The influence of Cross Cultural Training on European expatriate assignment at the National Oil Corporation in Libya

As a result of increasing globalisation expatriation in the oil and gas industry has become a common practice. In order to be on the foreground in such a competitive market, it is vital for a corporation like the National Oil Corporation in Libya to make certain that operational international recruitment and expatriate assignments are in place. As a member of OPEC and as an owner of the foremost oil reserves in Africa, the NOC in Libya attracts international investment from a varied array of countries.

The focus of this study was on the Libyan oil industry as it is an ideal platform of the influence of globalization and alterations in economic, political and cultural mixing on the current business setting. Libya has a different culture, social and business custom to the west. To achieve business goals and avoid cultural misunderstandings, large organisations such as the NOC in Libya must be culturally aware and have the ability to stimulate creativeness and inspiration through flexible management for this reason the NOC in Libya was selected.

This study examines the influence of cross cultural training on European expatriate’s assignment at the National Oil Corporation in Libya. The respondents used for this research were European expatriates working at the NOC in Libya. European expatriates represent one of the largest ethnic groups working at the NOC. In 2015, 542 European expatriates, were employed by the NOC. Europeans expatriates were selected to symbolise the Western culture and Libya has been chosen to symbolise the non-Western culture. As this research centres on one corporation and in-depth data is required, the decision of selecting a case study was an expected choice. The data in this research is of qualitative nature, making direct interviews the selected research design.

The findings show that cross cultural training was not offered to the European expatriates working at the NOC in Libya. This, in turn, had a negative influence on their international assignment and on their ability to form positive relations with the local Libyan employees, to achieve the objectives of the international assignment and, consequently, their job performance.