Cross-cultural Competence Theory And Empirical Study Of The Technology Expatriates In Multinational Corporations

Along with the integration of the world economy， more and more companies start the multinational operation gradually， in order to develop overseas market， cut the cost， achieve the effective configuration of resource and consequently enhance their competitive ability. The multinational operation of company has already become a necessary way to a further development. In such process， a new kind of employee appears who is called expatriates. As a bridge connecting the parent company and subsidiary company of the multinational corporation， the expatriate’s importance can be imagined.In our country， since reform and opening‐up， there are many expatriates from multinational corporations came to china constantly for the need of work. At the same time， the cases of Chinese multinational corporation sending expatriates to other countries are legion， too. It can be forecasted that along with the further achievement of the globalization strategy of Chinese multinational corporations， the case of sending expatriates to other countries will be more and more. However， the cultural differences between china and foreign countries will surely become an invisible barrier obstructing the both sides exchange and cooperation， so， cross‐cultural competency is now becoming an important factor which influences the performance of expatriates. However， our multinational corporations haven’t paid enough attention on the cross‐cultural competency so far. The multinational operation is not very mature， their management and institution system still need to be improved. So， the research of the cross‐cultural competency of the expatriates is necessary for Chinese multinational corporation to carry out their further goal of globalization strategic at present.It is not as easy as imagined during the real operation process of sending the expatriates. There exist many problems in sending the expatriates， if these problems haven’t been taken into account and deled with properly， the effort of multinational corporation in sending the expatriates will be wasted. The failure of sending expatriates will bring both multinational corporation and expatriates losses directly and indirectly. The direct loss includes the high salary， training and placement fees for expatriates (and sometimes their families). In addition， the indirect loss to the multinational corporation can be much heavier than the direct loss. Such indirect losses are usually extremely high cost， for multinational corporation; they will lose part of the network resources established by the expatriates. For the expatriates， the failure of implement company mission will have a bad effect on their further career development. These invisible costs cannot be measured by money.At present， application of competency theory in multinational corporation is mainly on senior and top managers， a few used on labor dispatching， it is even fewer on technology expatriate， not mention the depth. However in our country， there lack of such kind of research. In fact， the administrative staff of multinational corporation can be localized， use the host country staff as a substitute. In labor dispatching， there are a big mount of workers， but seldom contact with people from host country. But for technology expatriate， it involves technology spillover， so technology expatriate cannot be alternative， and the amount will even be more and more. So the main expatriate of the multinational corporation will be technology expatriate rather than administrative staff. But in the research， people always focus on administrative staff rather than technology expatriate， so such research appears significant not only for theory researchers but also for actual operators from multinational corporations.