Why do you think John Ross' prior expatriate experience failed to prepare him for the task of managing XCO China?
I think for one the lack of training and preparation on part XCO was number one factor even though John had been successful in two other countries he did not have the cultural training required and personnel sent to him were not selected accordingly and also not prepared for such venture.

What does the experience of XCO with American expatriates tell you about the problems of working abroad and about the difficulties of using home-country employees to transfer valuable knowledge with a multinational firm?
I think first and foremost the culture itself is a big obstacle and if you do not know the culture you can make several mistakes including the fact they you may have people that will not get along with you for the fact that find you offensive or incompetent for the job. On the other hand using home-country employees can just cause a lack of interest to complete a task and could have a great a deal of resistance.

In order to transfer valuable knowledge, why was it apparently more effective to take Chinese employees to the United States, and then transfer them back home, than it was to use U.S. expatriates?
For starters it was a motivation for these employees to learn new techniques they came back motivated and inspired to perform to the best of their ability proof is the change that was seen in production and how the day to day operations ran.

How might XCO's performance appraisal system be adjusted so that Ross gets credit, if it is deserved, for the difficult work that he is doing in China, work that is not reflected in a level of performance at XCO China that matches XCO's operations elsewhere?
According to our text one of the issues that XCO is having is that John is being evaluated on hard data versus what he has done and what he has improved, in John’s case an on-site manager should participate on the appraisal or a person in experience in that market or has worked in that market should be part of the evaluation.