Study to Examine the Preparation and Training of Hospitality Expatriate Executives

This study solicited information from the members of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association (IH&RA) to examine the preparation and training of hospitality expatriate executives for a successful assignment overseas. The survey was developed as a self-administered instrument in three parts. The first part asked questions related to respondents' professional background that dealt with overseas experience and hospitality experience. The second part asked questions about the extent that the respondents possess the attributes of a hospitality expatriate executives, the management skills that respondents should possess and the effectiveness of the cross-cultural training activities that parent company provided. The third section of the questionnaire asked questions about the demographics that dealt with gender, age, annual income, and position of the expatriate executive. Findings and Conclusions: The majority of the respondents were between the ages of 51 to 60 years old, male, married and highly educated (most of them had graduate degree). They had prior overseas experience, had worked in the host country for six months and they worked in luxury hotel properties. There was a broad variation in professional backgrounds, years of international experience, and expatriate assignments across the respondents. Exploratory factor analysis generated three components of a model for a successful hospitality expatriate assignment. These three components or factors were personal competencies, global management skills, and expatriate adjustment. Independent samples t test revealed that seven cross-cultural training activities provided by the parent company were effective. And One-Way Analysis of Variance indicated that management skills vary according to the location of the parent company and country of origin of the hospitality expatriate executives.The findings of this study suggested that the success of an overseas assignment was determined by personal competencies, global management skills and expatriate adjustment. However, it was not verified which of these factors would influence successful expatriate assignment. In addition, cross cultural training should be taken into account.School of Hotel and Restaurant Administratio