the expatriate (Caligiuri and Day, 2000). Blake et al. (1996) point out that a critical
aspect of the evaluation process is the source of data. An expatriate’s performance
may be effective from the headquarters’ perspective, yet may be deemed unsuc-
cessful from the subsidiary’s viewpoint. The authors suggest the use of balanced
evaluations that consider home and host culture data sources.
In addition to establishing measures of effectiveness, the evaluation phase
must also focus on the necessary research design to assess the effectiveness of
the CCT program. There are several research designs which can be used to eval-
uate CCT programs (e.g. post-test only, pre-test/post-test) and the choice of a
design depends on the focus of the evaluation (e.g., to improve the CCT pro-
gram, or to determine the extent to which expatriates have changed as a result
of CCT), and on the rigor of the evaluation (e.g., conclusions based on anec-
dotal data or highly quantitative data). The focus and rigor help determine the
structure of the evaluation design. Kealey and Protheroe (1996), for example,
reviewed the CCT literature and examined methodologies used to assess cross-
cultural training effectiveness. They concluded that these past studies were
‘seriously deficient’ (Kealey and Protheroe, 1996: 159) for a variety of method-
ological reasons. They suggest that a methodologically rigorous study of CCT
effectiveness would need to include the following elements:
1 A comparison between groups receiving CCT and control groups. Participants
have to be randomly assigned to groups.
2 Pre- and post measures of change in cognitive, behavioral, and affective
outcomes.
3 Longitudinal measures of subsequent performance on the assignment. Tests
should be conducted immediately after CCT to measure the immediate results
and at a later date to measure CCT’s impact on performance.
4 Multiple measures of the short-term and long-term outcomes of CCT.
5 Clearly defined independent variable(s), such as the type of training method
implemented, the instructional content of the CCT, and the sequencing of the
cross-cultural training sessions.
6 Clearly defined dependent variable(s), such as cross-cultural adjustment.
7 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
In this section, we briefly discuss three additional issues that must be taken into
consideration when developing CCT programs: (1) electronic CCT; (2) linking
CCT to other HR practices; and (3) designing effective training programs for
host country nationals and for third country nationals.
296 International Human Resource Management