A CONTINGENCY FRAMEWORK OF SELECTION AND TRAINING OF EXPATRIATES REVISITED

In light of the major changes and developments that have taken place i n the world since the publication of my 1981 Columbia Journal of World Business, this article contains a critical assessment of whether the contingency paradigm of selection and training identified in the 1981 article still holds. The article first identifies the seven most salie nt changes that have taken place since the early 1980s. Despite these changes, it appears that the contingency paradigm still holds although additional stipulations have to be included to reflect the realities of the new economic world order. The article stresses, moreover, that a piece-meal approach to international human resource management is in effective and inappropriate. To maximize efficiency, a holistic and sy stematic approach has to be adopted which addresses all aspects of IHR M, including selection, training, compensation, appraisal and repatria tion. The repatriation function is hypothesized to play a pivotal role in integrating all other aspects of the IHRM system.