To answer this question, we must tackle head-on three fallacies about overseas assignments, fallacies that arise frequently because they appeal to common sense. When it comes to people crossing cultural boundaries, however, common sense is not necessarily the best guide to action. Anyone with the necessary technical expertise can get the job done overseas. This would be true if jobs overseas brought expatriates into contact only with machines, materials, and money. But even engineers and accountants come into repeated contact with human counterparts whose values, thought patterns, and social skills were developed in the local culture.
Some people are reasonably able to handle the resulting complications and frustrations.
Others are not suited due to temporary family issues or permanent personality traits. But some people simply are poor risks. To paraphrase Shakespeare, intercultural trainers cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear. The good news is that intercultural researchers have developed a body of knowledge about suitability for overseas assignments that can be put to a company's use when candidates are being selected. Training prepares people to be effective as soon as they arrive overseas.