如何为经验准备叫中国？ Pamela Lau做了一个有趣的科学研究关于前离开训练为expats计划去中国。虽然有一些文学对前离开训练表示怀疑的作用(Kealy和Protheroe 1996年; selmer等1998)，它确切根据移居国外前离开训练是相关的。 当数据得到，统计测试进行创造被送到中国由他们的公司对需要的更加深刻的理解移居国外。 前离开比较文化的训练
它是相当惊奇发现仅一点较少比应答者的一半接受了前离开训练，虽然他们是所有工作为MNEs。 这在前离开比较文化的训练(Forster的有效率去反对多数学习做2000年; Romero 2002年; Waxin和Panaccio 2005)，即使他们提及许多公司仍然不提供前离开训练。 有浮现在脑海，当设法揭露这个低训练供应时的原因对估计的几个原因。 第一个原因可能是移居国外已经是对中国前面和已经熟悉中国文化或已经至少形成了一些期望。 However, from the respondents that did not receive pre-departure training, only half (9 managers) had been to China before.

Another possible reason is that the expatriate has been on previous other foreign assignments. The company then could have decided that it is not necessary for them to have pre-departure training. Waxin and Panaccio (2005) mention that international experience is a moderator on the effect of cross-cultural training. This fact also is mentioned by some expatriates who noted that the extent to which some companies provide training or expatriates want or need pre-departure training depends on the previous foreign experiences of the expatriate manager. However, from the results it can also be seen that even though the expatriate is familiar or somewhat familiar with the Chinese culture, they still think pre-departure training is useful. As one respondent stated: “Even I would have benefited from a language refresher course and my degree is in Chinese”. Also, it should not be forgotten to mention that it might as well be that the company does not provide standardised pre-departure training, but provides the support after arrival in the host country. This is the case for Shell, which would explain why none of the respondents from Shell received pre-departure training. It should be noted however, that some of these respondents did indicate that they would have liked to receive pre-departure training.

The training elements that were found most important by the expatriates based on their own personal experience in China were 1. Culture, 2. Guanxi and 3. Language. This importance was not completely reflected in the actual training they received, where Language had been neglected. Companies should not ignore language training (Weiss and Bloom, 1990; Hutchings, 2005). According to Brislin (1993), using the host country’s language has a positive influence on expatriate adjustment and facilitates cooperation of the employees. From the results we can see that some companies do not provide any kind of language training at all, although it is considered an important element of pre-departure training by the expatriates who have been on assignment in China. KIT does provide information on language background in their trainings, but actually learning the language has to be done in a separate optional module. It is up to the HR-department to take this result very seriously and include it in the pre-departure preparation.

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Pamela Lau