Moscow on the Hudson: assessing expatriates' affective fit in host cultures with the intercultural communication affinity scale

Increasing scale and scope of international activities, particularly by European companies, poses mounting challenges for strategic international human resource management. As the level of complexity of international assignments rises, so too does the cost of failure. Corporate representatives sent as expatriates are often ill-prepared to cope with the intercultural differences they encounter. One socially responsible solution to enhance expatriates' success rate, while meeting corporate objectives, is more adequately to prepare the envoys prior to and during their overseas mission. The authors argue that a key to this process is the evaluation of candidates' intercultural affinity, both as a selection criterion and for training needs assessment. This article first illustrates the importance of intercultural affinity, secondly describes its theoretical roots and forwards a definition and, thirdly, introduces a scale to measure intercultural affinity.