* Global citizenship is no longer just a nice phrase in the lexicon of rosy futurologists. It is every bit as real and concrete as measurable changes in GNP or trade flows * There is little debate that for executives in large multinational corporations (MNCs) today globalization is a daily reality. Yet most of those executives have not been specifically educated, trained, or groomed to deal with the complexities that are inherent in the globalization of business markets.) * In this destabilized and international context, multinational corporations and their executives face several significant challenges and the new skills to successfully meet these challenges. One of the first issues that an MNC faces is that because it operates in multiple countries, it must deal with multiple sources of sovereign authority. This involves working with different laws and legal systems, or in some cases the lack of systematic legal structures and processes. * Executives in positions at headquarters or in foreign subsidiaries must have the skills to understand the impact of various laws, tariffs, taxes, enforcement practices, overarching legal systems, and be able to work with host government officials in enacting and maintaining reasonable legislation across a wide variety of countries and cultures. * Second, MNCs must also operate in different markets with different cultures, histories, values, social systems, languages, etc., which often require not only product diversification but intra-product differentiationby country. * This requires executives who can analyze these country endowments and form strategy that balances local demands and global priorities. Thus, the current and future business environment demands executives who can work effectively across national and cultural boundaries or can, manage "in a borderless world.' American executives will not pick up such skills in the US educational system, in their normal life experiences, or in their typical working career. For most US MNCs, an international assignment is not even an important criterion in the succession planning process. * Despite the need for cross-cultural skills and the shortage of managers who possess these skills, most human resource decision makers do nothing in terms of cross-cultural training for employees in general or even specifically for selected employees embarking on international. This is significant given that studies have found between 16 and 40 percent of all expatriate managers sent on foreign assignments return before they are supposed to, due to poor performance or the inability of the employee and/or the family to effectively adjust to the foreign environment * Other studies have found that negotiations between businesspeople of different cultures often fail because of problems related to cross-cultural differences * An extensive review of the cross-cultural training literature, however, suggests that HR managers are mistaken in their assumption that good management is good management worldwide. However, the review also found that most of the empirical work was not founded on a theoretical framework per se, and that the literature lacked a systematic approach to the study of CCT effectiveness. It is possible that the lack of a systematic stream of research has allowed the belief that CCT is not effective to persist.

* Tung's Framework of Training Method Selection: Tung presented a contingency framework for choosing an appropriate CCT method and its level of rigor.

* Information or Fact-Oriented Training: Trainees are presented with various facts about the country in which they are about to live via lectures, videotapes and reading materials.

* Attributions Training: The attribution approach focuses on explanations of behavior from the point of view of the native. The goal is to learn the cognitive standards by which the host-nationals process behavioral input so that the trainee can understand why the host-nationals behave as they do and adapt his/her own behavior to match the standards of behavior in the host country.

* Cultural Awareness Training: The aim is to study the values, attitudes, and behaviors that are common in one's own culture, so that the trainee better understands how culture impacts his/her own behavior. Once this is understood it is assumed that he/she can better understand how culture affects human behavior in other countries. * Cognitive-Behavior Modification: The focus here is to assist trainees in linking what they find to be rewarding and punishing in their own subcultures (work, family, religion, etc.), and then to examine the reward/punishment structure in the host culture. Through an examination of the differences and similarities, strategies are developed to assist the trainee to obtain rewards—and avoid punishments—in the host culture. * Experimental Learning: The goal of this approach is to involve the trainees as active participants, to introduce the nature of life in another culture by actively experiencing that culture via field trips, complex role-plays and cultural simulations. * Interaction Training: Here trainees interact with natives or returned expatriates in order to become more comfortable with host-nationals and to learn from the first-hand experience of the returned expatriates. The methods utilized can range from in-depth role plays to casual, informal discussions.

* Mendenhall and Oddou's Framework for Selecting Training Methods: Mendenhall and Oddou's more recent framework moves beyond Tung's and provides more specificity. Like Tung's, it acknowledges that the degree of expected interaction and similarity between the native and host cultures is important in determining the cross-cultural training method. In addition, it proposes three key elements related to training: Training methods.Low, medium, and high levels of training rigor, duration of the training relative to degree of interaction and culture novelty. * Mendenhall and Oddou's framework is a significant improvement over the more general one. It provides a grouping of specific methods by low, medium, and high levels of rigor and also discusses the duration of training relative to interaction and culture similarity. Despite these important improvements, the framework does not explain how the level of rigor of a specific CCT method or group of methods was determined. It tells us little about the training and learriing processes, and therefore, why the particular determinations are made. The content of the training all seems to be "cultural" in nature and little integration of the individual's new job-related tasks and the new host culture is made. Finally, while both frameworks make intuitive sense, their theoretical grounding is never made explicit. Thus, lacking empirical data to support them, it is difficult to evaluate their soundness for use and success in the real world.

* Social Learning Theory: The potential of SLT to facilitate an understanding of the theoretical relationship between cross-cultural training and cross-cultural performance is significant (Church, 1982; David, 1976). Main points of the theory:

* by the effect reinforcement has on behavior and (2) by imitating or modeling the behavior of others and symbolically or vicariously making associations between behavior and consequence without direct, actual experience.. Before someone or something can be modeled, it must be noticed by the learner. Several factors have been found to influence the attention process of the subject/observer, including: (1) the status of the model; (2) the attractiveness of the model; (3) the similarity of the model; (4) the repeated availability of the model; and (5) past reinforcement for paying attention to the model (either actual or vicarious rewards). Retention. Retention is the process by which the modeled behavior becomes encoded as a memory by the observer. Two representational systems are involved. The imaginal system is utilized during exposure to the framework. During exposure images are associated on the basis of physical contiguity. These images are stored as "cognitive maps" which can later guide the observer in imitation. The second system is the verbal system. It represents the coded information in abbreviated verbal systems and groups similar patterns of behavior into larger integrated

* SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY AND CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING: SLT provides a theoretical framework for systematically examining the level of rigor that specific CCT methods generally contain and for determining the appropriate cross-cultural training approach for specific trcdning cases and situations. Based on the central variable of "modeling process" in SLT, the first part of this section explores a means of ranking specific cross-cultural training methods by the degree of rigor generally contained in the methods and examining two other factors that are related to the total rigor a training program might have. The second part of this section examines how SLT processes can provide a heuristic framework for deciding which CCT methods would be appropriate in specific situations. Throughout the second part of this section, we examine the practical implications of the framework through case illustrations.

* CCT is a Necessity Not a Luxury: It is very clear from the research literature that the vast majority of senior executives do not support CCT programs for their employees who must work with foreign business people. The research literature is equally clear that American expatriates who work with foreigners without the benefit of CCT are less effective than those who have been trained.

* It's a Family Affair: of the few firms in the US that do offer CCT to their expatriates, few offer such training to their spouses or other family members, despite the fact that research has demonstrated the impact of spouse and family adjustment on premature expatriate returns. A simple way to counteract this problem is to send spouses to the training sessions and to give them the same CCT the employee receives.

* Avoid "Dog and Pony" Shows: Since many firms do not have the in-house expertise to design CCT programs, the use of external consultants and trainers is common. The lack of internal CCT expertise means that the ability of the HR staff to evaluate the quality and suitability of external CCT programs may be less than desired. The framework presented in this article provides HR decision makers with at least a rough template by which they can evaluate the quality, rigor, and appropriateness of training programs offered by consultants or universities.

* CCT Is Not Just for Expatriates: Throughout this article much of the focus has been on expatriate employees; however, CCT is necessary for repatriated employees, for employees who go on short-term assignments, for good succession planning, and for general managerial development.

* Ethics and CCT: In addition to the "utilitarian'' functions that CCT may serve, firms may want to consider the issue from a social responsibility or ethical perspective.