BBA Fall 2016

1. 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

2. 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.

3. Table of Contents
Topic Page
Introduction ↓
About Expatriate
Organization Overview
Main Part ↓
Literature Review
Analysis & Comparisons
Recommendation
Conclusion ↔
Reference ↔
Attachment: Questionnaire ↓

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. Literature Review

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.