Each year expats move across the globe in order to find new work and business opportunities. In order to facilitate these moves companies often offer their workers the chance to take part in some cross cultural training in order to help the foreign workers to fit in with the host country nationals. This is done in the hope that the training will make the move a social success as well as a business success.
Research has taken a closer look to see whether cross cultural training brings a satisfactory return on investment (ROI) and whether or not it is worth the expenditure from companies.
There are various reasons why an expat might fail to settle into the host country and these reasons can be varied from stress of the new job to their family not taking to the new country. Some researchers (for example Pires et al.) go as far as to say that they believe that the current cross cultural training is insufficient and does not in any way guarantee a successful move or a good ROI.
It also seems that in order for there to be a successful move and ROI then the host country nationals also need to receive some sort of cross cultural training in order to better receive any expats that may come to work for their company. It is clear then that the attitude of the expat that needs to be addressed but also the attitude of those that are receiving them. So maybe a better approach would be to look at the cross cultural training needs of each individual and tailor make a programme that will fit in with each person in order to improve the ROI.

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