Case Study
Q1:
In a first time the Macdougall family is used to live as expatriates thanks to their three Chicago, Philadelphia and Singapore’s experiences, moreover these experiences were successful for Lachlan in professional terms and also for the family as Lisa gave birth to their first child, Amelia. In the US they never had any problem to settle down in their new environment and they always met the cross-cultural suitability challenge by joining local clubs for example. The cultural adjustment is an important factor for an international assignment’s success, as much as the willingness to move. In fact Lisa was always willing to move, to follow her husband and sacrifice her career, furthermore the GMAC GRS 2005 survey concluded that spouse career issues is the third most frequent cause of assignment rejection (Peter J. Dowling - 5th ed. - p.127).
In a second time, it is important to be aware about the costs of failure of an international assignment, indeed it could cause huge losses to multinationals, it can cause negative effect on local employees, financials losses or loss of market share (Peter J. Dowling, 5th ed. – p. 115) which make the MacDougall family a real valuable resource for a multinational as Lachlan always succeeded his international assignments. Moreover as parent-country national Mr. Macdougall provides some important advantages to a multinational:
Organizational control and coordination is maintained and facilitated.
Promising managers are given international experience.
He may be the best people for the job because of special skills and experiences
There is assurance that the subsidiary will comply with MNE objectives, policies…
(Peter J. Dowling, 6th ed. – Chapter 5)
In a third time the MacDougall family acquired a double cultural experience thanks to their journeys in the US (occidental culture) and in Singapore (oriental culture), which means that they could culturally fit in numerous countries around the world more