Expatriates’ Difficulties and Failure in Foreign Companies Operating in Albania

Expatriation is one of the key staffing policies used by MNCs to fill managerial positions in their foreign operations. But, many times it has been associated with the phenomenon of expatriate failure resulting from the inability of the expatriated manager and his (her) family to adjust to the host country environment. Purpose of this paper was so to provide an overview on the international literature dedicated to expatriate failure and then to look over for possible cases of expatriate failure in foreign companies in Albania. In line with that a case study, the “Hasan Riza Pasha” College case, and a survey analysis was conducted. 30 randomly selected foreign companies operating in the region of Shkodra, situated in the northern part of Albania were included in the survey. The results of this research revealed the presence of expatriate failure cases, particularly of premature return cases in foreign companies in Albania resulting chiefly from the inability of managers and their families to adjust to the Albanian environment. Adjustment to the Albanian language and the difficulty to find an employment for the managers’ partners resulted to be the major challenges. In contrast, pre-departure training provided to managers was reported to be more focused on technical aspects than on cultural issues.