Friendship Formations of Expatriates in Asia

Master's Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Personnel and Organisation, grade: 2,0, University of Freiburg (Philosophische Fakultät), language: English, abstract: Inhaltsangabe:Abstract:§The hyper competitive global arena of the twenty-first century requires companies to look for business opportunities beyond their national boarders. With the increased overseas operations there is also a rise in the number of personnel sent for overseas assignments. The increasing number of highly qualified European expatriates in Asian cities is also a manifestation of such activities. However, companies operating abroad report that their global strategy is undermined by expatriates failure. These high failure rates, measured by early returns are often connected with the private life of expatriates - the ineffective management of intercultural relations - as experts in this area call it.§Despite the critical role of the expatriates private life on the success of their overseas assignments, so far, the subject matter has not received enough attention from social scientists. Therefore, this study attempts to contribute towards bridging the gap by focusing on one part of the expatriates private life, which is the friendship aspect. The study mainly intends to discuss the friendship formations of European expatriates based in India and China. In particular, this qualitative study highlights the role of various cultural aspects and socio-economic factors on intercultural friendship formations.§The interviews conducted with a sample of European expatriates working in New Delhi and Shanghai demonstrated that European expatriates mainly tend to develop friendships among each other. Further, the results showed that different cultural, social and economic aspects and various external conditions (like the existence of expatriate communities and the living conditions of expatriates) are in many cases major impediments in the development of closer relationships like friendships between European expatriates and host nationals.§Introduction:§Increasing interconnectedness, as one aspect of globalisation has led to a greater variety of possible social relationships. Out of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the move of production from Western countries to developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa new forms of labour migration have developed. Nowadays, labour migration is not limited to workers or unemployed individuals from developing countries or countries in transition. Rather, another group of migrants has become more prominent the expatriates. The group includes highly qualified scientists, managers, employees of development organisations, teaching personnel and other professionals from industrialised countries. In addition to personal career motivations, such moves are also undertaken by necessity, as companies themselves send engineers, marketing specialists and other personnel abroad with the clear goals to establish a branch or to introduce new products.§On the top of the direct work related challenges, expatriates also face personal and social challenges associated with the place of their foreign assignments. As many studies have indicated, expatriates high failure rates measured by early returns and therefore rising costs for the sending companies are closely linked to difficulties in the integration of expatriates and their families. The resulting question is how expatriates manage their private social relations and how they establish social networks. Friendship aspects are among the major manifestations of social relationships; hence, another important question is what type of friendships expatriates tend to develop in their places of foreign assignment.§In the last decade, research on expatriates has increased. However, most of the studies are focused on: expatriates work performance, expatriates training for cultural sen...