Managing inpatriates: Building a global core competency

The core competency of an organization is a unique signature composed of tangible and intangible assets that are used to differentiate a company from its competitors. As organization has moved into the global marketplace, many have attempted to simply extend their domestic core competency to compete with global competitors. The cultural imprint of the core competency is a western, United States orientation. To effectively differentiate U.S. M.N.Cs in the global competitive arena, these organizations must become more multicultural. One means of accomplishing this diversity of strategic perspective is to inpatriate foreign managers into the domestic management team to a permanent basis. The purpose of this paper is to outline the need for inpatriation while presenting the issues which will arise in the inpatriation process. A step-by-step process to accomplish inpatriation is also presented. While this process is not free of difficulties, It may be a cost-effective way of globalizing the core competency of an organization in a permanent way.