Abstract:

International companies decided to enter in different countries worldwide by establishing subsidiaries. These subsidiaries could be a representative office of the headquarters or a full fledge subsidiary with all competencies. In most of the cases companies decided in advance which positions in the subsidiary should be hold by an expatriate and for which positions a local employee would be the best solution. In case of an expatriate, the companies do have several alternatives starting from a local foreigner employee in the market of the host country, a local foreigner employee from the host company, a manager from the headquarters, a manager from the international organization (from the group, but from another country than the host country or headquarters) or from the international open market (others than the host country).

This paper approaches the important topics that international companies should consider by the selection of an expatriate for an international subsidiary. 

The existed bibliography was used in the research for this paper as well as a specific survey with over 20 heads of global human resources from multinational companies were considered.

The performed survey indicated that international companies are not considering all relevant points for the selection of an expatriate for this job, regarding the way of assessment, training, targets, and performance appraisal process, etc.