ABSTRACT
Head office (HO) managers sometimes need to go to the Offshore Center on short-term or long-term expatriate assignments to accomplish specific tasks. This chapter begins by describing the roles and responsibilities of expatriate managers with some examples of short-term and long-term expatriate assignments. It then describes the preparations to be made by HO managers before starting their expatriate assignments. Since a HO manager will have gained extensive knowledge about the Offshore Center teams after completion of his or her expatriate assignment, the chapter suggests a possible additional role to perform after a return to the HO, to keep adding significant value to the Offshore Center teams. The chapter provides some possible mistakes that companies should avoid while planning expatriate assignments of HO managers. The role and responsibilities of an expatriate manager are different from the usual project management responsibilities handled by the managers in the HO.
