Expatriate’s Experience In A Joint Venture In China

Case 14 A First-Time Expatriate’s Experience in a Joint Venture in China
THE LONG TRIP HOME
James Randolf was traveling back to his home state of Illinois from his assignment in
China for the last time. He and his wife were about three hours into the long flight when
she fell asleep, her head propped up by the airline pillow against the cabin wall. James
was exhausted, but for the first timein many days he had the luxury of reflecting on
what had just happened in their lives.
He was neither angry nor bitter, but the disruption of the last few weeks was certainly
unanticipated and in many ways unfortunate. He had fully expected to complete his
three-year assignment as the highest ranking U.S. manager of his company’s joint
venture (JV) near Shanghai. Now, after only 13 months,the assignment was over, and
a manager from the regional office in Singapore held the post. Sure, the JV will survive,
he thought, but how far had the relationship that he had been nurturing between the two
partnered companies been set back? His Chinese partners were perplexed by his
company’s actions and visibly affected by the departure of their friend and colleague.
Was this an error injudgment resulting from Controls’ relative inexperience as a
multinational company and a partner in international joint venture s, James wondered?
Or, had something else caused the shift in policy which resulted in the earlier -thanplanned recall of several of the corporation’s expatriates from their assignments? There
had always been plans to reduce the number of expatriates at an y particularlocation
over time, but recently the carefully planned timetables seem to have been abandoned.
Next week, James had to turn in his report covering the entire work assignment. How
frank should he be? What detail should he include in his report? To whom should he
send copies? There had been rumors that many senior managers were being asked to
take early retirement. James did not really want toretire but could hardly contain his
dissatisfaction as to how things had turned out. Maybe it would be b etter to take the
offer, if it was forthcoming, and try to find some consulting that would make the best use
of his wide spectrum of technical and managerial experience which now included an
expatriate assignment in what was considered to be one of the mos t difficult locations in
the world.James reflected with satisfaction on his accomplishment of the initial primary objectives,
which were to establish a manufacturing and marketing presence. In fact, he was quite
pleased with his success at putting many things in place [that] would allow the operation
to prosper. The various departments within the joint venture were now cooperating and
coordinating, and the relationships hehad established were truly the evidence of this
achievement. He would like to have seen the operations become more efficient,
however.
The work life that awaited him upon his return was a matter of considerable concern.
Reports from the expatriates who preceded him in the last few months indicated that
there were no established plans to utilize their talents, and often early retirement wasstrongly encouraged by management. Beyond the obligatory physical examinations and
debriefings, he had been told there was little for them to do. Many of the recalled
expatriates found themselves occupying desks in Personnel waiting for responses
about potential job opportunities.
He gazed at his wife, Lily, now settled into comfortable slumber. At least she had had a
pretty good experience.She was born in Shanghai but left China in 1949. The country
was then in the middle of a revolution, but, aside from her memory of her parents
appearing extremely anxious to leave, she remembered little else about the issues
surrounding their emigration to the United States. Most of her perceptions about “what it
was like” in China came from U.S. television coverage, some fact, some fiction....