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Transcript of Web viewAt the outset of the interview participants were given a possibility to ask questions ......
Expatriates’ experiences concerning coaching as a part of their career
capital development
Raija Salomaa & Liisa Mäkelä
Corresponding author: [email protected]
Tel: +358 44 350 5557
University of Vaasa, Department of Management
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Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore expatriates’ experiences concerning coaching as a part of their career capital (capabilities of knowing-how, knowing-why, knowing-whom) develop-ment.
Design/methodology/approach: A narrative analysis was utilized to study and interpret the stories of coached expatriates. The data of this study consists of three semi-structured interviews with coached expatriates.
Findings: The findings of our study show that the coaching processes were perceived supporting the development of all the three career capital capabilities of expatriates. Motivation to engage in coaching and support gained from coaching was perceived differently depending how much interna-tional experience an expatriate had. Most of the gained career capital capabilities were perceived being transferable to new working environments and coaching helped expatriates also to develop in the areas of career capital, which were not even expected in advance.
Practical implications: As a practical implication drawn from our study organizations employing expatriates should consider coaching as one of the HRD tools to support their international as-signees. Second, the career capital model is suggested to be adopted in institutions training coaches and among coaches as one of the tools when coaching executives in international transition situa-tions.
Originality/value: This is the first empirical study focusing on coaching as a development interven-tion for career capital development. This study expands our understanding of the experiences of ex-patriates from the career capital perspective and contributes by analyzing the perceptions of coach-ing as a development intervention.
Key words: Expatriates, career-capital, coaching, qualitative approach
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1 Introduction
In the globalized economy leaders who are able to cope with the different kinds of tasks
and challenges in international business environments are valued asset for their organizations.
Expatriates, employees who move from their home country abroad due to their work, are one
important group of employees, especially for multinational companies (MNCs). The need for
internationally competent managers is escalating (Selmer, 1999; Caliguiri and Tarique, 2012) and it
has been argued that the HRM function must be able to create a set of development (HRD)
activities, including career related support practices in order to be able to develop global leaders
(Suutari, 2003).
During international assignments expatriates develop their understanding of worldwide
operations and gain several competencies needed in the international working environments. The
international assignment can be seen as a mutually beneficial episode, which fulfills both the
organizational need to gain competitive advantage by generating social and intellectual capital for
their employees and it fulfills also the need for individual development by building expatriate’s
career capital (Larsen, 2004; Haslberger and Brewster, 2009), a concept covering a broad set of
competencies employees need in order to be successful in their employment paths (Suutari,
Brewster and Tornikoski, 2013). In particular, career capital (DeFillippi and Arthur, 1994; Inkson
and Arthur, 2001) consist of three elements; knowing-how (e.g. technical skills), knowing-whom
(e.g. social networks) and knowing-why (e.g. motivation).
Furthermore, international assignments have been found to be very developmental for the
expatriate but at the same time also very challenging (Carpenter, Sanders, and Gregersen, 2000;
Caligiuri and Di Santo, 2001; Suutari and Mäkelä, 2007). For example, expatriates are reported
often to operate on more challenging and broader tasks abroad than in their home country (Suutari
and Brewster, 2000), which is likely to contribute on their career capital. Generally, little research
exists on the development of career capital during an international assignment, but earlier studies
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have shown that career capital develops during an expatriation (Jokinen, 2010). Moreover, the
development of career capital is also found to be such kind of a process, which can be facilitated
with external support, for instance, with coaching or mentoring (Dickmann and Harris, 2005;
Mezias and Scandura, 2005; Singh, Ragins and Tharenou, 2009), and coaching has been
recommended for expatriates and international managers as a support and development intervention
(Selmer, 1999; Mendenhall and Stahl, 2000; Mendenhall, 2006).
Today, the annual revenue from coaching is estimated to be 2 billion US dollars (ICF
Global Coaching Study, 2012). It has been argued that the rapid change in the global business
environment accelerates the use of coaching (Tompson et al., 2008), but coaching research in the
international context lags behind the practice (Abbott et al., 2013). Expatriate coaching is seen here
as a sub-form of executive coaching, and we acknowledge that there is no unique definition for
executive coaching (Feldman and Lankau, 2005). Expatriate coaching is defined here as ‘a human
development process of the assignee that involves structured, focused interaction and the use of
appropriate strategies, tools and techniques in an international context. It is aimed to promote
desirable and sustainable change for the benefit of the assignee and potentially for other
stakeholders’ (modified from Bachkirova et al. 2010,1). Coaching is understood here as a one-to-
one, action-oriented and goal-driven process facilitated by an external, professional coach.
International career research has already been enriched by mentoring research and vice
versa, and executive coaching has been recommended as a promising avenue for future research
(Sullivan and Baruch, 2009). There are only a few empirical studies focusing on expatriate coaching
(Abbott, 2006; Herbolzheimer, 2009; McGill, 2010; Salomaa, 2015), and so far any empirical
studies focusing on coaching as part of expatriates’ career capital development was not found.
However, existing evidence supports the idea that coaching is an efficient intervention in the
expatriate context. Given, that coaching is distinguished from other career development activities
like career counseling and mentoring (Feldman and Moore, 2001; Chung, Coleman and Gfroerer,
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2003), and that coaching has been addressed only sparsely in the career development literature in
general (Ciutiene, Neverauskas and Meilene, 2010), there is a clear gap in expatriate coaching
research.
In the light of above, the aim of this study is to explore expatriates’ experiences
concerning coaching as a part of their career capital development. Next, we briefly introduce the
theoretical building blocks of this paper and present a review of the relevant literature.
2 Literature review
In this section we discuss the central concepts of this paper, career capital and executive
coaching in an international context, and review the existing literature.
2.1 International careers and career capital
The nature of careers in the age of globalization is very different from that only a few
years ago (Thomas et al., 2005). Contemporary career patterns are suggested to be flexible, non-
linear and self-driven. Also current organizations are less ridged, but not totally fluid in their career
management systems as individuals tend to take more control of their own career – the careers have
shifted toward boundaryless and protean careers (Baruch, 2006). These two overlapping career
theories are suggested to be relevant in the international context, and the concept of protean careers
seems to be particularly appropriate in the context of boundaryless global careers. Both approaches
stress the role of an individual’s awareness. Protean refers to the subjective perspective of an
individual careerist facing external career realities of a boundaryless career (Suutari and Mäkelä,
2007). De Fillippi and Arthur first introduced the ‘intelligent career’ theory in 1994 (Parker,
Khapova and Arthur, 2009). It was later revised and re-labeled to boundaryless career. DeFillippi
and Arthur (1996) defined boundaryless career as ‘sequences of job opportunities that go beyond
the boundaries of single employment settings’. This theory suggests that people invest in their
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careers through three ways of knowing. Career actors are viewed as individuals who consciously
gain portable capabilities, actively construct social networks and enhance their careers. They
identify their own drives and motivations, and apply these in their work context (Inkson and Arthur,
2001; Suutari et al., 2013).
The concept of career capital consists of the following sub-dimensions; first, ‘knowing-
how’ is an integrative term that combines explicit knowledge, implicit experiences, soft skills and
technical expertise into a specific form of career capital. Second, ‘knowing-why’ career capital
dimension consists of motivation, confidence, and self-assurance to pursue a certain career path.
Third, ‘knowing-whom’ involves person’s work relationships and includes occupational and internal
company connections that can support individual’s career. It also incorporates broader contacts with
family, friends, fellow-alumni, and professional and social acquaintances (DeFillippi and Arthur,
1994; Inkson and Arthur, 2001).
The model of career capital offers a broad framework to study developmental perspective
of an employee, and it has been found to be relevant also in the international career context and
among expatriates. (Inkson and Arthur, 2001; Cappellen and Janssens, 2005; Suutari and Mäkelä,
2007). The existing research indicates that international assignments develop all the three
dimensions of career capital. Knowing-how capital competencies have been found to develop
during expatriation through the development of cross-cultural and general management skills,
listening, negotiation, teamwork and delegation skills and capacity to learn (Antal, 2000; Dickmann
and Doherty, 2008). Also knowing-why capital develops during expatriation. International
assignments improve expatriates’ sense of their potential, their self-awareness and increase their
self-confidence. Expatriation is an experience that challenges one’s beliefs, and influences
individual’s identity and future career aspirations. Further, it impacts also their values and interests
(Kohonen, 2004; Dickmann and Harris, 2005; Suutari and Mäkelä, 2007; Dickmann and Doherty,
2008; Jokinen et al., 2008). Further, knowing-whom career capital is found to be strengthened
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because assignees expand their professional networks while on an assignment (Antal, 2000;
Mäkelä, 2007). Moreover, expatriates are able to utilize their previous international experiences in
their future international assignments, and there is evidence that the competencies acquired are
transferable to a new context, at least to some extent (Jokinen, 2010).
The career capital development can be assisted with development interventions, for
instance, with coaching or mentoring (Dickmann and Harris, 2005; Mezias and Scandura, 2005;
Singh, Ragins and Tharenou, 2009). So far research has indicated that mentoring has a positive
effect on the expatriate’s organizational knowledge, organizational knowledge-sharing, and job
performance (e.g. Feldman and Bolino, 1999; Meziah and Scandura, 2005; Carraher, Sullivan and
Crociotto, 2008; Singh, Ragins and Tharenou, 2009). Coaching has been recommended suitable
development intervention for expatriates (Selmer, 1999; Mendenhall and Stahl, 2000; Mendenhall,
2006). However, empirical research focusing on expatriate coaching is very limited and next,
current literature focusing on international and expatriate coaching is reviewed.
2.2 International and Expatriate Coaching
International perspective on executive coaching has gained growing attention among
coaching practitioners and scholars (Abbott et al. 2013) and it has been argued that executive
coaching is now entering the period of globalization (Barosa-Perreira, 2014). Coaching is
commonly seen as a collaborative and non-directive relationship between the coach and the coachee
for the purpose of attaining professional or personal development outcomes. It is a cross-
disciplinary approach that has its roots in psychology, management, learning theory, theories of
human and organizational development, philosophy, and sports (Brock, 2008; Bachkirova et al.,
2010). As the coaching research has grown beyond its infancy, there is more and more evidence that
coaching has positive effects on performance and skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and
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goal directed self-regulation (Theeboom et al., 2014). However, many coaching scholars posit that
the profession still lacks the evidence-base (Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Peterson, 2011), and this is
especially true for the evolving field of international coaching research.
Over the past decade coaching scholars have started to study coaching from an
international perspective. Terms such as international, cross-cultural and global coaching are used
interchangeable, and the coaching approaches have been influenced by cross-cultural and
international management theories. Currently, a holistic approach to integrating culture into
mainstream coaching is emerging (Abbott, 2007; 2010; Abbott et al., 2013). However, it is worth
noticing that almost every coaching assignment has some cultural ingredients, which do not have to
be international in nature. So far, most of the literature concerning international coaching is
conceptual and cover topics such as multinational teams, gender and diversity issues, culture and
different coaching frameworks and approaches suitable for international contexts (e.g. Rosinski,
2003 and 2010; Handin and Steinwedel, 2006; Peterson, 2007; Passmore, 2009; Moral and Abbott,
2009; Coultas et al., 2011; Plaister-Ten, 2013). Typically, the understanding of cultural dimensions
and values are argued to be requirements for coaches working internationally and, for example,
there is evidence from the Asian context that coaching needs to be adapted to local cultural values
(Nangalia and Nangalia, 2010). Since we focus here on expatriate coaching as a vehicle to develop
the career capital of assignees, we next review the existing expatriate coaching literature in more
detail.
Earlier literature has suggested that coaching is likely to be efficient, because, like the
expatriate experience itself, coaching is a connected process that impacts interactively across the
individual’s affective, behavioral and cognitive domains (Abbott et al., 2006). Some studies have
presented theoretical models (Abbott and Stening, 2009) how coaching may support expatriate in
different phases of the assignment cycle or how expatriate coaching may support couples’
adjustment (Miser and Miser, 2009). Specific needs for coaching of female expatriates (Burrus,
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2009a) and global nomads (Burrus, 2009b), individuals who have lived in different countries since
their childhood and have global careers, have also been discussed. Further, Abbott (2011) has
suggested that executive coaching of expatriates develops the global mindset, a construct consisting
of psychological, social and intercultural capital (Javidan et al., 2010), and cultural intelligence, the
capability for consciousness and awareness during intercultural situations (Ng and van Dyne, 2009).
The empirical studies on expatriate coaching have shown that executive coaching is an
intervention which facilitates expatriate acculturation and help them to deal with intercultural
differences, pre-departure uncertainty, and support the repatriation process (Abbott, 2006;
Herboltzheimer, 2009). Coaching has also reported increasing expatriates’ emotional intelligence
capabilities of self-awareness, emotional control, communication strategies, self-reflection and
empathy (McGill, 2010). Moreover, coaching has found to increase expatriates’ effectiveness and
performance (Abbott, 2006; Herboltzheimer, 2009; McGill, 2010), and enhance their leadership
development (McGill, 2010). Executive coaching is reported boosting the levels of happiness,
personal satisfaction and confidence of expatriates and decrease their stress (McGill, 2010).
Furthermore, it has been found that coaching is perceived beneficial because it provides a
professional dialogue partner (Herbolzheimer, 2009) and is tailored to their individual needs
(McGill, 2010; Salomaa, in press). International experience and the behavior of the coach are found
being essential success factors. Also coaching language impacts expatriate coaching in several ways
(Salomaa, in press). Organizational support and a clear contract with objectives and evaluation of
coaching appear to be important in regard to coaching success (Salomaa, in press). However, HR
representatives are found to be scarcely familiar with the existence and practice of expatriate
coaching (Herbolzheimer, 2009).
In sum, both international coaching and the development of career capital during an
international assignment are developing areas of research. Existing theoretical and empirical studies
on expatriate coaching show that it is likely that coaching could be beneficial for career capital
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development. However, to best of our knowledge research focusing on expatriates’ experiences of
coaching as a support intervention for career capital is lacking and thus this study aims to fill this
gap in current research.
After reviewing the relevant earlier literature on career capital of expatriates, coaching
and expatriate coaching, we will next describe the empirical data and methodological approach
adopted.
3 Method
A qualitative, narrative analysis was chosen to explore three rich narratives of coached
expatriates. A narrative approach was adopted for this study, because it is well suited for studies of
change processes, such as international career transitions. It is also argued that stories are highly
relevant for the study of careers (Cohran, 1990; Cohen and Mallon, 2001; Savickas, 2001; Bujold,
2004). A narrative can be a description of a specific event or process (Flick, 2002), such as an
expatriation or coaching process. Furthermore, narrative approach may reveal issues that would not
be exposed by using other methods.
A narrative approach has been suggested suitable for management and organizational
research (Czarniawska, 1997; Boje, 2001), and it has been adopted in international business
research (Gertsen and Söderberg, 2011). Narrative approach has been already applied to expatriate
research, providing in-depth understanding concerning expatriate managers’ heroic tales (Osland,
2000), expatriates’ cultural encounters and cultural learning processes (Gertsen and Söderberg,
2010) and expatriates’ identity and career aspirations (Kohonen, 2007).
As narrative research offers no automatic analyzing steps, we recognize that there is a
considerable diversity in the definition of personal narrative and a large methodological variation
within the narrative theory (Riessman, 2000). Therefore we next define some central concepts of
this study. We position this study in the social-constructivist paradigm, and adopt an experience-
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centered approach to narratives (Squire, 2008). We build on Patterson’s (2008) definition of
experience-centered narratives, and understand a narrative or a story to be ‘texts which bring stories
of personal experience into being by means of the first person oral narration of past, present, future
or imaginary experience’. We use a ‘narrative’ or a ‘story’ interchangeably. According to Squire
(2008), the experience-centered approach assumes that narratives are: 1) sequential and meaningful;
2) definitely human; 3) re-present experience, in the sense of reconstructing it as well as mirroring
it; and 4) display transformation or change. Sequence is embedded in dialogue, and meaningfulness
is located in interviewer-interviewee interaction. Narratives are the means of human sense-making,
and are jointly told between writer and reader, speaker and hearer (Ricour, 1991). The assumption is
that experience cans, trough stories become a part of consciousness and that the context of a
narrative plays an important role (Squire, 2008).
We assume here that the personal stories of expatriates are just one of the many truths,
since storytellers choose to connect events and make them meaningful for others. A story is an
interpretation of the past rather than a historical exact reproduction of it (Czarniawska, 2004;
Riessman, 2005; Polkinghorne, 2007). Experience-centered approach aims at full interpretation and
understanding rather than structural analysis. Narrative analysis takes seriously both the content and
the context of storytelling and the notion of ‘story’ always entails ‘audience’ as well as ‘storyteller’
(Squire, 2008). In this case the interviewees told their story to the researcher, and they knew, that
the data would be used for analyzing purposes and that the research results would be written and
published to a wider audience. Many of them said in the interview, that they found coaching and
coaching research important and therefore wanted to help.
The data of this study consists of three semi-structured interviews of expatriates. The
analysis unit is the whole interview, thus we focused specifically on text excerpts, which reveal
different aspects of the career capital model discussed above. These interviews were gathered as
part of a larger scale research project in 2012 and 2013 (N=33) by the first author and these three
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stories were selected as representing three different perspectives on how coaching was perceived in
a relation to career capital development.
Experienced managers in senior roles told these three stories. The interviewees
represented also three different nationalities (German, Finnish, American), different international
locations (Finland, Switzerland, Japan/Korea) and two different industries (Telecommunication and
Pharmaceutical) as well as different phases concerning how experienced they were as expatriates.
For confidentiality reasons, we use pseudonyms. The interviewees participated voluntarily in the
research project. The only criterion for participation was that they had to have experienced coaching
by an external professional coach during their expatriation.
Participants were recruited by publishing recruitment announcements in web-pages of
two coaching journals, through Linkedin, and by using a snowballing system and direct contacts to
Human Resource (HR) departments of MNCs. In a pre-interview email details of the research
process, of the interviewer and of the interview were given to the interviewees. They were informed
that the researcher was interested in their expatriate coaching process and that the interviewer had
studied and practiced coaching. At the outset of the interview participants were given a possibility
to ask questions about the research process, and the interviewer asked permission to record the
interview. The interviewer assured them that the collected data was treated anonymously and
confidentially.
The interviews were completed in Finnish or English in face-to-face meetings, by using
Skype, and over the mobile phone. The average duration of interviews was 45-60 minutes. Semi-
structured (Squire, 2008), open-ended questions were used in order to gather rich narratives of the
coaching experiences. The first author, (the interviewer), who is a native Finnish speaker,
transcribed the Finnish interview verbatim. In order to avoid misunderstandings and bias, a native
English speaker transcribed the interviews conducted in English verbatim. The transcribed texts
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were sent back to the interviewees for a check (McMillan and Schumacher, 2006), and the final
texts were analyzed.
The data analysis included the following stages: First, the first author listened to the
recorded stories, read the transcriptions several times, and marked the arousing themes on the
margins of the paper version of the transcriptions; second, the first author coded the texts by using
the framework of career capital (knowing-why, -whom and -how capital) and by utilizing the
NVivo QSR software; third, the first author created short narratives of the interviews, which were
sent back to the interview participants for their comments, fourth, for triangulation purposes the
second author repeated the coding process independently, after which the findings were compared
and discussed; fifth, the researchers constructed a final new narrative of each analyzed story
(Makkonen et al., 2012).
4 Findings
We present the findings of our study in the form of three stories. Due to the limited length of the
paper we had to cut off the illustrative quotations which would have been helpful in order to
demonstrate the development of different career capital capabilities found in the analysis. However,
some of the quotations are presented in the conference presentation. These stories are our
interpretation of the stories told in the interview situation to the interviewer. All stories are shedding
light on different ways how expatriate coaching can be helpful in career capital development. Also
disappointments and frustration experiences are presented. The two first stories, Anni’s and Peter’s
are narratives of less experienced expatriates, whereas Michael who is a very experienced expatriate
tells the third story.
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4.2 Anni’s story - ‘a positive survival’
The coaching context
At the time of the interview, Anni was a married Finnish female in here late forties. She
has done her career in the field of consumer products. Before her expatriate assignment in
Switzerland she had worked in Sweden two years being responsible for the Nordic region. During
past eight years she had had six different jobs and increasing responsibilities. Anni told that she
hired a coach In Finland first time one year before her international assignment begun and she told
that her original motivation to engage in coaching was to develop her leadership skills. Then she
was promoted to a new Vice President (VP) role in Switzerland where her employer, large MNC,
had its European head quarters of one of its business units.
While in Switzerland, Anni realized that the amount of new and challenging tasks was on
a very much higher level than in her previous job, and that she needed onboarding type of coaching
in order to perform well and to have a work-life balance in her new environment. She encountered
cultural, geographical, financial, and strategic as well as company specific political challenges.
Anni renewed her coaching contract with the same coach. During her coaching process, the
onboarding type of coaching turned to crisis coaching, because the company was in a
transformation process and the new VP position was terminated in Europe. Consequently, Anni got
different job offers and experienced also repatriation, which occurred unexpected to her.
Next, we focus on career capital development and especially to the coaching process
during her expatriation.
Knowing-how capital
The coaching engagement during expatriation was very helpful for Anni to gain
support how to cope in the hectic and rapidly changing international context. Anni and her coach
worked on topics such as how to succeed in cooperation with the US head quarters, how to work
together with her multicultural team, how to lead 16 European countries, which was Anni’s
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responsibility area, and what it took to live in a foreign cultural environment in Switzerland.
Further, her coach, who was a Finnish-British citizen and lived in the USA, supported her to
understand the political games going on in the MNC.
Beside these expatriation specific knowing-how skills Anni told that she gained
support to cope with new skills to manage the complex and complicated change situation from
coaching. Anni also told that a lot of the leadership skills that she had learned during the first
coaching engagement before expatriation, were now activated.
Knowing-why capital
Concerning knowing-why capital, Anni told that coaching strengthened her self- confidence
and courage which, in turn, helped her decision-making in challenging situations. She learned also
to clarify her thinking and to say ‘No’ to unsatisfying job offers, even she was afraid, that it would
harm her career within the company. Anni mentioned that she was now able to utilize leadership
skills she developed during her first coaching process. She also told that during the onboarding
phase of her assignment, coaching helped her to find her identity as a leader.
Moreover, Anni also told that coaching helped her to identify and position herself as a
Finnish individual working globally and living in a foreign culture. It supported her to understand
her strengths and gave her confidence that she was able to manage the challenging situation. Anni
told that she learned a lot about her self, for example, how she encountered complex circumstances
and what was her style to lead and survive.
During the period when the VP position was terminated in Europe, described as crisis by Anni, the
coaching boosted her energy levels and she gained motivation through visioning the future and
evaluating different job opportunities. Coaching introduced her also to new perspectives, which
helped her to believe in her self.
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Knowing-whom capital
Coaching supported Anni’s understanding how to utilize different human networks and
partnerships. Her coach asked her direct questions concerning which she could contact in order to
learn or get support.
To conclude, Anni developed her career capital as an outcome of her coaching process. For her
it was very important, that her coach had an international business background, which was
necessary for helping Anni to manage and understand the different cultural and political issues in a
multicultural MNC. Anni described her coaching journey during her assignment in Switzerland as
‘a positive survival’.
4.3 Peter’s story – ‘never ending work in progress’
The coaching context
During the interview, Peter worked as a Managing Director of an American MNC in Korea.
Peter had had nine different positions in twelve years within the company and he felt that his
employer had offered him very interesting working opportunities. He was in the middle of his
forties, married and had a degree from an American university.
Back home in the USA he had had experience from different sales positions and as an
entrepreneur. Before Korea, he worked nearly three years running the MNC’s marketing department
in Japan which was his first expatriate assignment.
After entering Japan, Peter hired a coach. His motivation for that was that he wanted to
understand Japanese culture and perform better in his job in the environment that was very different
from what he had used to. As Peter needed to manage a Japanese team, the coaching engagement
turned to be a mixture of cultural and leadership coaching. When he was relocated to Korea, he
hired a coach again, but perceived that the Korean coaching relationship was an unsatisfactory
experience.
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Knowing-how capital
With the help of his coach in Japan, Peter gained both cross-cultural leadership and
communication skills. Peter told that he learned to be more effective in conversations with Japanese
individuals. Also, by developing cross-cultural leadership skills, he learned to lead his team
efficiently. Further, he acquired knowledge, how to use Japanese metaphors, typical in the Japanese
business jargon, that were very useful for him in his day-to-day work.
Beside the original motivation for coaching and development he expected from it,
Peter told that with the help of his coach he learned new techniques to focus his mind and clarify his
thinking processes. Peter told that due to the coaching he adopted a coaching type managerial style.
Peter also told that his role was to ask questions, which made action happen. For Peter, it was a total
new way to do business and lead people.
Knowing-why capital
Peter and his coach worked on several perspectives of knowing-why capital in Japan. Peter’s
story revealed that his assignment in Japan was full of hardships, during which his motivation tore
up badly. His coach was challenging him out of his comfort zone, and this approach was very
positive for Peter’s motivation and kept him going on. Japanese working environment, not being
able to understand the language, sapped Peter’s strength. For example, he had to use a translating
device to be able to follow and lead the meetings. Peter described his normal working day to be
‘like sitting in front of a very loud television with a very loud earphones playing something different
in his ear’. Peter’s coaching helped him to put things into the right perspective and to boost his
energy levels. Through coaching, he gained a better sense of balance, so that he was able to solve
problems. Further, Peter worked with his coach on topics such as what his role was in the
organization, why he should conform for the wellness of the organization and how the assignment
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impacted his career. Peter confirmed that coaching provided him with the understanding of the
bigger picture.
Coaching supported also Peter’s identity in two ways. First, it helped him to define his identity as
a leader within the organization, and second, it assisted him to understand, who he was in a foreign
country.
Knowing-whom capital
In Peter’s story the only aspect of knowing-whom capital we could identify in the analysis, was
that his coach provided him with Western contacts in Japan.
Overall, Peter experienced his coaching process in Japan as ‘extremely valuable’. Peter
described his coaching engagement as a kind of marriage, ‘a never ending work in progress’. It was
a professional relationship, which was very much based on his coach’s credibility, coach’s
knowledge of the Japanese as well as international business and local culture and challenging
approach, which helped Peter to grow. Peter appreciated also that he could see in very tangible
ways, how he had changed during his coaching process.
After this satisfactory experience with his coach in Japan, Peter hired a coach when he
expatriated to Korea. However, his high expectations were not met and he told that the coaching
process was more like cultural training, where the coach had her own agenda and much of the topics
could have been learned directly from the books compared to his previous, deep-going coaching
discussions that were focused on his needs. In Japan his American coach had challenged him out of
his comfort zone, was experienced in Japanese culture and language, savvy in international business
and could support him because of his own international and cross-cultural experiences. This may be
interpreted in a way that the needs for coaching change. In this particular case, during the first
expatriation experience in Japan Peter perhaps needed and expected support with different issues
compared to his second assignment, showing evidence that career capital is transferable and
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therefore the coaching needs of an assignee needs to be reviewed carefully. Also the selection of the
coach with suitable skills appears to be a very important part of a successful coaching experience.
4.1 Michael’s story – ‘out of the rat hole’
The coaching context
At the time of the interview, Michael, a German manager was in his fifties. He had a
technical university degree, and worked as a Senior Manager at the headquarters of a MNC in
Finland. His working environment was very international, and at the time of the coaching
assignments his employing company was going through a major transformation process where
individuals experienced lots of strain and stress.
He had a family, who lived in Germany. Michael had been altogether five years in Finland as a
self-initiated expatriate, and before moving to Finland, he had been working several years in the
USA and in the Netherlands, as well as shorter periods in many other countries. He had been abroad
since his childhood, and Michael was of the opinion, that travelling and international assignments
had become a part of his DNA. International working environments had become also ‘one of the
critical aspects of sort of liking’ for him and he was fascinated by how different cultures and
different working environments impacted on business and ethical decisions.
Compared to previous stories told by Anni and Peter, who both told that they needed support
in order to cope in international business context and cross-cultural environment, Michael’s
coaching processes started because he wanted to learn coaching skills in order to be able to coach
his subordinates and peers. Another reason for his coaching was that Michael realized, that he was
mentally stuck, meaning that he was misaligned with his values, not knowing where he was going.
To free him self from the mental ‘cage’ Michael had hired two external, professional coaches who
worked with him one after another.
Knowing-how capital
19
In his story Michael highlighted several knowing-how capital capabilities, which he gained
through his coaching engagement. Through experiencing coaching himself, he understood better the
structure of a coaching process, and what the differences between coaching and mentoring were
when coaching someone. Further, he learned actual coaching skills: listening, asking questions,
quieting one’s mind, being unjudgemental and open to other individual’s ideas, showing emotional
intelligence, and enlarging his coaching to help others within the company. He learned also to coach
himself and to challenge himself into new areas of doings. He told that from his point of view, these
coaching skills are portable capabilities, which can be used in almost any contexts during one’s
career path.
In addition, in his story Michael mentioned several times, how his coaching benefitted
his employing company. For example, coaching introduced him the idea that he could work across
the different departments within his company and through doing that, Michael gained more holistic
understanding about different processes going on within his own organization.
Knowing-why capital
As an analytical engineer Michael had always trusted his brain. During his coaching processes
he learned to know his weaknesses and strengths. Now he was able to acknowledge not just
analytical, mental capabilities, but also feelings, and he started to enjoy his life in a new way and it
gave him a lot additional ammunition to his work.
Through working on his values with his coaches he was able also to vision the future, and make
a plan to reach it. He gained also confidence and self-belief to do the needed actions. He knew
better whom he was and what he wanted to accomplish. Part of it was, that he learned that he
needed not to be perfect and he allowed himself to make mistakes. In his own words, he became
more ‘human’. He became also sure that he could influence other people at the working place.
20
Furthermore, even though it was not in his original intention to have coaching
discussions about cross-cultural issues, Michael gained also new cross-cultural skills and
understanding which were more related to knowing-why than knowing-how career capital as it was
the situation in Anni’s and Peter’s stories. Before his coaching engagements, Michael had managed
well in several different international environments, but through coaching he understood that he had
strived to be something else he truly was. He realized that cultural differences were connected to his
values, and after his coaching process he could behave in a more authentic way.
Knowing-whom capital
Also Michael’s knowing-whom capital developed during his coaching processes. In his story he
described how he started to volunteer in connecting with young entrepreneurs and acting as their
mentor. He saw that this activity formed a beneficial bridge between his company and these
entrepreneurs who were full of fresh ideas. This activity was very satisfying for Michael and he felt
that he was getting a bigger circle of influence and relationships. Further, Michael started to connect
with other important individuals in his life.
To sum up, Michael gained new capabilities in all of the three areas of career capital.
Also, he was of the opinion that he was able to free himself out of the ‘rat hole’ of his own mind,
because coaching helped him to be aligned with his values. Michael experienced that his coaching
was a life-changing event, but at the same time a process where the coachee needs to put a lot of
energy in order to reach the wanted outcomes, otherwise it is waste of time and money.
Next, we discuss these three stories in the light of previous literature and make some
conclusions.
21
5 Discussion and Conclusions
Our aim was to explore expatriates’ experiences concerning coaching as a part of their career
capital development. The findings of our study showed that the complex and challenging expatriate
environment was described in every story and the coaching processes were seen as helpful
development interventions in this kind of challenging contexts enhancing the development of career
capital. This finding is in line with previous studies showing evidence that coaching is beneficial for
expatriates (Abbott, 2006; Herboltzheimer, 2009; McGill, 2010; Salomaa, in press). Our study
contributed to earlier literature by focusing especially on career capital development of expatriates
with the help of coaching and confirmed the suggested relevance in this context (Selmer, 1999;
Mendenhall and Stahl, 2000; Mendenhall, 2006).
The model of career capital offered a relevant framework to study developmental perspective of an
expatriate (Inkson and Arthur, 2001; Cappellen and Janssens, 2005; Suutari and Mäkelä, 2007). As
earlier studies on career capital have shown, that many capabilities develop also as a result of an
international assignment, coaching’s role was to accelerate this development. In these three stories
the interview participants were able to separate the impact of the assignment and that of the
coaching in the development process. As we can see from the stories told by Anni, Peter and
Michael, they all shared experiences in regard to their knowing-how career capital through, for
instance, development of cross-cultural and leadership skills. They all highlighted the development
boosted by coaching in identity transformation, enhanced awareness of the self and motivation
levels – indicators of knowing-why career capital development. Knowing-whom career capital
development was also represented in all stories, for instance, our interviewees were telling about
developing useful contacts and co-operation inside and outside the company with the actual help of
the coach or motivated by the coaching process. However, the knowing-whom career capital did not
emerge as often as the other two career capital types but when it was mentioned, its importance was
highlighted.
22
Further, as coaching is a process that is adapted to the needs of the individual (Bachkirova et al.
2010), each story highlighted different perspectives. Michael was the most experienced global
nomad, who had lived and worked in many different countries whereas Anni and Peter had less
international experience. Michael engaged in coaching in order to develop his own practical skills
and self-development whereas Anni’s and Peter’s motivation to start coaching process was to gain
help to cope in the international working context. However, in all three stories, it became evident
that development happened also in the areas they were not originally priorized or even expected.
The findings presented above must be interpreted in view of the limitations of the
study. Firstly, these three personal stories do not provide the whole, or even a definitive, picture of
the issues occurring in the expatriate coaching. Fundamentally, the narrative of the personal stories
interpreted and represented in this study is first and foremost about evocations and perceptions from
the participants’ perspectives, and thus gives only a partial view of the coaching process and career
capital development. Secondly, the narrative is the researchers’ interpretation of these stories as told
during interviews. Despite the limitations of this study relating to its sample or method, the findings
challenge the traditional ways of studying interventions and their effectiveness and highlights the
personal perception of the experience of coaching and its effects on career capital development. Our
study findings also showed that career capital development and utilization of that is not always so
clear and concious.
The conclusion about the relationship between the strength of the previous
international experience and different needs for coaching could open up a new avenue for future
research in the field of expatriate coaching and career capital. For example, studies using broader
samples and different methods might be able to illustrate more widely how transferable career
capital is, what is actually is tranferable (cf. Jokinen, 2010) and the mechanism to whom and to
what purposes coaching is most beneficial. In addition, our research showed also evidence that
23
coaching is not always perceived useful and therefore critical research perspectives on coaching as a
development intervention is needed.
The practical implication of this study is the need to apply a multifaceted
understanding of coaching as a development intervention. For instance, by increasing understanding
and knowledge of the career capital concept through training and development among coaches’ and
coach training institutions in future, coaches might be able to adopt the career capital framework as
one practical tool for coaching processes. Furthermore, based on our findings, organizations
employing expatriates could benefit from using coaching as our findings indicate that career capital
development enhances expatriates’ ability to perform better in their challenging jobs. Therefore,
especially the people responsible for HRD should take coaching as one possible method to develop
their organization’s human resources.
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