International Leadership Competencies: Utilisation and Transfer during Repatriation: Case ABB Oy in Finland

This study deals with competencies developed during expatriation and their utilisation and transfer upon return to the home organisation. The angle relevant to this study is management development. The aim is to explain what competencies expatriation devel-ops and how they can be utilised in the post-return work. Additionally it is attempted to explain what obstacles prohibit the transfer of competencies to the organisation. This study reviews international leadership competence literature and draws a categori-sation for competencies including work tasks, organisation, networking, cultural and personal facets. The interviews are carried out to find evidence of the existence of these competency groups in relation to expatriation. The obstacles of knowledge transfer are based on Gary Oddou’s (2004) three-fold distribution to firm-specific, HR-department-specific and person-specific obstacles. The existence of these is also examined through interviews. Ten repatriates were interviewed for this study. The results of this study indicate that international leadership competencies are acquired from all five different areas. The acquisition is mostly a conscious effort and demands an emphasis to the desired area or areas. The usefulness of the competencies in repatria-tion depends on the new job and the ability to use the acquired competencies through it. The knowledge accrued is largely tacit and difficult to articulate or transfer directly. The obstacles of the knowledge transfer were found to relate to the three dimensions: HR, firm and personal. The HR level was not, however, regarded important by the repa-triates themselves and its meaning was largely lost on them. An additional job-level di-mension was found to influence the knowledge transfer and it was deemed that it should be considered as a separate aspect.fi=Kokotekstiversiota ei ole saatavissa.|en=Fulltext not available.|sv=Fulltext ej tillgänglig