Preparing Managers For Overseas Assignments

Abstract

The materials known as the Culture General Assimilator (Brislin, Cushner, Cherrie, and Yong, 1986) were designed to prepare people for overseas assignments. The term general” refers to the goal of providing orientation to assignments no matter the exact place in the world to which people will be travelling. In the development of the materials, reports of impactful events were gathered from overseas businesspeople, diplomat’s technical assistance advisers, and others. Together with a literature review, the impactful intercultural experiences so identified formed the basis of 100 critical incidents. These 100 incidents are organized around 18 thematic categories that can provide a common vocabulary for the discussion of intercultural encounters.