Expatriates’ experiences concerning coaching as a part of their career

capital development

Raija Salomaa & Liisa Mäkelä

Corresponding author: raija.salomaa@kolumbus.fi

Tel: +358 44 350 5557

University of Vaasa, Department of Management

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Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore expatriates’ experiences concerning coaching as a part of their career capital (capabilities of knowing-how, knowing-why, knowing-whom) develop-ment.

Design/methodology/approach: A narrative analysis was utilized to study and interpret the stories of coached expatriates. The data of this study consists of three semi-structured interviews with coached expatriates.

Findings: The findings of our study show that the coaching processes were perceived supporting the development of all the three career capital capabilities of expatriates. Motivation to engage in coaching and support gained from coaching was perceived differently depending how much interna-tional experience an expatriate had. Most of the gained career capital capabilities were perceived being transferable to new working environments and coaching helped expatriates also to develop in the areas of career capital, which were not even expected in advance.

Practical implications: As a practical implication drawn from our study organizations employing expatriates should consider coaching as one of the HRD tools to support their international as-signees. Second, the career capital model is suggested to be adopted in institutions training coaches and among coaches as one of the tools when coaching executives in international transition situa-tions.

Originality/value: This is the first empirical study focusing on coaching as a development interven-tion for career capital development. This study expands our understanding of the experiences of ex-patriates from the career capital perspective and contributes by analyzing the perceptions of coach-ing as a development intervention.

Key words: Expatriates, career-capital, coaching, qualitative approach

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1 Introduction

In the globalized economy leaders who are able to cope with the different kinds of tasks

and challenges in international business environments are valued asset for their organizations.

Expatriates, employees who move from their home country abroad due to their work, are one

important group of employees, especially for multinational companies (MNCs). The need for

internationally competent managers is escalating (Selmer, 1999; Caliguiri and Tarique, 2012) and it

has been argued that the HRM function must be able to create a set of development (HRD)

activities, including career related support practices in order to be able to develop global leaders

(Suutari, 2003).

During international assignments expatriates develop their understanding of worldwide

operations and gain several competencies needed in the international working environments. The

international assignment can be seen as a mutually beneficial episode, which fulfills both the

organizational need to gain competitive advantage by generating social and intellectual capital for

their employees and it fulfills also the need for individual development by building expatriate’s

career capital (Larsen, 2004; Haslberger and Brewster, 2009), a concept covering a broad set of

competencies employees need in order to be successful in their employment paths (Suutari,

Brewster and Tornikoski, 2013). In particular, career capital (DeFillippi and Arthur, 1994; Inkson

and Arthur, 2001) consist of three elements; knowing-how (e.g. technical skills), knowing-whom

(e.g. social networks) and knowing-why (e.g. motivation).

Furthermore, international assignments have been found to be very developmental for the

expatriate but at the same time also very challenging (Carpenter, Sanders, and Gregersen, 2000;

Caligiuri and Di Santo, 2001; Suutari and Mäkelä, 2007). For example, expatriates are reported

often to operate on more challenging and broader tasks abroad than in their home country (Suutari

and Brewster, 2000), which is likely to contribute on their career capital. Generally, little research

exists on the development of career capital during an international assignment, but earlier studies

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have shown that career capital develops during an expatriation (Jokinen, 2010). Moreover, the

development of career capital is also found to be such kind of a process, which can be facilitated

with external support, for instance, with coaching or mentoring (Dickmann and Harris, 2005;

Mezias and Scandura, 2005; Singh, Ragins and Tharenou, 2009), and coaching has been

recommended for expatriates and international managers as a support and development intervention

(Selmer, 1999; Mendenhall and Stahl, 2000; Mendenhall, 2006).

Today, the annual revenue from coaching is estimated to be 2 billion US dollars (ICF

Global Coaching Study, 2012). It has been argued that the rapid change in the global business

environment accelerates the use of coaching (Tompson et al., 2008), but coaching research in the

international context lags behind the practice (Abbott et al., 2013). Expatriate coaching is seen here

as a sub-form of executive coaching, and we acknowledge that there is no unique definition for

executive coaching (Feldman and Lankau, 2005). Expatriate coaching is defined here as ‘a human

development process of the assignee that involves structured, focused interaction and the use of

appropriate strategies, tools and techniques in an international context. It is aimed to promote

desirable and sustainable change for the benefit of the assignee and potentially for other

stakeholders’ (modified from Bachkirova et al. 2010,1). Coaching is understood here as a one-to-

one, action-oriented and goal-driven process facilitated by an external, professional coach.

International career research has already been enriched by mentoring research and vice

versa, and executive coaching has been recommended as a promising avenue for future research

(Sullivan and Baruch, 2009). There are only a few empirical studies focusing on expatriate coaching

(Abbott, 2006; Herbolzheimer, 2009; McGill, 2010; Salomaa, 2015), and so far any empirical

studies focusing on coaching as part of expatriates’ career capital development was not found.

However, existing evidence supports the idea that coaching is an efficient intervention in the

expatriate context. Given, that coaching is distinguished from other career development activities

like career counseling and mentoring (Feldman and Moore, 2001; Chung, Coleman and Gfroerer,

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2003), and that coaching has been addressed only sparsely in the career development literature in

general (Ciutiene, Neverauskas and Meilene, 2010), there is a clear gap in expatriate coaching

research.

In the light of above, the aim of this study is to explore expatriates’ experiences

concerning coaching as a part of their career capital development. Next, we briefly introduce the

theoretical building blocks of this paper and present a review of the relevant literature.

2 Literature review

In this section we discuss the central concepts of this paper, career capital and executive

coaching in an international context, and review the existing literature.

2.1 International careers and career capital

The nature of careers in the age of globalization is very different from that only a few

years ago (Thomas et al., 2005). Contemporary career patterns are suggested to be flexible, non-

linear and self-driven. Also current organizations are less ridged, but not totally fluid in their career

management systems as individuals tend to take more control of their own career – the careers have

shifted toward boundaryless and protean careers (Baruch, 2006). These two overlapping career

theories are suggested to be relevant in the international context, and the concept of protean careers

seems to be particularly appropriate in the context of boundaryless global careers. Both approaches

stress the role of an individual’s awareness. Protean refers to the subjective perspective of an

individual careerist facing external career realities of a boundaryless career (Suutari and Mäkelä,

2007). De Fillippi and Arthur first introduced the ‘intelligent career’ theory in 1994 (Parker,

Khapova and Arthur, 2009). It was later revised and re-labeled to boundaryless career. DeFillippi

and Arthur (1996) defined boundaryless career as ‘sequences of job opportunities that go beyond

the boundaries of single employment settings’. This theory suggests that people invest in their

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careers through three ways of knowing. Career actors are viewed as individuals who consciously

gain portable capabilities, actively construct social networks and enhance their careers. They

identify their own drives and motivations, and apply these in their work context (Inkson and Arthur,

2001; Suutari et al., 2013).

The concept of career capital consists of the following sub-dimensions; first, ‘knowing-

how’ is an integrative term that combines explicit knowledge, implicit experiences, soft skills and

technical expertise into a specific form of career capital. Second, ‘knowing-why’ career capital

dimension consists of motivation, confidence, and self-assurance to pursue a certain career path.

Third, ‘knowing-whom’ involves person’s work relationships and includes occupational and internal

company connections that can support individual’s career. It also incorporates broader contacts with

family, friends, fellow-alumni, and professional and social acquaintances (DeFillippi and Arthur,

1994; Inkson and Arthur, 2001).

The model of career capital offers a broad framework to study developmental perspective

of an employee, and it has been found to be relevant also in the international career context and

among expatriates. (Inkson and Arthur, 2001; Cappellen and Janssens, 2005; Suutari and Mäkelä,

2007). The existing research indicates that international assignments develop all the three

dimensions of career capital. Knowing-how capital competencies have been found to develop

during expatriation through the development of cross-cultural and general management skills,

listening, negotiation, teamwork and delegation skills and capacity to learn (Antal, 2000; Dickmann

and Doherty, 2008). Also knowing-why capital develops during expatriation. International

assignments improve expatriates’ sense of their potential, their self-awareness and increase their

self-confidence. Expatriation is an experience that challenges one’s beliefs, and influences

individual’s identity and future career aspirations. Further, it impacts also their values and interests

(Kohonen, 2004; Dickmann and Harris, 2005; Suutari and Mäkelä, 2007; Dickmann and Doherty,

2008; Jokinen et al., 2008). Further, knowing-whom career capital is found to be strengthened

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because assignees expand their professional networks while on an assignment (Antal, 2000;

Mäkelä, 2007). Moreover, expatriates are able to utilize their previous international experiences in

their future international assignments, and there is evidence that the competencies acquired are

transferable to a new context, at least to some extent (Jokinen, 2010).

The career capital development can be assisted with development interventions, for

instance, with coaching or mentoring (Dickmann and Harris, 2005; Mezias and Scandura, 2005;

Singh, Ragins and Tharenou, 2009). So far research has indicated that mentoring has a positive

effect on the expatriate’s organizational knowledge, organizational knowledge-sharing, and job

performance (e.g. Feldman and Bolino, 1999; Meziah and Scandura, 2005; Carraher, Sullivan and

Crociotto, 2008; Singh, Ragins and Tharenou, 2009). Coaching has been recommended suitable

development intervention for expatriates (Selmer, 1999; Mendenhall and Stahl, 2000; Mendenhall,

2006). However, empirical research focusing on expatriate coaching is very limited and next,

current literature focusing on international and expatriate coaching is reviewed.

2.2 International and Expatriate Coaching

International perspective on executive coaching has gained growing attention among

coaching practitioners and scholars (Abbott et al. 2013) and it has been argued that executive

coaching is now entering the period of globalization (Barosa-Perreira, 2014). Coaching is

commonly seen as a collaborative and non-directive relationship between the coach and the coachee

for the purpose of attaining professional or personal development outcomes. It is a cross-

disciplinary approach that has its roots in psychology, management, learning theory, theories of

human and organizational development, philosophy, and sports (Brock, 2008; Bachkirova et al.,

2010). As the coaching research has grown beyond its infancy, there is more and more evidence that

coaching has positive effects on performance and skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and

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goal directed self-regulation (Theeboom et al., 2014). However, many coaching scholars posit that

the profession still lacks the evidence-base (Feldman and Lankau, 2005; Peterson, 2011), and this is

especially true for the evolving field of international coaching research.

Over the past decade coaching scholars have started to study coaching from an

international perspective. Terms such as international, cross-cultural and global coaching are used

interchangeable, and the coaching approaches have been influenced by cross-cultural and

international management theories. Currently, a holistic approach to integrating culture into

mainstream coaching is emerging (Abbott, 2007; 2010; Abbott et al., 2013). However, it is worth

noticing that almost every coaching assignment has some cultural ingredients, which do not have to

be international in nature. So far, most of the literature concerning international coaching is

conceptual and cover topics such as multinational teams, gender and diversity issues, culture and

different coaching frameworks and approaches suitable for international contexts (e.g. Rosinski,

2003 and 2010; Handin and Steinwedel, 2006; Peterson, 2007; Passmore, 2009; Moral and Abbott,

2009; Coultas et al., 2011; Plaister-Ten, 2013). Typically, the understanding of cultural dimensions

and values are argued to be requirements for coaches working internationally and, for example,

there is evidence from the Asian context that coaching needs to be adapted to local cultural values

(Nangalia and Nangalia, 2010). Since we focus here on expatriate coaching as a vehicle to develop

the career capital of assignees, we next review the existing expatriate coaching literature in more

detail.

Earlier literature has suggested that coaching is likely to be efficient, because, like the

expatriate experience itself, coaching is a connected process that impacts interactively across the

individual’s affective, behavioral and cognitive domains (Abbott et al., 2006). Some studies have

presented theoretical models (Abbott and Stening, 2009) how coaching may support expatriate in

different phases of the assignment cycle or how expatriate coaching may support couples’

adjustment (Miser and Miser, 2009). Specific needs for coaching of female expatriates (Burrus,

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2009a) and global nomads (Burrus, 2009b), individuals who have lived in different countries since

their childhood and have global careers, have also been discussed. Further, Abbott (2011) has

suggested that executive coaching of expatriates develops the global mindset, a construct consisting

of psychological, social and intercultural capital (Javidan et al., 2010), and cultural intelligence, the

capability for consciousness and awareness during intercultural situations (Ng and van Dyne, 2009).

The empirical studies on expatriate coaching have shown that executive coaching is an

intervention which facilitates expatriate acculturation and help them to deal with intercultural

differences, pre-departure uncertainty, and support the repatriation process (Abbott, 2006;

Herboltzheimer, 2009). Coaching has also reported increasing expatriates’ emotional intelligence

capabilities of self-awareness, emotional control, communication strategies, self-reflection and

empathy (McGill, 2010). Moreover, coaching has found to increase expatriates’ effectiveness and

performance (Abbott, 2006; Herboltzheimer, 2009; McGill, 2010), and enhance their leadership

development (McGill, 2010). Executive coaching is reported boosting the levels of happiness,

personal satisfaction and confidence of expatriates and decrease their stress (McGill, 2010).

Furthermore, it has been found that coaching is perceived beneficial because it provides a

professional dialogue partner (Herbolzheimer, 2009) and is tailored to their individual needs

(McGill, 2010; Salomaa, in press). International experience and the behavior of the coach are found

being essential success factors. Also coaching language impacts expatriate coaching in several ways

(Salomaa, in press). Organizational support and a clear contract with objectives and evaluation of

coaching appear to be important in regard to coaching success (Salomaa, in press). However, HR

representatives are found to be scarcely familiar with the existence and practice of expatriate

coaching (Herbolzheimer, 2009).

In sum, both international coaching and the development of career capital during an

international assignment are developing areas of research. Existing theoretical and empirical studies

on expatriate coaching show that it is likely that coaching could be beneficial for career capital

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development. However, to best of our knowledge research focusing on expatriates’ experiences of

coaching as a support intervention for career capital is lacking and thus this study aims to fill this

gap in current research.

After reviewing the relevant earlier literature on career capital of expatriates, coaching

and expatriate coaching, we will next describe the empirical data and methodological approach

adopted.

3 Method

A qualitative, narrative analysis was chosen to explore three rich narratives of coached

expatriates. A narrative approach was adopted for this study, because it is well suited for studies of

change processes, such as international career transitions. It is also argued that stories are highly

relevant for the study of careers (Cohran, 1990; Cohen and Mallon, 2001; Savickas, 2001; Bujold,

2004). A narrative can be a description of a specific event or process (Flick, 2002), such as an

expatriation or coaching process. Furthermore, narrative approach may reveal issues that would not

be exposed by using other methods.

A narrative approach has been suggested suitable for management and organizational

research (Czarniawska, 1997; Boje, 2001), and it has been adopted in international business

research (Gertsen and Söderberg, 2011). Narrative approach has been already applied to expatriate

research, providing in-depth understanding concerning expatriate managers’ heroic tales (Osland,

2000), expatriates’ cultural encounters and cultural learning processes (Gertsen and Söderberg,

2010) and expatriates’ identity and career aspirations (Kohonen, 2007).

As narrative research offers no automatic analyzing steps, we recognize that there is a

considerable diversity in the definition of personal narrative and a large methodological variation

within the narrative theory (Riessman, 2000). Therefore we next define some central concepts of

this study. We position this study in the social-constructivist paradigm, and adopt an experience-

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centered approach to narratives (Squire, 2008). We build on Patterson’s (2008) definition of

experience-centered narratives, and understand a narrative or a story to be ‘texts which bring stories

of personal experience into being by means of the first person oral narration of past, present, future

or imaginary experience’. We use a ‘narrative’ or a ‘story’ interchangeably. According to Squire

(2008), the experience-centered approach assumes that narratives are: 1) sequential and meaningful;

2) definitely human; 3) re-present experience, in the sense of reconstructing it as well as mirroring

it; and 4) display transformation or change. Sequence is embedded in dialogue, and meaningfulness

is located in interviewer-interviewee interaction. Narratives are the means of human sense-making,

and are jointly told between writer and reader, speaker and hearer (Ricour, 1991). The assumption is

that experience cans, trough stories become a part of consciousness and that the context of a

narrative plays an important role (Squire, 2008).

We assume here that the personal stories of expatriates are just one of the many truths,

since storytellers choose to connect events and make them meaningful for others. A story is an

interpretation of the past rather than a historical exact reproduction of it (Czarniawska, 2004;

Riessman, 2005; Polkinghorne, 2007). Experience-centered approach aims at full interpretation and

understanding rather than structural analysis. Narrative analysis takes seriously both the content and

the context of storytelling and the notion of ‘story’ always entails ‘audience’ as well as ‘storyteller’

(Squire, 2008). In this case the interviewees told their story to the researcher, and they knew, that

the data would be used for analyzing purposes and that the research results would be written and

published to a wider audience. Many of them said in the interview, that they found coaching and

coaching research important and therefore wanted to help.

The data of this study consists of three semi-structured interviews of expatriates. The

analysis unit is the whole interview, thus we focused specifically on text excerpts, which reveal

different aspects of the career capital model discussed above. These interviews were gathered as

part of a larger scale research project in 2012 and 2013 (N=33) by the first author and these three

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stories were selected as representing three different perspectives on how coaching was perceived in

a relation to career capital development.

Experienced managers in senior roles told these three stories. The interviewees

represented also three different nationalities (German, Finnish, American), different international

locations (Finland, Switzerland, Japan/Korea) and two different industries (Telecommunication and

Pharmaceutical) as well as different phases concerning how experienced they were as expatriates.

For confidentiality reasons, we use pseudonyms. The interviewees participated voluntarily in the

research project. The only criterion for participation was that they had to have experienced coaching

by an external professional coach during their expatriation.

Participants were recruited by publishing recruitment announcements in web-pages of

two coaching journals, through Linkedin, and by using a snowballing system and direct contacts to

Human Resource (HR) departments of MNCs. In a pre-interview email details of the research

process, of the interviewer and of the interview were given to the interviewees. They were informed

that the researcher was interested in their expatriate coaching process and that the interviewer had

studied and practiced coaching. At the outset of the interview participants were given a possibility

to ask questions about the research process, and the interviewer asked permission to record the

interview. The interviewer assured them that the collected data was treated anonymously and

confidentially.

The interviews were completed in Finnish or English in face-to-face meetings, by using

Skype, and over the mobile phone. The average duration of interviews was 45-60 minutes. Semi-

structured (Squire, 2008), open-ended questions were used in order to gather rich narratives of the

coaching experiences. The first author, (the interviewer), who is a native Finnish speaker,

transcribed the Finnish interview verbatim. In order to avoid misunderstandings and bias, a native

English speaker transcribed the interviews conducted in English verbatim. The transcribed texts

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were sent back to the interviewees for a check (McMillan and Schumacher, 2006), and the final

texts were analyzed.

The data analysis included the following stages: First, the first author listened to the

recorded stories, read the transcriptions several times, and marked the arousing themes on the

margins of the paper version of the transcriptions; second, the first author coded the texts by using

the framework of career capital (knowing-why, -whom and -how capital) and by utilizing the

NVivo QSR software; third, the first author created short narratives of the interviews, which were

sent back to the interview participants for their comments, fourth, for triangulation purposes the

second author repeated the coding process independently, after which the findings were compared

and discussed; fifth, the researchers constructed a final new narrative of each analyzed story

(Makkonen et al., 2012).

4 Findings

We present the findings of our study in the form of three stories. Due to the limited length of the

paper we had to cut off the illustrative quotations which would have been helpful in order to

demonstrate the development of different career capital capabilities found in the analysis. However,

some of the quotations are presented in the conference presentation. These stories are our

interpretation of the stories told in the interview situation to the interviewer. All stories are shedding

light on different ways how expatriate coaching can be helpful in career capital development. Also

disappointments and frustration experiences are presented. The two first stories, Anni’s and Peter’s

are narratives of less experienced expatriates, whereas Michael who is a very experienced expatriate

tells the third story.

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4.2 Anni’s story - ‘a positive survival’

The coaching context

At the time of the interview, Anni was a married Finnish female in here late forties. She

has done her career in the field of consumer products. Before her expatriate assignment in

Switzerland she had worked in Sweden two years being responsible for the Nordic region. During

past eight years she had had six different jobs and increasing responsibilities. Anni told that she

hired a coach In Finland first time one year before her international assignment begun and she told

that her original motivation to engage in coaching was to develop her leadership skills. Then she

was promoted to a new Vice President (VP) role in Switzerland where her employer, large MNC,

had its European head quarters of one of its business units.

While in Switzerland, Anni realized that the amount of new and challenging tasks was on

a very much higher level than in her previous job, and that she needed onboarding type of coaching

in order to perform well and to have a work-life balance in her new environment. She encountered

cultural, geographical, financial, and strategic as well as company specific political challenges.

Anni renewed her coaching contract with the same coach. During her coaching process, the

onboarding type of coaching turned to crisis coaching, because the company was in a

transformation process and the new VP position was terminated in Europe. Consequently, Anni got

different job offers and experienced also repatriation, which occurred unexpected to her.

Next, we focus on career capital development and especially to the coaching process

during her expatriation.

Knowing-how capital

The coaching engagement during expatriation was very helpful for Anni to gain

support how to cope in the hectic and rapidly changing international context. Anni and her coach

worked on topics such as how to succeed in cooperation with the US head quarters, how to work

together with her multicultural team, how to lead 16 European countries, which was Anni’s

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responsibility area, and what it took to live in a foreign cultural environment in Switzerland.

Further, her coach, who was a Finnish-British citizen and lived in the USA, supported her to

understand the political games going on in the MNC.

Beside these expatriation specific knowing-how skills Anni told that she gained

support to cope with new skills to manage the complex and complicated change situation from

coaching. Anni also told that a lot of the leadership skills that she had learned during the first

coaching engagement before expatriation, were now activated.

Knowing-why capital

Concerning knowing-why capital, Anni told that coaching strengthened her self- confidence

and courage which, in turn, helped her decision-making in challenging situations. She learned also

to clarify her thinking and to say ‘No’ to unsatisfying job offers, even she was afraid, that it would

harm her career within the company. Anni mentioned that she was now able to utilize leadership

skills she developed during her first coaching process. She also told that during the onboarding

phase of her assignment, coaching helped her to find her identity as a leader.

Moreover, Anni also told that coaching helped her to identify and position herself as a

Finnish individual working globally and living in a foreign culture. It supported her to understand

her strengths and gave her confidence that she was able to manage the challenging situation. Anni

told that she learned a lot about her self, for example, how she encountered complex circumstances

and what was her style to lead and survive.

During the period when the VP position was terminated in Europe, described as crisis by Anni, the

coaching boosted her energy levels and she gained motivation through visioning the future and

evaluating different job opportunities. Coaching introduced her also to new perspectives, which

helped her to believe in her self.

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Knowing-whom capital

Coaching supported Anni’s understanding how to utilize different human networks and

partnerships. Her coach asked her direct questions concerning which she could contact in order to

learn or get support.

To conclude, Anni developed her career capital as an outcome of her coaching process. For her

it was very important, that her coach had an international business background, which was

necessary for helping Anni to manage and understand the different cultural and political issues in a

multicultural MNC. Anni described her coaching journey during her assignment in Switzerland as

‘a positive survival’.

4.3 Peter’s story – ‘never ending work in progress’

The coaching context

During the interview, Peter worked as a Managing Director of an American MNC in Korea.

Peter had had nine different positions in twelve years within the company and he felt that his

employer had offered him very interesting working opportunities. He was in the middle of his

forties, married and had a degree from an American university.

Back home in the USA he had had experience from different sales positions and as an

entrepreneur. Before Korea, he worked nearly three years running the MNC’s marketing department

in Japan which was his first expatriate assignment.

After entering Japan, Peter hired a coach. His motivation for that was that he wanted to

understand Japanese culture and perform better in his job in the environment that was very different

from what he had used to. As Peter needed to manage a Japanese team, the coaching engagement

turned to be a mixture of cultural and leadership coaching. When he was relocated to Korea, he

hired a coach again, but perceived that the Korean coaching relationship was an unsatisfactory

experience.

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Knowing-how capital

With the help of his coach in Japan, Peter gained both cross-cultural leadership and

communication skills. Peter told that he learned to be more effective in conversations with Japanese

individuals. Also, by developing cross-cultural leadership skills, he learned to lead his team

efficiently. Further, he acquired knowledge, how to use Japanese metaphors, typical in the Japanese

business jargon, that were very useful for him in his day-to-day work.

Beside the original motivation for coaching and development he expected from it,

Peter told that with the help of his coach he learned new techniques to focus his mind and clarify his

thinking processes. Peter told that due to the coaching he adopted a coaching type managerial style.

Peter also told that his role was to ask questions, which made action happen. For Peter, it was a total

new way to do business and lead people.

Knowing-why capital

Peter and his coach worked on several perspectives of knowing-why capital in Japan. Peter’s

story revealed that his assignment in Japan was full of hardships, during which his motivation tore

up badly. His coach was challenging him out of his comfort zone, and this approach was very

positive for Peter’s motivation and kept him going on. Japanese working environment, not being

able to understand the language, sapped Peter’s strength. For example, he had to use a translating

device to be able to follow and lead the meetings. Peter described his normal working day to be

‘like sitting in front of a very loud television with a very loud earphones playing something different

in his ear’. Peter’s coaching helped him to put things into the right perspective and to boost his

energy levels. Through coaching, he gained a better sense of balance, so that he was able to solve

problems. Further, Peter worked with his coach on topics such as what his role was in the

organization, why he should conform for the wellness of the organization and how the assignment

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impacted his career. Peter confirmed that coaching provided him with the understanding of the

bigger picture.

Coaching supported also Peter’s identity in two ways. First, it helped him to define his identity as

a leader within the organization, and second, it assisted him to understand, who he was in a foreign

country.

Knowing-whom capital

In Peter’s story the only aspect of knowing-whom capital we could identify in the analysis, was

that his coach provided him with Western contacts in Japan.

Overall, Peter experienced his coaching process in Japan as ‘extremely valuable’. Peter

described his coaching engagement as a kind of marriage, ‘a never ending work in progress’. It was

a professional relationship, which was very much based on his coach’s credibility, coach’s

knowledge of the Japanese as well as international business and local culture and challenging

approach, which helped Peter to grow. Peter appreciated also that he could see in very tangible

ways, how he had changed during his coaching process.

After this satisfactory experience with his coach in Japan, Peter hired a coach when he

expatriated to Korea. However, his high expectations were not met and he told that the coaching

process was more like cultural training, where the coach had her own agenda and much of the topics

could have been learned directly from the books compared to his previous, deep-going coaching

discussions that were focused on his needs. In Japan his American coach had challenged him out of

his comfort zone, was experienced in Japanese culture and language, savvy in international business

and could support him because of his own international and cross-cultural experiences. This may be

interpreted in a way that the needs for coaching change. In this particular case, during the first

expatriation experience in Japan Peter perhaps needed and expected support with different issues

compared to his second assignment, showing evidence that career capital is transferable and

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therefore the coaching needs of an assignee needs to be reviewed carefully. Also the selection of the

coach with suitable skills appears to be a very important part of a successful coaching experience.

4.1 Michael’s story – ‘out of the rat hole’

The coaching context

At the time of the interview, Michael, a German manager was in his fifties. He had a

technical university degree, and worked as a Senior Manager at the headquarters of a MNC in

Finland. His working environment was very international, and at the time of the coaching

assignments his employing company was going through a major transformation process where

individuals experienced lots of strain and stress.

He had a family, who lived in Germany. Michael had been altogether five years in Finland as a

self-initiated expatriate, and before moving to Finland, he had been working several years in the

USA and in the Netherlands, as well as shorter periods in many other countries. He had been abroad

since his childhood, and Michael was of the opinion, that travelling and international assignments

had become a part of his DNA. International working environments had become also ‘one of the

critical aspects of sort of liking’ for him and he was fascinated by how different cultures and

different working environments impacted on business and ethical decisions.

Compared to previous stories told by Anni and Peter, who both told that they needed support

in order to cope in international business context and cross-cultural environment, Michael’s

coaching processes started because he wanted to learn coaching skills in order to be able to coach

his subordinates and peers. Another reason for his coaching was that Michael realized, that he was

mentally stuck, meaning that he was misaligned with his values, not knowing where he was going.

To free him self from the mental ‘cage’ Michael had hired two external, professional coaches who

worked with him one after another.

Knowing-how capital

19

In his story Michael highlighted several knowing-how capital capabilities, which he gained

through his coaching engagement. Through experiencing coaching himself, he understood better the

structure of a coaching process, and what the differences between coaching and mentoring were

when coaching someone. Further, he learned actual coaching skills: listening, asking questions,

quieting one’s mind, being unjudgemental and open to other individual’s ideas, showing emotional

intelligence, and enlarging his coaching to help others within the company. He learned also to coach

himself and to challenge himself into new areas of doings. He told that from his point of view, these

coaching skills are portable capabilities, which can be used in almost any contexts during one’s

career path.

In addition, in his story Michael mentioned several times, how his coaching benefitted

his employing company. For example, coaching introduced him the idea that he could work across

the different departments within his company and through doing that, Michael gained more holistic

understanding about different processes going on within his own organization.

Knowing-why capital

As an analytical engineer Michael had always trusted his brain. During his coaching processes

he learned to know his weaknesses and strengths. Now he was able to acknowledge not just

analytical, mental capabilities, but also feelings, and he started to enjoy his life in a new way and it

gave him a lot additional ammunition to his work.

Through working on his values with his coaches he was able also to vision the future, and make

a plan to reach it. He gained also confidence and self-belief to do the needed actions. He knew

better whom he was and what he wanted to accomplish. Part of it was, that he learned that he

needed not to be perfect and he allowed himself to make mistakes. In his own words, he became

more ‘human’. He became also sure that he could influence other people at the working place.

20

Furthermore, even though it was not in his original intention to have coaching

discussions about cross-cultural issues, Michael gained also new cross-cultural skills and

understanding which were more related to knowing-why than knowing-how career capital as it was

the situation in Anni’s and Peter’s stories. Before his coaching engagements, Michael had managed

well in several different international environments, but through coaching he understood that he had

strived to be something else he truly was. He realized that cultural differences were connected to his

values, and after his coaching process he could behave in a more authentic way.

Knowing-whom capital

Also Michael’s knowing-whom capital developed during his coaching processes. In his story he

described how he started to volunteer in connecting with young entrepreneurs and acting as their

mentor. He saw that this activity formed a beneficial bridge between his company and these

entrepreneurs who were full of fresh ideas. This activity was very satisfying for Michael and he felt

that he was getting a bigger circle of influence and relationships. Further, Michael started to connect

with other important individuals in his life.

To sum up, Michael gained new capabilities in all of the three areas of career capital.

Also, he was of the opinion that he was able to free himself out of the ‘rat hole’ of his own mind,

because coaching helped him to be aligned with his values. Michael experienced that his coaching

was a life-changing event, but at the same time a process where the coachee needs to put a lot of

energy in order to reach the wanted outcomes, otherwise it is waste of time and money.

Next, we discuss these three stories in the light of previous literature and make some

conclusions.

21

5 Discussion and Conclusions

Our aim was to explore expatriates’ experiences concerning coaching as a part of their career

capital development. The findings of our study showed that the complex and challenging expatriate

environment was described in every story and the coaching processes were seen as helpful

development interventions in this kind of challenging contexts enhancing the development of career

capital. This finding is in line with previous studies showing evidence that coaching is beneficial for

expatriates (Abbott, 2006; Herboltzheimer, 2009; McGill, 2010; Salomaa, in press). Our study

contributed to earlier literature by focusing especially on career capital development of expatriates

with the help of coaching and confirmed the suggested relevance in this context (Selmer, 1999;

Mendenhall and Stahl, 2000; Mendenhall, 2006).

The model of career capital offered a relevant framework to study developmental perspective of an

expatriate (Inkson and Arthur, 2001; Cappellen and Janssens, 2005; Suutari and Mäkelä, 2007). As

earlier studies on career capital have shown, that many capabilities develop also as a result of an

international assignment, coaching’s role was to accelerate this development. In these three stories

the interview participants were able to separate the impact of the assignment and that of the

coaching in the development process. As we can see from the stories told by Anni, Peter and

Michael, they all shared experiences in regard to their knowing-how career capital through, for

instance, development of cross-cultural and leadership skills. They all highlighted the development

boosted by coaching in identity transformation, enhanced awareness of the self and motivation

levels – indicators of knowing-why career capital development. Knowing-whom career capital

development was also represented in all stories, for instance, our interviewees were telling about

developing useful contacts and co-operation inside and outside the company with the actual help of

the coach or motivated by the coaching process. However, the knowing-whom career capital did not

emerge as often as the other two career capital types but when it was mentioned, its importance was

highlighted.

22

Further, as coaching is a process that is adapted to the needs of the individual (Bachkirova et al.

2010), each story highlighted different perspectives. Michael was the most experienced global

nomad, who had lived and worked in many different countries whereas Anni and Peter had less

international experience. Michael engaged in coaching in order to develop his own practical skills

and self-development whereas Anni’s and Peter’s motivation to start coaching process was to gain

help to cope in the international working context. However, in all three stories, it became evident

that development happened also in the areas they were not originally priorized or even expected.

The findings presented above must be interpreted in view of the limitations of the

study. Firstly, these three personal stories do not provide the whole, or even a definitive, picture of

the issues occurring in the expatriate coaching. Fundamentally, the narrative of the personal stories

interpreted and represented in this study is first and foremost about evocations and perceptions from

the participants’ perspectives, and thus gives only a partial view of the coaching process and career

capital development. Secondly, the narrative is the researchers’ interpretation of these stories as told

during interviews. Despite the limitations of this study relating to its sample or method, the findings

challenge the traditional ways of studying interventions and their effectiveness and highlights the

personal perception of the experience of coaching and its effects on career capital development. Our

study findings also showed that career capital development and utilization of that is not always so

clear and concious.

The conclusion about the relationship between the strength of the previous

international experience and different needs for coaching could open up a new avenue for future

research in the field of expatriate coaching and career capital. For example, studies using broader

samples and different methods might be able to illustrate more widely how transferable career

capital is, what is actually is tranferable (cf. Jokinen, 2010) and the mechanism to whom and to

what purposes coaching is most beneficial. In addition, our research showed also evidence that

23

coaching is not always perceived useful and therefore critical research perspectives on coaching as a

development intervention is needed.

The practical implication of this study is the need to apply a multifaceted

understanding of coaching as a development intervention. For instance, by increasing understanding

and knowledge of the career capital concept through training and development among coaches’ and

coach training institutions in future, coaches might be able to adopt the career capital framework as

one practical tool for coaching processes. Furthermore, based on our findings, organizations

employing expatriates could benefit from using coaching as our findings indicate that career capital

development enhances expatriates’ ability to perform better in their challenging jobs. Therefore,

especially the people responsible for HRD should take coaching as one possible method to develop

their organization’s human resources.

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