ABSTRACT
The ability to communicate in the local language and to stay in contact with family in the home country while establishing a new network in host country are key factors that promote swift cultural adjustments among self-initiated expatriates (SIE). SIEs have capitalized on opportunities afforded by global mobility, moving from one country to another in pursuit of both tangible and intangible rewards. Self-initiated relocation was not a common strategy for global talents due to a lack of cross-cultural training. As expatriates shift from being an organization-initiated to a self-initiated phenomenon, many multinational corporations (MNC) no longer limit their recruitment efforts to home-country nationals, but cast a global net to attract and recruit new talent. In his prominent book The Borderless World, Kenichi Ohmae prepared MNCs to accept the global village as reality of their workplace. He envisaged the world as becoming flat, and argued that cultures will converge as people are brought together by similarities in their values, and behaviors.
