Cultural adjustment is considered a must for expatriate achievement abroad. One way to improve this adjustment is by providing employees with the knowledge and awareness of suitable customs and behaviors of the host country through Cross-cultural Training (CCT). There are countless stories of lost businesses, failed marketing campaigns, unsuccessful partnerships, tarnished corporate reputations and extremely expensive mistakes that could have been prevented with some cautious cultural preparation. This article tries to discover a theoretical framework on cultural adjustment and examines its relevance to CCT. The major objective is to prepare suitable content for training that is to be implemented at various phases before and during the expatriate assignment.

Understanding these differences in culture is a significant turning point in deciding the success of the international assignments for an expatriate. In this era, when there is a marked increase in the number of international assignments, the importance of Cross-cultural Training (CCT) is becoming prominent day by day.

Once an employee has been selected for an international assignment, pre-departure training is considered to be the next critical step to ensure his/her success in the assignment, particularly when the culture of the host country is totally different from his/her culture. In Figure 1, pre-departure training is indicated as a subset of general training. Effective cultural training, if properly imparted, helps an individual to adjust more rapidly to the new culture.

Most companies are realizing the need for CCT as they conduct business internationally, open offices in other countries and hire managers from abroad. Today, even mid-size and small companies have recognized the communication problems and cultural differences and how these issues can adversely affect the firms' productivity and profitability. Trying to do international business without prior CCT can lead to adversity. When organizations go global, this cross-cultural aspect becomes a crucial aspect influencing business; be it cross-cultural teams or business interactions, these differences ultimately affect business. For example, Americans do not value hierarchies much, but other cultures like Asia give a lot of priority to position. For instance, if a senior person expresses some wild thought in a brainstorming session, his/her American colleagues will discard the idea even if he/she is a very senior person. But in the same situation, Asian people would give more priority to that idea and start working on it.

HRM Review Magazine, Cross-Cultural Training, CCT, Communication Problems, Business Interactions, Brainstorming Sessions, Culture Shock, Pre-departure Programs, Social Networking Sites, Global Relocations, Global Assignments, Globalization, Cultural Awareness Models, Cultural Intelligence, International Assignments.