While and after reading the following sections, think of your own organisation, or one you know about, and answer the following questions:
• How can the competencies that become important for international management be developed?
• Are there situations where MNEs fail to recognise or to develop sufficiently the skills of local people in their subsidiaries and might that not be more cost-effective than sending out expatriates?
• What are the absolutely necessary skills that assigned expatriates will need?
• Are our selection systems for expatriates sufficiently robust to ensure that we expatriate the right people?
• Could many of the advantages that assigned expatriates bring be achieved by using other forms of international worker, or by modern communications technologies?