Term Paper on

Reasons of Expatriate Failure

from the Perspective of BD Army Soldiers

Sent to UN Peace Keeping Missions

Course

International HRM (HRM421)

Submitted to

Silvia Akter

Senior Lecturer

Department of BA

East West University

Submitted by

Md Rezaul Kabir 2011-3-10-086

Submission Date

11 December 2016

Acknowledgement

First of all, we are grateful to almighty Allah who gave us life what we live

on & gave us ability to do what we do. Without his grace, we are unable

to do anything.

We are also thankful to our course instructor who made us preparing this

report & also provided us necessary guidelines.

Finally we would like to express our gratitude to two persons i.e. Senior

Warrant Officer (Retired) Abdus Sattar & Senior Warrant Officer (Retired)

Mokkarrom Hossain who had been sent to UN peace keeping missions as

a member of BD army. Both of them answered our questions & filled up

our questionnaires with patience. And also shared their experiences of

the time when they were in missions. This information let us to complete

our report on expatriate failure.

Table of Contents

Topic Page

Introduction ↓

About Expatriate

Organization Overview

Main Part ↓

Literature Review

Analysis & Comparisons

Recommendation

Conclusion ↔

Reference ↔

Attachment: Questionnaire ↓

Introduction

Clarification of Expatriate in this Report:

An expatriate is an employee who is sent to a foreign country by his

organization in order to accomplish a particular goal within a given time

period.

One thing is needed to be clear that, in this report, here an expatriate is

not an employee of a corporation but a soldier of BD Army. And here the

organization is not a multinational company but BD Army as well as UN.

Technically, when a soldier of BD Army is sent to a foreign country at one

of the peace keeping missions of UN, that member of BD Army who

happens to be a soldier instead of a corporate employee, he/she is

indeed an expatriate. It is because it matches the definition of expatriate.

Here in this report, UN peace keeping mission means international

assignment & the participating soldier means expatriate, according to the

terms of international HRM.

Organizational Overview:

In this report, in terms of foreign peace keeping missions AKA

international assignment, we got two organizations i.e. BD Army & UN.

Bangladesh Army:

BD Army emerged during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971.

Bangladesh Army intends to build a well trained and well-equipped

deterrent land force to meet the traditional and non-traditional threats

and challenges of 21st century.

However, the roles of Bangladesh Army are: to defend sovereignty and

territorial integrity, to plan and develop the mobilization of civil resources

in support of land operations, to aid the civil administrations in

maintenance of internal security and law and order situation, when

assigned, to assist the civil administration in managing the disasters and

natural calamities, when requested, to take part in nation development

activities as and when asked for, to support United Nations Peacekeeping

Operations, to take part in coalition operations with other nations if

authorized by the parliament.

United Nations (UN):

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. It is

currently made up of 193 Member States. The mission and work of the

United Nations are guided by the purposes and principles contained in

its founding Charter.

The United Nations came into being in 1945, following the devastation of

the Second World War, with one central mission: the maintenance of

international peace and security. The UN does this by working to prevent

conflict; helping parties in conflict make peace; peacekeeping; and

creating the conditions to allow peace to hold and flourish. These

activities often overlap and should reinforce one another, to be effective.

The UN Security Council has the primary responsibility for international

peace and security. The General Assembly and the Secretary-General play

major, important, and complementary roles, along with other UN offices

and bodies.

In general sense, we are very much indeed familiar with Military & UN,

but we are not used to think them as an organization. Organization

means, a unit of people that is structured & managed to pursue collective

goals. So both BD Army & UN matches the definition of organization.

Literature Review

Main Discussion:

Analysis with & Comparisons between

Theoretical & Substantive Perspective

From the previous part of literature review, we got some idea about the

reasons of expatriate failures, which are mainly error & lack in policy,

planning, selection, training, adjustment, inability, compensation,

misdoing & so on.

Like international assignment, UN missions have some objectives i.e.

maintain peace in the operation area, provide protection to the civilians,

prevent violence & so on. These are the reasons why UN arranges peace

keeping missions in the unstable & hostile countries in the first place. And

unable to fulfill these objectives causes an entire mission failure.

In the interviews, the first question in the questionnaire (attached at the

end of this report) was about these objectives.

When a soldier is unable to perform the duties related to the above

objectives & goals in the time period of his mission that is an expatriate

failure. It is found from the QA 9.

In the QA 4, we came to know that, there are some special trainings that

are provided to the BD Army soldiers before sending to a foreign mission.

APT, MT6 Special, EOD, Signals, Artillery etc are the main. Some other

additional trainings are also included based on mission type, place & unit.

An expatriate soldier may fail to perform his duties due to lack of the

necessary trainings. But it is well checked & there is a little chance of

missing these trainings in BD Army.

When UN requires soldiers for a peace keeping mission, they request for

soldiers to the militaries like BD Army. In here, the relevant commanding

officers accept & assess the requirements. Then interested soldiers apply

to be enlisted for mission. Based on seniority & skills, the candidate BD

Army soldiers get selected. It is mentioned in the QA 5. Here, if the

selection process has any error & flaw, and not fully eligible candidate got

selected, there is possibility to occur expatriate failure.

Department of Peacekeeping Operation of UN sets the policy of the

missions. Some policy & principles are fixed. And some varies by the

mission locations. Mentioning in the QA 3; dynamic planning, political

assessment, consideration of recent information etc are essential to

modify policy. If any of the policies are not updated with the changing

situations, peacekeeping missions may not succeed. And expatriate

soldiers may not be able to follow the principles & perform his duties

which may also cause expatriate failure.

Not to mention, soldiers risk their life by joining to the UN peacekeeping

missions not only for serving humanity, but also for a financial reward

which is a large lump sum money. The amount of the money & the

process of compensation delivery are also significant in terms of

motivation. Later on, during mission, if the expatriate soldier somehow

assess that the money is not well sufficient, it is possible to occur

negligence in duties due to dissatisfaction. Then it is not impossible of

expatriate failure.

Adjustment is another reason for expatriate failure which does not apply

in this case that much. BD Army soldiers are sent to a UN peace keeping

mission with a batch rather than individually like other countries with

military. Soldiers from the same country stay & perform together which

helps a lot to get adjusted in a foreign even a hostile environment.

One sensitive issue to be mentioned that often many expatriate soldiers

in the UN missions get involved at prostitution in the host country. This

rate may be low for Bangladeshi expatriate soldiers but it happens. It is

highly & strictly prohibited by UN. If any soldier gets involved in

prostitution, they are immediately sent back to their home country. So

prostitution is the worst reason of expatriate failure in this case.

The international assignments which are here peace keeping missions are

stationed in the hostile countries. So tragedy happens. Expatriate soldiers

often die & get injured. BD Army has participated in 56 missions in 40

countries. So far, we lost 84 BD Army soldiers who got killed in the line of

duty by hostile enemies. Death is the most tragic reason of expatriate

failure.

Recommendation

Since 1988, only from BD Army, 119425 soldiers are sent to UN peace

keeping missions. That means, for international assignment, a large

number of expatriates are sent from BD Army. Currently, UN is

conducting their peacekeeping missions in 16 countries meaning

expatriate soldiers of BD Army now exists in 16 different countries.

So our recommendation is, though the expatriate failure is significantly

low in this case, the high officials who are responsible for selection &

training for these expatriate soldiers, should be more focused & careful.

In this process they can add some relevant features (apart from technical

& military training programs) which are used in corporate organizations

(like psychological, linguistic, cultural trainings & so on) which can also be

useful for expatriate soldiers.

And for UN, they should regularly modify & update their peace keeping

mission related principles & policies to reduce any failures.

Conclusion

The existence of international assignments like foreign peace keeping

missions is not good. It means there is domestic disturbance in some

countries of the world. But there will be always violence, disturbance &

hostility in one country or another. This is why organization like UN exists,

so are the peace keeping missions. Like the famous actor George Clooney

said about such missions, “Peace is a full time job”.

We can be very proud that, Bangladesh is the second top country who

contributed with manpower in the peacekeeping missions of UN. Most of

them are from BD Army.

The below map shows where had been BD Army ever been so far.

Ultimately we can realize that, the expatriates of Bangladesh Army are

playing a significant role to maintain peace of the world by participating

in the international assignments which are Peacekeeping Missions by UN.