The first businesses to invest in intercultural services did so because they had been embarrassed and injured financially by an avoidable cross-cultural catastrophe. Businesses today are using intercultural consulting and training proactively to prevent such mishaps. They're finding, as a bonus, that their employees are more competent, confident, and effective when abroad. Following are both traditional and newly emerging ways in which interculturalists will work for the benefit of globalizing businesses in the year 2000 and beyond. This field began because expatriates in the Peace Corps clearly needed assistance.
Expatriate training continues to be interculturalists' major contribution to overseas success.
Intercultural research has focused on determining a person's suitability for overseas assignment, yielding a way to assess candidates for expatriation. Computer-scored instruments are commercially available, as are less expensive approaches that support a family in wisely making its own decision. All worthwhile expat coaching programs pay sustained attention to the needs of spouses, including male spouses. Children and teenagers can also receive coaching to prepare them for the cultural transition. Repatriation coaching is gaining wider use because many former expats look back on their experience and conclude that their return home proved more troublesome than their initial transition overseas.