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4 - Work–life balance on global assignments

from Part I - Describing different work–life policies, policy development, and pitfalls

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Paula Caligiuri
By
Mila Lazarova
Edited by
Steven A. Y. Poelmans
Paula Caligiuri
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Mila Lazarova
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor Simon Fraser University, Canada
Steven A. Y. Poelmans
Affiliation:
IESE Business School, Barcelona
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Summary

Firms today compete on the effectiveness and competence of their core human talent around the world. Increasingly, both managers and technical experts alike are being required to work effectively across a variety of cultures and in a greater number of cross-national situations. This trend can be seen in firms worldwide and in almost every industry. As an example, typical of many firms, Procter & Gamble (P&G) reinforces the importance of working in cross-national situations. Procter & Gamble asserts, “as we move to truly global businesses, having multicountry experience will be a more common requirement for advancement into mid and upper levels in many functional areas. Separately, leaders in the new, more global company will need some form of geographic flexibility.” To capture this experience firms are working to enhance and leverage the experience their employees have cross-nationally. Colgate-Palmolive, for example, has created an expatriate knowledge database that contains information on each manager's experience or awareness of different cultures.

The competitive necessity of working in cross-national situations, as illustrated in the P&G and Colgate-Palmolive examples, has increased the number of employees being sent to host countries, on global assignments, to enhance their cross-cultural competence, fill staffing needs in host national subsidiaries, manage projects, transfer knowledge and corporate culture, and work on global teams. Enhancing cross-cultural competence through these global assignments is one of the leading organization-wide practices affecting firm effectiveness (Stroh & Caligiuri, 1998).

Type
Chapter
Information
Harmonizing Work, Family, and Personal Life
From Policy to Practice
 , pp. 94 - 115
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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