如何為經驗準備叫中國？ Pamela Lau做了一個有趣的科學研究關於前離開訓練為expats計劃去中國。雖然有一些文學對前離開訓練表示懷疑的作用(Kealy和Protheroe 1996年; selmer等1998)，它確切根據移居國外前離開訓練是相關的。 当數據得到，統計測試進行創造被送到中國由他們的公司對需要的更加深刻的理解移居國外。 前離開比較文化的訓練
它是相當驚奇發現仅一點較少比應答者的一半接受了前離開訓練，雖然他們是所有工作為MNEs。 這在前離開比較文化的訓練(Forster的有效率去反對多數學習做2000年; Romero 2002年; Waxin和Panaccio 2005)，即使他們提及許多公司仍然不提供前離開訓練。 有浮現在腦海，當設法揭露這個低訓練供應時的原因對估計的幾個原因。 第一個原因可能是移居國外已經是對中國前面和已經熟悉中國文化或已經至少形成了一些期望。 然而，從沒有接受前離開訓練的應答者，只有一半(9位經理)是對中國以前。

另一個可能的原因是移居國外是在早先其他外國任務。 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