AN EXPATRIATE MENTORING PLAN FOR ABU DHABI OIL AND GAS INDUSTRIES (GASCO)

Abstract

Multinational Corporations (MNCs) are an essential part of the modern globalised business environment (Chen, Tzeng & Tang, 2005:278). Within an increasingly competitive global market, it is understandable that MNCs employ highly skilled expatriates from across the globe. Expatriates are individuals from one country who work and live in another country (Hill, 2005:618). According to Peiperl, Levy and Sorell (2014:45), skilled expatriates form the backbone of MNCs, and many MNCs fail due to a shortage of skilled labour (Abdullah & Jin, 2015:548-549). Purgal-Popiela (2011:27) attests, however, that one out of three expatriates perform below expectation. On average, 40% of expatriates who complete their foreign assignments are ineffective or marginally effective (Deresky, 2002:398). The US reports an annual loss of around $4 billion due to failed foreign assignments (Cole & Nesbeth, 2014:71). Numerous authors propose mentoring as a strategy to support expatriates in adjusting to the new environment (Cullen & Parboteeah, 2010; Feldman & Bolino, 1999; Forret, Turban & Dougherty, 1996; Gibb, 1999; Mezias & Scandura, 2005; Zhuanga et al., 2013). The majority of research on expatriates focuses on the mentor, but ignore the levels, methods and techniques that an expatriate mentoring plan should contain. The focus of this study was to develop a customised mentoring plan for Abu Dhabi Oil and Gas Industries (GASCO). The company has around 7150 expatriate employees from 19 different countries. As GASCO has also reported high expatriate failure rates, this investigation was aimed at ascertaining work-related adjustments, personal-level adjustments and the extent to which expatriates have formed a new identity. Mixed-method research (both quantitative and qualitative) was used in this study which consisted of two phases. Phase 1 involved a structured questionnaire that was administered to all GASCO’s expatriate employees who have been employed for two years or more. The quantitative findings confirmed that there was a lack of expatriate support pertaining to work-related and personal-level adjustments. Findings were supported by the inferential statistics performed on the data. This enabled the construction of a proposed mentoring plan for GASCO. During Phase 2 the mentoring plan was presented to a focus group for discussion and further refinement before finalisation.