4/18/2000
"If multinational firms are to prosper now and in the future," write the authors, "they must develop people who can successfully function in a global context." International assignments, they say, are the best means of developing such people, but all too often such assignments are strategically ill-conceived and can end in what they term "brown-out," where the manager sent abroad is hobbled by a variety of factors and unable to carry out his or her assignment effectively. To help CEOs, managers and human-resource executives balance the interplay between management and cultural assumptions and values, they offer clear-cut information, strategies and advice on evaluating the real strategic role of the assignment, choosing the appropriate executive to go abroad, supporting the assignment through its completion, and eventually assisting the executive's readjustment back home.