Communication challenges in an expatriate program : Case company: IKEA LTD
Löppönen, Henri (2012)
Löppönen, Henri
HAAGA-HELIA ammattikorkeakoulu
2012
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201205025849
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201205025849
Tiivistelmä
Multinational companies offer various different possibilities to their employees to travel and work abroad. These kind of expatriate programs are usually closely linked with talent management and offer great opportunities for employees in a company to advance faster in their careers along with gaining new experiences, relationships and skills. Companies as well can benefit from well organized expatriate programs by finding new talents and grounding them to the company as well as learning new best practices to implement in different functions.
Yet, structuring a well designed expatriate has proven to be a great challenges for many companies. There has been numerous situations where expatriate programs have been created in haste without proper investigation or tools to measure the successful of the program.
The author had the opportunity to research a newly established expatriate program in IKEA Ltd. called The Backpacker Journey. Together with program and communication managers a survey was designed based on the feedback received from both expatriates and other program managers. These issues concerned mainly communication and were the base for the whole expatriate program research.
A survey was constructed, sent and analyzed between three months period in 2010 and 2011. The results revealed both known and unknown challenges in communication and cross-cultural aspects such as lack of participation in planing and communicating process between managers and expatriates competencies in working abroad. A communication plan was designed based on the findings of the survey to ensure The Backpackers Journeys success in a longer-term.
This thesis aspires to show different challenges that expatriates programs can bring to a company planning or implementing an expatriate program. The author will also give improvement suggestions for The backpacker Journey in IKEA. These suggestions are based both in the theory and results received from the actual survey.
Yet, structuring a well designed expatriate has proven to be a great challenges for many companies. There has been numerous situations where expatriate programs have been created in haste without proper investigation or tools to measure the successful of the program.
The author had the opportunity to research a newly established expatriate program in IKEA Ltd. called The Backpacker Journey. Together with program and communication managers a survey was designed based on the feedback received from both expatriates and other program managers. These issues concerned mainly communication and were the base for the whole expatriate program research.
A survey was constructed, sent and analyzed between three months period in 2010 and 2011. The results revealed both known and unknown challenges in communication and cross-cultural aspects such as lack of participation in planing and communicating process between managers and expatriates competencies in working abroad. A communication plan was designed based on the findings of the survey to ensure The Backpackers Journeys success in a longer-term.
This thesis aspires to show different challenges that expatriates programs can bring to a company planning or implementing an expatriate program. The author will also give improvement suggestions for The backpacker Journey in IKEA. These suggestions are based both in the theory and results received from the actual survey.