This research explores expatriate assignments from a career development perspective. First, the article examines the impact of five organization-level career development programs and policies on expatriate effectiveness. Then, it explores the impact of five individual-level career management strategies on the success of expatriate transitions. Data from 118 expatriates in Saudi Arabia, Europe, South America, and Japan are presented to examine these career development issues.

A higher proportion of U.S.-owned firms operating in Britain adopts investment post-completion audit (PCA) procedures than that of domestic British enterprises, confirming differential adoption rates for many decision and control procedures found by other studies. Insights to this differential are sought in executives' attitudes to the aims, benefits and drawbacks of post-completion auditing. The absence of clear differences in attitudes among all U.K.-based managers suggest that the differential in PCA adoption stems primarily from ownership factors, e.g., exportation of parental control techniques rather than from the influence of local environmental factors.

Increased communication, trade and travel between countries act to bring them together in many respects. The present study examines similarities in macro-environmental characteristics of eighteen industrialized nations over a twenty-eight-year period. Contrary to the initial research proposition, countries were found to be diverging, especially in the latter part of the time period. In spite of the increased communications, travel and trade between countries, physical distance remains an important determinant of macro-environmental similarity. Two measures of national culture, Power Distance and Individualism, were found to be related to change in macro-environmental factors.