The Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG), coupled with the technical revolution has taken a center stage of the world economic activity. This has thrown open new vistas for all business organizations from across geographies, sectors and companies to scale up operations, not only in their native markets, but also in new ones across the globe. All these have compelled corporate executives to take up assignments in new locations, working with people from different nationalities, which in turn calls for high level of acclimatization capabilities, irrespective of their positions and functions. Peers, subordinates, superiors hailing from different ethnicity and background may actually be a boon in an era where business has no barriers. However, for that to happen, there should be a lot of maturity and understanding on the part of the top honchos .

Sample the following: Griffith,* a top management executive working with a leading FMCG company based in France is suddenly posted in the Indian operations. Susan* has joined an Indian IT company* and is reporting to work with her on-shore clients in India. Himanshu,* a top executive of an Indian firm is suddenly posted in the Latin American continent. All these personalities have one problem in common and that is aligning themselves and their approaches with the new environment, both at the workplace and at the personal level. Overcoming cultural clashes and challenges are often the biggest challenge for expatriate chief executives working across continents and nations. To add to their impediment is the fact that they are summoned on their assignments, where they have very little time for acclimatization, not to mention their productivity quotient starting from day one. All these are ideal cases for cultural clashes which lead to professional backlash if one is unable to align everything with the local need.

A small number of expatriate CEOs have been successful when they have been posted in the Indian sub-continental operations of their global behemoths. The global headquarters of multinational and transnational companies like Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Samsung, to name a few, have often deputed their most efficient overseas executives to either firefight a do or die scenario or they have been posted to bring in a revolution within the company or even to bridge the cultural divide existing within their Indian and global operations. The truth, although not available in the public domain, gleaned from their frequent transfers and replacing them with homegrown executives, proves the fact that they lack cultural orientation while handling assignments in a new environment.

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