016

Publisher Name : Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

Print ISBN : 978-3-662-44151-0

Online ISBN : 978-3-662-44152-7

eBook Packages : Business and Management Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Share this entry

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• Online International Programs
• Certificate Programs for International Students
• Study Abroad Programs
• Student Support
• Housing & Campus Life
• International Corporate and Custom Programs

Broaden your horizons with UCLA Extension's Online International Programs.

UCLA Extension is home to hundreds of online courses and programs. International students from around the world enroll in classes that combine top-tier academics with practical, real-world applications. With online learning through UCLA Extension, you can upgrade your current skills — or explore an entirely new area of interest — with flexibility and convenience.

Anytime 24/7 access to materials and interactive course elements, means you can study when you have time.

Anywhere Log in and learn from anywhere. At home or on the go. Desktop, tablet, or mobile. 

Expertise Courses are taught by experts in their field and focus on real-world applications.

Community Connect and engage with students across the country and around the world.

• How to Apply

Attending online international programs as an international student is easy.

• Fall quarter
• Winter quarter
• Spring quarter
• Summer quarter
• Step 2: If you're planning on completing a full UCLA Extension Certificate, pay the Certificate candidacy fee (varies by program)
• Step 3: Enroll in classes (see the Academic Calendar for enrollment dates and quarter start and end dates)

Online International Programs Fee

Your payment of the Online International Program Fee ($500) will allow you to enroll in online courses at UCLA Extension. This fee is in addition to the cost of individual classes.

The Online International Programs Fee gives you access to exclusive UCLA benefits that may include:

• Career services, including resume, interview, cover letter, and LinkedIn prep; networking opportunities; career coaching, exploration, and guidance
• Access to UCLAxOpen  — dozens of professional and personal development seminars, offered online at no cost
• Guidance from the International Programs - Global Education Office (IP-GEO) for help transferring to on-campus study at UCLA Extension
• Exclusive webinars and workshops for online international students

The instructors and support providers had a personalized approach, facilitating my interest in styling assignments to address the populations I serve. At UCLA Extension, I truly feel like an individual, not just number in a digital course space.

What will you study?

Explore individual courses or fully-online certificate programs.

How Online Learning Works

Log into Canvas , our easy-to-use, cloud-based learning management system using your web browser or the Canvas mobile app. Review the course syllabus, connect with classmates in the discussion portal and begin your studies. If your course utilizes Zoom, you will have access to the link for your course through Canvas.

• Retrieve course materials, which may include discussion boards, readings and videos, webinars, and other activities.
• Connect with your instructor with questions about your assignments, your progress, or to gain deeper insights on various topics.
• Submit your coursework via Canvas for feedback and evaluation. Contact 24/7 technical support if you need assistance with using Canvas.

Technical Requirements

Students must have basic computer skills, including the use of word processing software, email, and the ability to use internet browsers, such as Safari, Firefox, or Chrome. Students are responsible for meeting the technical requirements of Canvas and familiarizing themselves with the Canvas Learning Management System.

• Basic computer specifications for Canvas
• Browsers supported by Canvas

Students are also responsible for keeping a copy of all assignments and work submitted, and for being aware of all assignments, due dates, and course guidelines.

Resources for Online Learning

Online Learning Formats

Online:  Course content is delivered weekly through an online learning platform where you can engage with your instructor and classmates at your convenience. Assignments are due regularly, but there are no required class meetings. Optional office hours with the instructor are offered through Zoom. This flexible learning format allows you to access course content anywhere, anytime, on your schedule.

Live Online:  All class meetings are scheduled and held in real-time using Zoom, allowing for live interaction with your classmates and instructors. Course materials can be accessed any time through an online learning platform.

Hybrid:  A blend of remote and online instruction, this learning format features some scheduled, live class meetings using Zoom and some pre-recorded instruction, activities, discussion boards, or other course materials accessible through an online learning platform where you can connect with your instructor and classmates. Note: For hybrid courses, please ensure the class you are enrolling in does not have in-person sessions.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Yes. This Online International Program Fee is required for international students who enroll in one or more online course. Even if you only enroll in one online course, you will need to pay this fee. Course fees are in addition to the Online International Program fee.

Browse available courses in our course catalog . Ensure the course you want is offered in Remote or Online status.

We're excited to welcome you on campus! If you would like to apply to attend UCLA Extension in person in Los Angeles, California, you may do so on our website . There are approximately forty F-1 visa-granting certificate programs that are offered in person. It is possible to take courses from one of these programs online and complete the certificate in person.

Please consult with the International Programs Office for more information.

No. If you are studying with UCLA Extension remotely, you are not eligible for an F-1 visa.

Corporate Education

Learn how we can help your organization meet its professional development goals and corporate training needs.

Donate to UCLA Extension

Support our many efforts to reach communities in need.

Innovation Programs

Student Scholarships

Coding Boot Camp

Lifelong Learning

• Accounting & Taxation
• Architecture & Interior Design
• Business & Management
• Design & Arts
• Digital Technology
• Engineering
• Entertainment
• Environmental Studies & Public Policy
• Finance & Investments
• Health Care & Counseling
• Humanities & Social Sciences
• Landscape Architecture & Horticulture
• Legal Programs
• Osher (OLLI)
• Real Estate
• Sciences & Math
• Writing & Journalism
• Specializations
• Online Courses
• Transfer Credit Courses
• Conferences & Boot Camps
• Custom Programs & Corporate Education
• Instruction Methods
• Environmental Studies
• Accounting Fundamentals
• Business and Management of Entertainment
• College Counseling
• Data Science
• Digital Marketing
• Feature Film Writing
• Human Resources Management
• Marketing with Concentration in Digital Marketing
• Personal Financial Planning
• Project Management
• Sustainability
• User Experience
• Payment Options
• How to Purchase Parking
• Enrollment Conditions
• Concurrent and Cross-Enrollment Programs
• Bruin ID Cards
• UCLA Recreation
• Course Drops, Transfers, and Withdrawals
• Accessibility & Disability Services
• Textbooks & Libraries
• Financial Aid
• Scholarships
• Military & Veterans Benefits
• Tuition Discounts
• Tax Advantages
• Grading Scale
• Credit Options
• Course Numbers
• Transcripts and Enrollment Confirmation
• Receiving Your Academic Credentials
• Instructors & Staff
• Parking & Lodging
• Keynote Speaker
• Career Resources
• Alumni Benefits
• Rights and Responsibilities
• Career Services
• Featured Jobs
• Browse Certificate Programs
• Certificate vs. Master’s Degrees
• Dates and Fees
• Academic Requirements
• OPT, CPT, and Internships
• Upon Completing Your Certificate
• Hummel Scholarship
• Program Details
• International Student Services Office
• New Student Orientation
• Maintaining Your F-1 Visa
• Health Insurance
• Academic Advising
• Frequently Asked Questions
• UCLA Campus Amenities & Activities
• Daily Needs
• Public Transportation
• Request a Proposal
• Board of Advisors
• Instructors
• Join Our Team
• Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
• Accreditation
• Student Home
• Canvas Log In
• Student Log In
• Instructor Log In

Cookie Policy

We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience, including personalizing content and to store your content preferences. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies. Read our privacy policy .

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons
• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

18.7: The International Assignment

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 12588

Learning Objectives

• Describe how to prepare for an international assignment.
• Discuss the acculturation process as an expatriate.
• Describe effective strategies for living and working abroad.

Suppose you have the opportunity to work or study in a foreign country. You may find the prospect of an international assignment intriguing, challenging, or even frightening; indeed, most professionals employed abroad will tell you they pass through all three stages at some point during the assignment. They may also share their sense of adjustment, even embrace of their host culture, and the challenges of reintegration into their native country.

An international assignment, whether as a student or a career professional, requires work and preparation, and should be given the time and consideration of any major life change. When you lose a loved one, it takes time to come to terms with the loss. When someone you love is diagnosed with a serious illness, the news may take some time to sink in. When a new baby enters your family, a period of adjustment is predictable and prolonged. All these major life changes can stress an individual beyond their capacity to adjust. Similarly, in order to be a successful “expat,” or expatriate, one needs to prepare mentally and physically for the change.

International business assignments are a reflection of increased global trade, and as trade decreases, they may become an expensive luxury. As technology allows for instant face-to-face communication, and group collaboration on documents via cloud computing and storage, the need for physical travel may be reduced. But regardless of whether your assignment involves relocation abroad, supervision of managers in another country at a distance, or supervision by a foreign manager, you will need to learn more about the language, culture, and customs that are not your own. You will need to compare and contrast, and seek experiences that lend insight, in order to communicate more effectively.

An efficient, effective manager in any country is desirable, but one with international experience even more so. You will represent your company and they will represent you, including a considerable financial investment, either by your employer (in the case of a professional assignment) or by whoever is financing your education (in the case of studying abroad). That investment should not be taken lightly. As many as 40 percent of foreign-assigned employees terminate their assignments early (Tu, H. and Sullivan, S., 1994), at a considerable cost to their employers. Of those that remain, almost 50 percent are less than effective (Tu, H. and Sullivan, S., 1994).

Preparation

With this perspective in mind, let’s discuss how to prepare for the international assignment and strategies to make you a more effective professional as a stranger in a strange land. First we’ll dispel a couple of myths associated with an idealized or romantic view of living abroad. Next we’ll examine traits and skills of the successful expatriate. Finally, we’ll examine culture shock and the acculturation process.

Your experience with other cultures may have come firsthand, but for most, a foreign location like Paris is an idea formed from exposure to images via the mass media. Paris may be known for its art, as a place for lovers, or as a great place to buy bread. But if you have only ever known about a place through the lens of a camera, you have only seen the portraits designed and portrayed by others. You will lack the multidimensional view of one who lives and works in Paris, and even if you are aware of its history, its economic development, or its recent changes, these are all academic observations until the moment of experience.

That is not to say that research does not form a solid foundation in preparation for an international assignment, but it does reinforce the distinction between a media-fabricated ideal and real life. Awareness of this difference is an important step as you prepare yourself for life in a foreign culture.

If the decision is yours to make, take your time. If others are involved, and family is a consideration, you should take even more care with this important decision. Residence abroad requires some knowledge of the language, an ability to adapt, and an interest in learning about different cultures. If family members are not a part of the decision, or lack the language skills or interest, the assignment may prove overwhelming and lead to failure. Sixty-four percent of expatriate respondents who terminated their assignment early indicated that family concerns were the primary reason (Contreras, C. D., 2009).

Points to consider include the following:

• How flexible are you?
• Do you need everything spelled out or can you go with the flow?
• Can you adapt to new ways of doing business?
• Are you interested in the host culture and willing to dedicate the time and put forth the effort to learn more about it?
• What has been your experience to date working with people from distinct cultures?
• What are your language skills at present, and are you interested in learning a new language?
• Is your family supportive of the assignment?
• How will it affect your children’s education? Your spouse’s career? Your career?
• Will this assignment benefit your family?
• How long are you willing to commit to the assignment?
• What resources are available to help you prepare, move, and adjust?
• Can you stand being out of the loop, even if you are in daily written and oral communication with the home office?
• What is your relationship with your employer, and can it withstand the anticipated stress and tension that will result as not everything goes according to plan?
• Is the cultural framework of your assignment similar to—or unlike—your own, and how ready are you to adapt to differences in such areas as time horizon, masculinity versus femininity, or direct versus indirect styles of communication?

This list of questions could continue, and feel free to add your own as you explore the idea of an international assignment. An international assignment is not like a domestic move or reassignment. Within the same country, even if there are significantly different local customs in place, similar rules, laws, and ways of doing business are present. In a foreign country, you will lose those familiar traditions and institutions and have to learn many new ways of accomplishing your given tasks. What once took a five-minute phone call may now take a dozen meetings and a month to achieve, and that may cause you some frustration. It may also cause your employer frustration as you try to communicate how things are done locally, and why results are not immediate, as they lack even your limited understanding of your current context. Your relationship with your employer will experience stress, and your ability to communicate your situation will require tact and finesse.

Successful expatriates are adaptable, open to learning new languages, cultures, and skilled at finding common ground for communication. Rather than responding with frustration, they learn the new customs and find the advantage to get the job done. They form relationships and are not afraid to ask for help when it is warranted or required. They feel secure in their place as explorer, and understand that mistakes are a given, even as they are unpredictable. Being a stranger is no easy task, but they welcome the challenge with energy and enthusiasm.

Acculturation Process

Acculturation, or the transition to living abroad, is often described as an emotional rollercoaster. Steven Rhinesmith provides ten steps that show the process of acculturation, including culture shock, that you may experience:

• Initial anxiety
• Initial elation
• Initial culture shock
• Superficial adjustment
• Depression-frustration
• Acceptance of host culture
• Return anxiety
• Return elation
• Reentry shock
• Reintegration

Humans fear the unknown, and even if your tolerance for uncertainty is high, you may experience a degree of anxiety in anticipation of your arrival. At first the “honeymoon” period is observed, with a sense of elation at all the newfound wonders. You may adjust superficially at first, learning where to get familiar foods or new ways to meet your basic needs. As you live in the new culture, divergence will become a trend and you’ll notice many things that frustrate you. You won’t anticipate the need for two hours at a bank for a transaction that once took five minutes, or could be handled over the Internet, and find that businesses close during midday, preventing you from accomplishing your goals. At this stage, you will feel that living in this new culture is simply exhausting. Many expats advise that this is the time to tough it out—if you give in to the temptation to make a visit back home, you will only prolong your difficult adjustment.

Over time, if you persevere, you will come to accept and adjust to your host culture, and learn how to accomplish your goals with less frustration and ease. You may come to appreciate several cultural values or traits and come to embrace some aspects of your host culture. At some point, you will need to return to your first, or home, culture, but that transition will bring a sense of anxiety. People and places change, the familiar is no longer so familiar, and you too have changed. You may once again be elated at your return and the familiar, and experience a sense of comfort in home and family, but culture shock may again be part of your adjustment. You may look at your home culture in a new way and question things that are done in a particular way that you have always considered normal. You may hold onto some of the cultural traits you adopted while living abroad, and begin the process of reintegration.

You may also begin to feel that the “grass is greener” in your host country, and long to return. Expatriates are often noted for “going native,” or adopting the host culture’s way of life, but even the most confirmed expats still gather to hear the familiar sound of their first language, and find community in people like themselves who have blended cultural boundaries on a personal level.

Living and Working Abroad

In order to learn to swim you have to get in the water, and all the research and preparation cannot take the place of direct experience. Your awareness of culture shock may help you adjust, and your preparation by learning some of the language will assist you, but know that living and working abroad take time and effort. Still, there are several guidelines that can serve you well as you start your new life in a strange land:

• Be open and creative . People will eat foods that seem strange or do things in a new way, and your openness and creativity can play a positive role in your adjustment. Staying close to your living quarters or surrounding yourself with similar expats can limit your exposure to and understanding of the local cultures. While the familiar may be comfortable, and the new setting may be uncomfortable, you will learn much more about your host culture and yourself if you make the effort to be open to new experiences. Being open involves getting out of your comfort zone.
• Be self-reliant . Things that were once easy or took little time may now be challenging or consume your whole day. Focus on your ability to resolve issues, learn new ways to get the job done, and be prepared to do new things.
• Keep a balanced perspective . Your host culture isn’t perfect. Humans aren’t perfect, and neither was your home culture. Each location and cultural community has strengths you can learn from if you are open to them.
• Be patient . Take your time, and know a silent period is normal. The textbook language classes only provide a base from which you will learn how people who live in the host country actually communicate. You didn’t learn to walk in a day and won’t learn to successfully navigate this culture overnight either.
• Be a student and a teacher . You are learning as the new member of the community, but as a full member of your culture, you can share your experiences as well.
• Be an explorer . Get out and go beyond your boundaries when you feel safe and secure. Traveling to surrounding villages, or across neighboring borders, can expand your perspective and help you learn.
• Protect yourself . Always keep all your essential documents, money, and medicines close to you, or where you know they will be safe. Trying to source a medicine in a country where you are not fluent in the language, or where the names of remedies are different, can be a challenge. Your passport is essential to your safety and you need to keep it safe. You may also consider vaccination records, birth certificates, or business documents in the same way, keeping them safe and accessible. You may want to consider a “bug-out bag,” with all the essentials you need, including food, water, keys, and small tools, as an essential part of planning in case of emergency.

Key Takeaways

Preparation is key to a successful international assignment. Living and working abroad takes time, effort, and patience.

• Research one organization in a business or industry that relates to your major and has an international presence. Find a job announcement or similar document that discusses the business and its international activities. Share and compare with classmates.
• Conduct a search on expat networks including online forum. Briefly describe your findings and share with classmates.
• What would be the hardest part of an overseas assignment for you and why? What would be the easiest part of an overseas assignment for you and why?
• Find an advertisement for an international assignment. Note the qualifications, and share with classmates.
• Find an article or other first-person account of someone’s experience on an international assignment. Share your results with your classmates.

Contreras, C. D. (2009). Should you accept the international assignment? BNET . Retrieved from findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5350/is_200308/ai_n21334696.

Rhinesmith, S. (1984). Returning home . Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Bureau for International Education.

Tu, H., & Sullivan, S. (1994). Business horizons . Retrieved from findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_nl_v37/ai_14922926.

• Global Payroll Week
• Payroll Congress
• Publications & Resources /
• Global Payroll Magazine /
• February 2016 Issue /
• Features: The Role of Payroll in an International Assignment Lifecycle

The Role of Payroll in an International Assignment Lifecycle

By   Ronii Rizzo and  Bradley Veltkamp

Payroll’s Port of Entry

What types of hurdles can be avoided by the payroll department having a seat at the table during the pre-assignment planning stage? A full review of the facts and circumstances of the assignment can help determine if a split payroll or shadow payroll is needed. Additionally (and most importantly), early conversations can determine if a payroll department/vendor exists in the host location to assist with local requirements, or if this needs to be established in advance of the assignment initiation. 

So how can careful attention to pre-assignment planning impact the “go-live” stage? A lack of knowledge about a new assignment can lead to confusion when initiation is under way, such as when the company gives instructions to add an allowance or make other adjustments to someone’s pay. Last-minute requests can result in a mad scramble as payroll professionals try to understand what the new instructions mean, how the changes will impact the net pay, and whether the payroll platform is set up to support such an arrangement. 

Other considerations that arise during initiation include how the employee is set up within HR systems and whether payroll has the appropriate codes for items that may include hypothetical tax deductions, cost-of-living allowances, and pre- or after-tax housing contributions. The number of assignees and types of assignments a company has established can also influence initiation considerations. Thoughtfully and diligently reviewing these items during the assignment planning stage tends to lead to a streamlined assignment initiation with significantly fewer errors, less confusion, and less frustration.

As the lifecycle of the assignment moves beyond the initiation phase, payroll will, ideally, need less month-to-month attention as the proper set up is complete. The department focus can shift to providing insightful data to various stakeholders within the company’s global mobility program. This can include, but is not limited to, assignment cost reports to senior leaders and full compensation breakdowns for use in preparation of tax returns. Of course, in order to be able to produce these strategic reports, there must be a process in place to gather evidence of all expenses or payments made outside of payroll for analysis of the reporting requirements within payroll. This is best done in partnership with various departments and/or vendors including the company’s payroll provider (if an external provider is used), tax advisors, and any relocation partners the company has. The more frequent the collection of non-payroll-initiated costs occurs, the more useful the payroll department can be when reports are needed. Many companies are beginning to complete this collection quarterly as opposed to yearly.

Ongoing Monitoring Into Repatriation Planning and Beyond

Payroll’s responsibilities during the actual assignment do not stop at reporting. In fact, payroll leads need to continually monitor the pay records for all assignees on a routine basis. For example, in many large organizations, bonuses and other incentive payments are processed through software programs that feed directly into the payroll system. During the course of this feed, do not miss the opportunity to review the need for what, if any, actual or hypothetical taxes should be taken from the payment. Skipping this step may result in an absence of any tax withholding on the compensation and, in turn, likely leave the employee short of his or her annual tax obligations.

Clearly, payroll is an integral part of a company’s extended global mobility team and should be a part of every phase of an assignment. This does not end with the delivery of payroll each pay period or after reports are provided but continues into repatriation planning and even beyond. When it comes to expatriate payroll, there is not always a clear stop. Even after an assignment ends, continue to focus on the collection of expenses incurred outside of payroll and then determine where and how to impute these into payroll. Often, certain assignment-related expenses such as payment of foreign taxes or a tax equalization payment can be seen two or three years after an assignment ends. In addition, a number of questions may arise when an employee repatriates. If the employee moves to a different pay group, do these expenses hit the assignment-related pay group or the new pay group? What happens with an individual’s social taxes if reporting on multiple pay groups? If the repatriated assignee owes money to the company on a tax settlement a few years later, how is this recorded in payroll—or should it be? The more integrated payroll is with a company’s global mobility group and other key stakeholders, the more clarity can be brought to these situations.

The same can be said when looking at the final step in the lifecycle of an assignment. Post-assignment planning may not be seen to be the most important step, but it is critical to the overall success of a company’s global mobility strategy. All stakeholders should come together after an assignment ends to review and discuss what worked and didn’t work to determine how processes need to evolve to improve the program. Again, the payroll department needs to be a valued partner at the table for these conversations so that its expertise is considered when identifying opportunities for new process improvements or other enhancements. 

As global mobility becomes more of a strategic function within an organization and stakeholders become more aware of the complexities of having a global workforce, it becomes increasingly apparent that not all assignments are the same and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. As such, all expertise from within an organization, including the involvement of the payroll department, stands to play an even bigger role throughout the lifecycle of an international assignment. 

In summary, payroll plays an important role in all phases of the lifecycle of an assignment:

• Pre-Assignment Planning —Where should pay be delivered? What needs to be reported and where? Do you need to operate shadow payroll or a split payroll? Is the payroll platform set up to handle the assignment? 
• Assignment Initiation —Is set-up done correctly throughout the system? What will impact actual tax withholding/social security? Are they exempt? 
• Annual Ongoing Support —When will expense data be collected and imputed? Will you provide cost reports/compensation breakdowns? What other payments are being made to the assignee, and is different processing required? 
• Repatriation Planning —Review the employee’s set-up again. Is the employee now subject to actual withholding again? Where do trailing expenses get reported?
• Post-Assignment Planning —What worked? What needs to improve? Are other options for delivery and reporting worth considering?

Overall, communication and integration are keys to an effective program. Partnership among a company’s internal groups and key external vendors will go a long way in ensuring a successful lifecycle of an assignment

SA.310 (International Economics)

The objective of the course is for students to learn about the global financial services industry and to equip them with the content and skills necessary to obtain professional employment in financial services, industry in general, or the public sector. The course combines academic teachings with business school cases in “traditional” global financial services, as well as “Fintech”. It emphasizes three areas: Gaining fundamental knowledge of corporate business strategy; Understanding how global financial institutions execute (or fail to execute) their strategies; Developing students’ commercial skills, such as communications, presentation skills and teaming. The class is highly participatory. The work is demanding. Students are urged to review the syllabus in detail. Corporate finance or Financial Decision-Making is recommended as a prerequisite. Please contact me ([email protected]) if you have questions.

A detailed summary of microeconomic theory using calculus with a focus on policy issues. Highlights the key microeconomic issues related to international economics issues. Much more rigorous, analytic and mathematical than current MA course. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

A mathematical presentation of open economy macroeconomic models of short/long term equilibrium and growth. A review of monetary/fiscal policy as well as measurement issues. More focus on models and quantifying impacts rather than just shifting of curves as with current MA course.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Presentation of the classic and modern models of trade between countries and the issues related to trade policy in the global economy. More detailed, analytic and mathematical than current MA course. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This course aims to equip students to analyze sustainable finance and impact investing and become current with the range of current approaches being pursued. The class will be in seminar format and students will be expected to participate actively in class.

“Basically, the 19th century was the age of return (the main question being, how much will the investment bring me?), the 20th century was the age of risk-return (will the return on my investment be enough to justify the risk I take?); and the 21st century appears to be the age of risk-return-impact (how much am I risking, how much can I earn, and what is my impact?)” - Bertrand Badre, Can Finance Save the World? (2018).Bertrand wrote this in the context of the challenge facing the financial system post the 2007-2009 financial crisis; and the recognition by governments across the world that the attainment of the SDGs will only be possible with innovation in financial markets, and a massive partnership with the sources of private capital.The financial consequences of the Covid 19 pandemic are still unfolding, but it is clear that limited public resources will be stretched further. Governments, especially in developing countries, need closer collaboration with private and international capital to explore nontraditional mechanisms to finance crucial development projects.This course explores the role that Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) have today. To be effective in mobilizing capital requires that DFIs fully understand what providers of capital are looking for, and the fiduciary responsibility they have towards those whose savings they manage. The course will enable students to understand key mechanisms and instruments used by DFIs, the role of governments, private capital providers and different institutions and emerging trends in international development finance. The course will build on theoretical foundations of corporate finance and project finance to help students unpack the approaches to development financing design and structuring.The course takes a mixed approach of teaching concepts, case studies and hands-on assignments to help students build analytical skills required to launch a career in International Development Finance.

The course provides a comprehensive treatment of policy issues arising in the organization and regulation of infrastructure ranging from regulation of market structure, choices of ownership (and partnerships) and regulation of market conduct to implications for finance. Most examples are drawn from telecommunications, electricity, transport and water. A multitude of country cases (including current policy debates) from across the globe demonstrate how basic principles interact with politics to yield a plethora of institutional incarnations and insights into variants of “state capitalism” at work. MIEF students only.

This course develops financial modeling skills through actual hands-on construction of a financial model. Each participant will build his/her own interactive financial model from scratch to practice blending accounting, finance and Excel skills.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Traditional economic theory tends to avoid interactive influences among decision-makers. Game theory focuses on analyzing the effects of interaction among individuals and groups with competing and conflicting goals. The course covers cooperative and noncooperative game theory, explaining the nature and selection of pure and mixed strategies, the various equilibrium concepts used and the theory’s relationship to traditional optimization analysis. Draws examples from microeconomic theory, international trade and trade policy, arms control, international relations as well as other fields. The course is self-contained with respect to mathematics content. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only. Prerequisite: Microeconomics.

The course will introduce a range of topics in labor economics, including theories of labor supply and labor demand, labor market equilibrium, unemployment, investments in education and training, discrimination, patterns of inequality, and technological progress and inequality. After working through theory, we will discuss applications to important public policy issues including minimum wage and employment protection laws, international trade and labor markets, active labor market policies (both motivations for and performance of different strategies for helping unemployed workers find jobs), social insurance systems and their influence on the labor market, and retirement decisions and the labor market in aging economies. Applications to policy questions will provide insight into how labor supply and labor demand decisions differ across the institutional and economic contexts of lower-, middle- and upper-income economies.Taught by John Giles

This is a survey course covering issues in international financial markets. We will cover various markets and financial instruments, including bonds and bond markets, an introduction to derivatives and structured financial products. We also cover the theory of investment, including modern portfolio theory, behavioral finance, fat-tailed distributions/Black Swans and efficient market theory. Finally, we close the course with a selective history of financial crises, which also introduce basic issues related to financial intermediation (banking and shadow banking). There is a strong emphasis on real world financial instruments, institutions and issues. There are no prerequisites, though International Monetary Theory or Accelerated International Monetary Theory will be helpful. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This is an advanced course on open economy macroeconomics. The main purpose of the course is to cultivate and develop the ability to use formal theoretical models to interpret and understand the complex economic reality around us. Topics include current account determination, the relationship between saving and investment, imperfections in international capital markets, insurance mechanisms, the role of the real exchange rate, and fiscal policy. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Prerequisite(s): SA.310.724 [C]

Introduces options, futures and swaps presented in Corporate Finance. Reviews basics of valuation methods and institutional context in which derivative contracts are traded. Describes use of basic derivative instruments as “building blocks” to construct more complex positions that increase, decrease or transform exposure to specific financial risks. Focuses on how such combinations of derivatives may be used to implement overall risk-management strategy and introduces techniques to manage financial derivatives portfolios, including value-at-risk and credit mitigation. Uses case discussions and culminates in oral presentation of a group project.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Introduces quantitative tools and framework of financial decision-making. Examines present-value techniques, pricing of financial instruments, trade-off between risk and return, portfolio theory, capital budgeting, financial ratio analysis, behavior of financial markets, capital structure decisions, corporate cost of capital issues, option theory and risk management. Approach is rigorous and analytical, and goal is to provide students with conceptual understanding of the ideas of financial theory as well as the quantitative methods necessary to pursue careers involving financial decision-making. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This applied microeconomics course lays out ways to introduce competition across all infrastructure sectors (telecom, energy, transport, water). A deep dive into electricity markets brings out the core challenges, covering: market structure regulation and market design for operations and investment in generation as well as transmission and distribution; competition policy; the integration of renewables into electricity grids and the concept of smart grids. Access pricing principles for telecommunications systems conclude with an overview of the net neutrality debate.

Prerequisite(s): SA.300.699[C] OR SA.300.700[C] OR SA.999.700[C] OR SA.999.699[C]

Inter-temporal macroeconomics models involving capital flows and determination of asset prices and equilibrium exchange rates. Examination of models of exchange rate regimes, debt sustainability, and other global macro topics. Focus on intertemporal issues and general equilibrium models is not covered in MA version of course. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Although the size of credit markets varies across countries, reflecting the level of economic development, its industrial structure and its regulatory regime, globally, credit markets are huge, surpassing by far equity markets as a source of finance for both the private and public sectors. McKinsey estimates that, in 2007, total global financial assets were $225 trillion, of which only $50 trillion was equity, the remainder represented various types of credit instruments. The recent Global Financial Crisis had a significant impact on credit markets, something that will be discussed repeatedly during the course. This course will examine credit markets globally, with a specific focus on understanding the particular nature of credit risk. After an overview and definitions, the mathematics of fixed income instruments will be covered. There will then follow two sections on private sector credit risk, one each for the real and banking sectors. A significant part of the course will then incorporate what has been learned in analyzing private sector credit into a discussion of sovereign credit risk. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Prerequisite(s): SA.310.722 [C]

This course examines the role of financial institutions and money in the international economic system. The course begins with an overview of what financial institutions are and what they do. The course will then study the causes of financial crises and the impact that they have on local and global economies. Then this course will study international financial regulation and the impact of interest rate movements on banks. The class will close by studying the new area of digital assets (e.g. Bitcoin, central bank digital currencies (CBDC), stablecoins) and will discuss the potential role they may play in our financial system.

While this course is about the main international financial organizations, the bulk of the course is about the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the pre-eminent global economic and financial institution. There will be two primary focuses of the course. First, we will study the international financial organizations and the international monetary system from an institutional and historical perspective. Second (and this will form the majority of the course), we will focus on the analytical methods used at the IMF to perform country macroeconomic analysis, specifically, financial programming.

Prerequisite(s): SA.100.304 [C] OR SA.310.724 [C]

This course introduces students to the challenges of central banking in emerging economies while exploring its traditional as well as non-traditional role in economic management. The course topics include monetary policy and transmission mechanism, exchange rate policy, interest rate corridor, role of central bank in economic development, fiscal dominance, and financial stability. It also analyzes the implications of quantitative easing, fiscal stimulus, and austerity measures for emerging markets along with new developments like central bank digital currencies and central banking during the Covid crisis. Calculus and econometrics are desired but not necessary.

The goal of this course is to provide students with an introduction to key methods of quantitative policy analysis and impact evaluation used to analyze policy relevant questions in developing countries. We develop the statistical toolkit of regression analysis, reviewing the bivariate regression model and then continuing with multiple regression, and explore how these methods are applied to policy analysis in five benchmark techniques: randomized trials, direct regression analysis, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, and difference in differences. We emphasize the distinction between regression as a statistical tool and the additional context knowledge (and occasionally assumptions) that are required to address causal policy questions. We will rely on empirical microeconomic studies (mostly in developing countries) to analyze behavior under different types of market failures and to evaluate the impacts of policy interventions.Pre-requisites: Statistics, econometrics, and microeconomics. Previous knowledge of STATA will be helpful.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Introduces the process of analyzing, valuing, selecting and managing various financial instruments issued by companies, governments and other entities outside the United States, emphasizing issuers from emerging markets. Intended to bridge theory and practice by focusing on the proper integration of qualitative judgments about issuers and their securities based on the broader economic, political, social and cultural environments in which they operate with the quantitative models driving investment selection and portfolio management at the frontiers of finance today. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only. Prerequisite: Financial Decision-Making.

Focuses on issues relevant to understanding the world economy: modeling and forecasting of exchange rates, modeling the sustainability of external imbalances, determining the importance of international capital flows and implementing monetary-policy rules. Examines empirical studies in each of these areas by looking at their assumptions, weaknesses and strengths and considering whether there are alternative methods of addressing a given issue. Students learn to develop an independent opinion of how theoretical ideas are applied to policy questions by asking: How much? Does it matter? How do you know?This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This is an advanced seminar-style (discussion) course that will dive deeply into a selection of active areas of research in the development economics literature. It can be thought of as a successor course to my introductory survey course Economic Development (SA.310/320/744), although that course is not strictly a prerequisite. Each week we will read 2-4 related papers on a topic where there is an ongoing debate both in the academic literature and in policy circles. Examples include the impacts of foreign aid, industrial policy, the role of culture in economic development, and the economics of urbanization in LMICs. As an advanced course, the purpose of this class is to help students develop the skills to critically engage with any literature in development economics. It is targeted to advanced masters students wanting to go deeper into the literature, doctoral students in related fields, and anyone looking to learn more about how to closely read economic research. It will be particularly useful for those considering going on to a PhD or otherwise considering a career in research, although it will also make those more interested in working in policy into better consumers of research. Prerequisites: introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics, plus at least one statistics or econometrics course. Economic Development is also recommended by not required.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Focuses on trade policy issues in developing countries. Addresses tariff structures, quantitative trade restrictions on imports and exports, exchange controls and the design of trade reform programs. Also looks at the relationship between macroeconomic policy and other domestic policies and trade liberalization. Studies the history of developing countries at the World Trade Organization. Focuses on theoretical tools and analytical techniques rather than case studies.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

The course covers the major debates around “private sector development” – the interplay between markets, firms and government policy, arguably the main driver of economic development. Fundamental are institutional settings that allow co-operation to function, while allowing competition at the same time. Special topics include the role of informal market, and that of small and medium enterprises. Approaches to inclusive business models including impact investment are debated as well as the relationship between enterprise and values (corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, not-for-profit firms) including measurement approaches targeting social and environmental impact.

A rigorous seminar on international trade and commercial policy covering a broad set of policy-oriented topics. Covers both theory and applications, but emphasizes tools and analytical techniques rather than case studies. Overall goal is to develop a broad conceptual understanding of ongoing issues in international trade and familiarity with the analytical techniques used by economists in developing policy recommendations. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Prerequisite(s): SA.310.707 [C]

This course introduces students to the study of economic development. Different disciplines have different methods – this class uses the tools of economics to examine the reasons why some places are so much more prosperous than others. Specifically, we will use mathematical modeling and econometrics to develop and test theories of economic growth, structural transformation and poverty alleviation. While the core questions in economic development could be examined anywhere in the world, we will focus on low- and middle-income countries, with some references to the historical literature in richer countries like the United States. This class is targeted at anyone considering a career in research or policymaking in developing countries, but will also provide useful skills and insights to those working on issues of poverty and growth in more developed countries as well.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This is an applied course on big data analytics with focus on data mining. R will be the main tool for problem solving with Python as the other option. Topics will cover data visualization, exploratory analysis, association rules, classification and regression trees, deep learning (neural networks), text mining, social network analysis, etc. Prerequisites:General understanding and experience with statistical models, including multivariable regression models, analysis of variance, and test of hypotheses.No previous programing experience is required, and the textbook offers extended code that can be used directly or modified.

Prerequisite(s): SA.100.501 [C] OR SA.310.771 [C]

This course examines the relationship between behavioral economics, public finance and public policy. Individuals frequently make decisions that systematically depart from the predictions of standard rational actor economic models. Behavioral economics attempts to explain these departures by integrating an understanding of the psychology of human behavior into economic analysis. This course will review the major themes of behavioral economics and address their implications for public finance in a wide variety of policy-relevant domains, including: savings, consumer credit, education, labor markets, energy use, health care, revenue collection and tax compliance, social welfare programs, and the political process. The course trains students to think critically about problems and apply an understanding of behavioral economics to best address and design policy solutions that improve outcomes. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This course is designed to familiarize students with some of the major trade policy issues that countries face today. While theory and applications will both be covered, emphasis will be placed on tools and analytical techniques rather than on case studies. Topics covered include the analysis of alternate trade policy instruments, links between trade policy, exchange rates and trade outcomes, optimal policy interventions with market failures, market structure and trade policy, trade and labor markets, the political economy of trade policy, preferential trade agreements (such as NAFTA and the European Union), the design of the world trading system and the numerous challenges it currently faces.Pre-Requisite: International Trade or Internatinal Trade Waiver Exam. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This course examines macroeconomic policy in open economies. After covering the basic theoretical foundations on how monetary and fiscal policy should be conducted over the business cycle, we will analyze how such policies are actually conducted in practice and explore why. This is a hands-on course where students will be asked to gather data and perform an empirical investigation on how macroeconomic policies are carried out in their home countries. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Prerequisite(s): SA.300.708[C] OR SA.310.724 [C]

Policy decisions require difficult trade-offs of costs and benefits; there is no such thing as a free lunch. Hence, the course will use specific policy areas – including health care, transportation and infrastructure, international aid and development, education, and environmental issues – as examples to provide students with the concepts and tools of cost-benefit analysis to analyze the role of government intervention, its justification, opportunity costs, and implications for efficiency, fairness and effectiveness. The course will cover key theories and concepts that underpin most discussions of public policy on the role and financing of the government sector, including public goods (both national and global), externalities and market failure, tax policy, social welfare economics, market structure, monetary and fiscal policy. We will then place cost benefit within the broader public finance framework. Using these concepts, the course will highlight some of the challenging real-world public policy issues confronting governments in different parts of the world. Students will learn how to develop and apply cost-benefit analysis techniques to the evaluation of public policies.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Covers issues related to both international financial markets and financial decision-making within the international environment. Focuses on understanding and forecasting financial conditions in international markets; identifying, measuring and managing exchange-rate risk; taxation of international income; implications of political risk on project valuation; and cost of capital for international projects. Prerequisite: Financial Decision-Making.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This course covers the basics of econometrics, representing the first half of the econometrics sequence. Statistical concepts of confidence intervals and hypothesis testing will be reviewed in the context of simple and multiple regression analysis using the normal, t, and F distributions. Assumptions made when using regression or function fitting analysis will be examined in the context of multiple regression using matrices. Matrix algebra will be reviewed. Non-linear relationships and relationships involving qualitative variables will be covered as well as understanding the errors involved in prediction. The statistical package Stata will be used throughout this course following a brief use of Excel. Students will prepare a short paper presenting the results of a regression analysis. This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

A mathematical presentation of econometrics from OLS and the violation of the classical assumptions through advanced econometric techniques for dealing with common econometric problems. Moves faster and further than MA version of the course. Involves lab work.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

This course is designed to teach the tools and techniques of applied statistics and empirical microeconomics. The class focus is on how the data generation process of collecting sample data from a population frame affects inference with a focus on cross-sectional and panel data. The class examples and exercises will focus on issues related to international development and domestic social issues (e.g. poverty, education, health, labor issues). The emphasis is on applications, not derivations, of methodology. The course will entail a significant amount of analysis of household survey data using primarily Stata. This course covers some of the same topics as Quantitative Methods I and II, both as a tool to reinforce the material and also to provide more applied examples of the estimation issues.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Prerequisite(s): SA.100.401 [C] OR SA.310.771 [C] OR SA.340.710 [C]

This course will cover time series analysis with a particular emphasis on aspects of time series analysis that are employed in the empirical analysis and modeling of financial and macroeconomic time series. The course will cover theoretical aspects of time series analysis but will focus on applied and empirical aspects of time series analysis. This course is quantitative and will build upon concepts that have already been learned in previous econometrics courses such as OLS estimation, finite sample and asymptotic properties of OLS and MLE estimators, and hypothesis testing.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Prerequisite(s): SA.310.771 [C] OR ( SA.310.805[C] AND ( SA.100.401 [C] OR SA.340.710 [C] ) )

This course is an introduction to practical empirical economic modeling and forecasting. It focuses on the methodology, practice, and implementation of econometric modeling and forecasting with macroeconomic time series. The course's first part (empirical model building) considers data properties, including integration and cointegration; dynamic specification, including error correction models; and model evaluation and design, including computer-automated model selection algorithms and impulse indicator saturation. The course's second part (empirical economic forecasting) focuses on the roles of forecasting, including in policymaking; the generation and evaluation of forecasts; sources of forecast error; and robustification and improvement of forecasts. Throughout, the course includes discussion of the underlying theory, live data-based presentations of substantive empirical analyses, and hands-on learning in class. The latter two aspects help demonstrate the approach to econometric modeling and forecasting and address empirical questions as they arise. Examples with single-equation and multiple-equation models using different countries' data motivate and illustrate the concepts involved. This course is open to enrollment by only MIEF students.

Prerequisite(s): SA.310.771 [C] OR ( SA.310.801[C] AND ( SA.100.401 [C] OR SA.340.710 [C] ) )

This course will use a practical and quantitative approach to understanding infrastructure finance transactions and financial modeling. The goal of the course is to provide an understanding of how the financial structure for an infrastructure transaction is determined from the underlying technical, contractual, and market conditions. Financial Decision-Making is a prerequisite for registration. A working knowledge of accounting and finance concepts and Excel is assumed and necessary.

Being a successful professional involves providing reliable answers to practical questions. Obtaining reliable answers benefits from two components. First, one needs a theoretical framework used to organize the data. Second, one needs a suitable statistical method to summarize the implications and properties of the data to develop an intelligible answer to the question at hand. Unfortunately, there is no “cookbook” available that could turn an amateur into a successful professional. Hence this course prepares students to develop the habit of asking the two important questions for professional life: How do you know and what is the alternative? A successful applied research project integrates these two questions into providing reliable answers.

This workshop will introduce Stata and illustrate how to use the software for practical applications, with attention to manual coding. We will cover basic applications - such as simple OLS regressions and charting - as well as binary dependent variable modelling, time-series features, and panel data techniques. The theoretical concepts underpinning empirical analyses will also be reviewed. These workshops are for MIEF students only.

This workshop provides an introduction to analyzing data using the statistical programming language, R. It covers the fundamentals of the language, along with the essentials of data ingestion, cleaning, manipulation, and visualization. R is an open-source software environment for statistical computing and graphics used by many economists, governments, and private-sector firms (especially consulting firms). Before coming to the workshop, students should have R installed on their laptops. See the syllabus for instructions on how to install R. https://www.r-project.orgThese workshops are for MIEF students only.

This workshop provides an introduction to the Python programming language with a particular emphasis on analyzing data in Python. Python is an open-source, general purpose programming language used widely across a number of industries and is arguably one of the most popular programming languages in the world today. This workshop will cover environment setup, Python fundamentals, and the foundations of data analysis using the popular pandas and numpy libraries. Open to MIEF students only.

The aim of this course is to provide students with a set of quantitative tools and reasoning abilities that mirror those used by professional financial analysts, portfolio managers, and policymakers. While many of these skills will be universally applicable, this course grounds them in the application of addressing issues of sustainable finance.Asset managers report that USD 25 trillion of assets implemented Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) integration in 2020, up 143% from 2016. The soaring popularity of investing in ESG owes much to its advocates’ claims that it helps the end-investor with two challenges. First, climate change and related long-term societal risks increasingly have the potential to affect financial markets, especially over longer investment horizons. Asset owners want to ensure that their asset managers are properly considering these long-term risks. Second, end-investors want to align their investments with their values, especially around the achievement of the Paris Climate Agreement Goals and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This course aims to provide students with the knowledge needed to become a practitioner in the space of sustainable finance and will provide an understanding of the financial system, who the key parties are, and what sustainable financing options are available to market participants, especially across emerging markets. Further, this course will aim to test whether claims about sustainable finance, SDGs, and ESG standards are supported by empirical data.

Prerequisite(s): SA.310.807 [C] AND ( SA.310.722 [C] OR SA.310.761 [C] )

Provides a practical and quantitative approach to understanding project finance transactions. Focuses on energy transactions in emerging markets. Integrates principles of corporate finance with an understanding of specific technologies, industrial organization, regulatory framework and country-specific policies. Examines foreign exchange issues, taxation, risk evaluation and mitigation and key contractual structures. Discusses typical loan structures and inter-creditor issues. Goal is to understand how the financial structure for a project finance transaction is analytically determined. Students build and apply detailed quantitative financial models. Prerequisite: Financial Decision Making.

Prerequisite(s): SA.310.722 [C];Students may not register for this class if they have already received credit for SA.310.787 [C]

The capstone course will consistent of small groups of students working on a practical project or a current policy issue in their area of interest. The students will delve deeply into the project using the tools they have acquired and prepare a detailed presentation to be made to the class, faculty, as well as outside professionals. Topics may include the following: current account sustainability, exchange rate exposure, investment case study, studies on financial markets, and growth and debt sustainability studies.This course is open to enrollment by MIEF students only.

Module 16: Globalization and Business

Effective training for international assignments, learning outcomes.

• Differentiate between documentary training, cultural simulations, and field simulation training.

Living and working in an international community, such as Hong Kong, can be rewarding and challenging—if you are adaptable and prepared for what to expect.

Global companies often send managers from the home country office to work in foreign subsidiaries. Sometimes this is done for the development of the manager, so she can gain experience in the global operations of the company. It may also be so the company can exert more control over the subsidiary. When the assignment is for a long period, the manager’s family may also be sent. This represents a significant investment for the company, and it does not want to see the manager fail and return home early. The cost of a three-year assignment averages $1 million. [1] One way the company can help the manager succeed is to provide training before she leaves so she knows what to expect.

What constitutes an effective training program depends a lot on its “rigor,” or how thorough and challenging the program is. If the employee is going for a relatively short time, say less than a month, then a low-rigor program may suffice. If the employee and his family are moving for a year or more with the intent of living in the host country, then high-rigor training is required. With a brief assignment, adequate training may involve watching some videos on local culture, going to lectures, and attending briefings on company operations in the host (destination) country. For longer assignments, extensive experiential learning, interactions with host country nationals, and language training may be offered not just for the employee but for the whole family. Studies have shown that international assignments are more effective when the employee’s family is included and consulted in the relocation and training processes.

Documentary Training

Documentary training is textbook and classroom learning, which focuses on looking at differences between cultures and is a key part of both low-rigor and high-rigor training approaches. Differences are examined because they are potential friction points that create misunderstandings and hurt feelings. You have probably heard many examples of cultural differences involving common human interactions, such as greetings, gender relations, and the giving of gifts. For example, Asian business people defer to authority very differently from Westerners. They will not correct their managers nor will they make suggestions in public that would cause their managers embarrassment. Food in China is served hot, and to be offered cold food may be offensive or off-putting.

The perception of sickness and disease differs greatly in different cultures even among closely related ethnicities. A British worker would probably not take kindly to what you consider to be sympathetic inquiries about his latest illness and treatment. Americans, on the other hand, tend to “over share” and be more frank about personal health issues. Americans also tend to be casual about invitations and don’t like to pressure people on the spot. An expatriate in India may invite a coworker to a party he is having on the weekend and then follow up with “Come over if you want to.” To many cultures this is heard as “We don’t really care if you come or not.” There are many excellent sources of information on specific cultural traditions and norms of various countries, but multinational businesses often arrange for professional cross-cultural trainers to provide onsite lectures, videos, or workshops on cultural differences.

Cultural Simulation Training

After learning the cultural “do’s and don’ts” of a host country, many companies will ask their employees to participate in cultural simulations in which they will role play various situations and practice responding in culturally sensitive ways. This process is most effective when the training takes place in the host country or when the trainer can include people from the actual host country to help. The goal is to duplicate as closely as possible scenarios that the employees may face, such as having to question or to reprimand a local employee, making a presentation to host country upper-level managers, or how to approach a person of the opposite gender in countries where the sexes do not mix as freely as in the United States.

Field Simulation Training

When the company believes that the employees have successfully passed the “survival training” stage, it is time for field simulation training . The employee (and family) visits a neighborhood of the same ethnic background as the destination or, if the trainees are already in-country, then they move out to the “real world.” Depending upon the conditions, an individual may be dropped into a rural area with limited resources and told to get back to the office. Or a family may be moved into temporary housing so that they can meet their neighbors, shop for food, locate transportation, and just explore the area. When the simulation is over, the trainees come back to the center to compare notes and share experiences.

Benefits of Rigorous Training Programs

For extended assignments, a rigorous training program benefits both the employee and the employer. It prepares an employee (and family) for success by the following:

• Providing practical assistance for relocation efforts. Some questions the employee might have about the new location include: How long will it take to get there? What kind of money will I be using? How far is the office from my home? Do I need a car? What medicines can I get and what must I bring with me? What should I bring in the way of technology, and will I have to pay duties on imported goods?
• Giving the employee information that will allow her to make an informed decision about the assignment.
• Providing emotional security about the change. A rigorous training program greatly reduces the chance that the employee will leave the assignment early because of a misunderstanding.
• Increasing the cultural sensitivity of the employee. By training employees on cultural matters, the company lessens the likelihood that its reputation will suffer among the host country employees.

The disadvantage to the company involves the cost of the training and the out-of-office time of the employee to undergo the training, but this is a small price to pay considering the potential benefits.

Finally, companies preparing their employees for an expatriate experience should also offer readjustment counseling when the employee is due to return. Re-entering the home country can produce a reaction called reverse culture shock that describes the bewilderment and distress experienced by individuals suddenly exposed to a new, strange, or foreign social and cultural environment—in this case, their own.

Practice Question

Contribute.

Improve this page Learn More

• J. Stewart Black and Hal Gregerson, “The Right Way to Manage Expats,” April 1999, accessed July 31, 2017, https://hbr.org/1999/03/the-right-way-to-manage-expats ↵
• Effective Training for International Assignments. Authored by : John/Lynn Bruton and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image: Hong Kong. Authored by : AndyLeungHK. Located at : https://pixabay.com/en/hong-kong-hongkong-asia-city-2291752/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved