Women and international assignments

Revisiting the influence of cultural novelty and emotional stability on general adjustment of expatriates hosted in emerging economies

Purpose

The relationship between cultural novelty and cross-cultural adjustment of expatriates is often assumed to be negative and linear, while the empirical results for the relationship has been demonstrated by researchers as either negative, positive or absent.

Design/methodology/approach

The current research challenges the negative and linear assumption conceptually and empirically and tests a curvilinear relation between cultural novelty and general adjustment. The authors specifically propose and test a theoretical model whereby emotional stability moderates the curvilinear cultural novelty–general adjustment relationship such that the negative effect of cultural novelty on general adjustment is mitigated by emotional stability. Survey data are collected from expatriates recruited from two different host countries, India (N = 151) and China (N = 157).

Findings

The findings provide support for the curvilinear relationship between cultural novelty and general adjustment and the moderating effect of expatriates' emotional stability on this relationship.

Originality/value

This present study makes unique contributions to the expatriate management literature in at least two major ways: first, this study consolidates the otherwise contradictory findings and furthers the understanding on the nature of the effect of cultural novelty on expatriate adjustment. In addition, this research tests a cultural novelty–expatriate adjustment model using expatriate samples drawn from China and India, the two largest emerging markets that capture the demographic-profile changes pertaining to the newly emerging expatriation trends.

No room at the top? A system dynamics view of the recursive consequences of women's underrepresentation in international assignments

Purpose

The expatriation literature has developed an insightful body of research on the reasons why women are not assigned abroad as frequently as men. However, the authors know very little about the systemic and recursive consequences of women's underrepresentation in international assignments (IAs), which are examined in this conceptual paper.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing upon expatriation research and a system dynamics perspective, the authors propose a conceptual model to explain both women's underrepresentation in IAs and its recursive consequences.

Findings

The authors highlight how women's underrepresentation in IAs results from a complex system of recursive effects that jeopardizes women's professional development and undermines both their own career progression to top management and firms' competitive advantage and international growth. The authors argue that organizations make decisions that contravene their own interest in a competitive global context. First is that they are limiting their talent pool by not considering female candidates. Second is that they are missing the opportunity to use IAs to advance women's careers.

Research limitations/implications

The model provides a solid grounding for future research on selecting the most effective organizational actions and designing supportive measures to disrupt the persistent dynamics contributing to women's underrepresentation in IAs. Future research could also expand our study by incorporating individual differences and the proactive role that women may take.

Practical implications

The model points to specific managerial interventions (e.g. increased access to job training and specific training ahead of the assignment, dual-career support, women's mentoring and affirmative action) which have the potential to reduce women's underrepresentation in IAs and in top management.

Originality/value

The system dynamics approach enables a broader understanding of why women are underrepresented in IAs, how this underrepresentation further exacerbates gender segregation in international business, and how these recursive outcomes can be averted to the advantage of firms' sustainable growth.

Career decisions of married Indian IT female expatriates

Purpose

Despite more than 50 years of research into gender and work, the impact of female expatriates persists to be underrepresented in mainstream international human resource management (IHRM) literature. The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the perceptions of married Indian information technology (IT) women regarding career and expatriating discussions they have with their husbands and its impact on their decision making to undertake international assignments.

Design/methodology/approach

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 married Indian IT women who had undertaken international assignments after marriage. The study includes two data sets, 1: women on less than one-year assignment; 2: women on greater than one-year assignments.

Findings

The study found that women who went on short-term assignments of less than one year travelled alone and found it fortunate and convenient to leave their children in the care of their husbands, in-laws, parents and maids. While in the cases of women travelling for longer-term assignments, most husbands accompanied them. The study suggests that while spousal support was the key, having a shared purpose with husbands along with extended family support was equally significant to facilitate women undertaking an international assignment. As an impetus, the authors note a change within the Indian society where both partners come together to make decisions about expatriating.

Research limitations/implications

The authors discuss the implications for IHRM as they relate to gender diversity within organisations.

Originality/value

The research, underpinned by the early workings of a theory of career hierarchy, explores the complexities in expatriation decision-making processes of married women from the emerging economy of India with traditional family values, who are working within a modern and liberal IT industry.

Cross-cultural management research: Topics, paradigms, and methods—A journal-based longitudinal analysis between 2001 and 2018

Cross-cultural management (CCM) research comprises a variety of disciplines with different thematic, paradigmatic, and methodological assumptions. Since there has been no systematic analysis of the development of topics, paradigms, and methods, this article draws a landscape of these analyzing 777 articles published in two leading journals between 2001 and 2018. Results show that corporate culture, human resource management, and cultural dimensions are main topics in CCM and that positivist and quantitative papers outweigh interpretive and qualitative articles. We examine a convergence of the positivist and interpretive paradigm in 2016 and 2017, what might indicate a possible upcoming paradigmatic shift in CCM. However, positivist articles rise again since 2017. Using computer-aided tools, this study serves as a basis for future literature reviews.

How do you fear? Examining expatriates’ perception of danger and its consequences

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the differing perceptions of fear of expatriates operating in terror-exposed Nairobi and the high-crime environment of Johannesburg and its impact on stress and well-being. It illustrates how expatriates cope with the challenges associated with these two regions.

Design/methodology/approach

Following an interpretative and inductive research approach, qualitative content analyses were conducted using evidence from in-depth interviews with 12 expatriates in senior management or officer positions within a large global organisation, with respondents based in South Africa and Kenya.

Findings

Data suggest that expatriates in the more terrorism-exposed context perceive fear less strongly than expatriates in environments categorised by high degrees of conventional crime. Fear seems to relate to physical well-being via restricted freedom of movement, but there is little evidence that fear affects mental well-being. The study finds that respondents in terror-exposed Nairobi tend to engage more in avoidance-oriented coping strategies, whereas their counterparts in the high-crime environment of Johannesburg predominantly rely on problem-focused coping.

Practical implications

The qualitative design allows practitioners to better understand expatriates’ perceptions of fear, its consequences for stress, and well-being and potential coping strategies expatriates employ. It discusses a set of practical recommendations focussing on the deployment of expatriates assigned to dangerous locations.

Originality/value

This study develops a distinction between terror and conventional crime and contributes with practical insights for assignments into dangerous work environments. The geographic lens of the study provides an in-depth look at expatriation challenges in an arguably neglected regional context.

Organizational practices for the expatriates’ adjustment: a systematic review

Purpose

The globalization of work has contributed to a great increment in cross-cultural interactions, contributing to a new impetus in the expatriates’ topic. The costs associated with the failed international missions are high, and the identification of effective adjustment strategies is of extreme importance, both for organizations and for individuals. The purpose of this paper is to identify the kind of practices that are developed by organizations and their impact on the adjustment of expatriates.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve the proposed objective, a systematic review of literature (from the late 1980s to the present day) will be carried out.

Findings

Based on five articles on the topic, the results show that there are few studies that assess the impact of the types of adjustment to organizational practices, with the cross-cultural training and language training being the most common. These practices have shown a positive effect on performance and adjustment of expatriates.

Originality/value

The authors feel the lack of studies that have adequate indicators to measure the integration and effectiveness of the adjustment of expatriates.

Support for female international business travellers in dual-career families

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate experiences of female international business travellers living in dual-career families (DCFs) who also have childcare obligations. In particular, the paper explores in which way different sources of support – specifically organizational support – are perceived as important and are available to the women under research. Because of the women’s regular absences due to business trips and the fulfilment of their family role, challenges regarding childcare or household responsibilities may occur. Consequently and also according to social support theory, different types of support may be necessary to organize family and international career, and effectively perform in both environments.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper examines the experiences and thoughts of these women with special regards on support issues. Data are collected from 51 semi-structured interviews with internationally travelling women in DCF situations originating from seven Western and non-Western countries. The interviews are analysed applying template analysis.

Findings

Results show that, across countries, support is mainly derived from within family. Regarding institutional or organizational support, however, the reported expectations and actually offered activities differ because of local institutional and cultural variations. The examined women value different forms of organizational support, but do not necessarily expect it.

Originality/value

This paper represents the first exploratory examinations of various forms of support for female international business travellers in DCFs suggested by social support theory. It includes a culturally diverse sample and contributes to cross-cultural career research.

The professional lives of expatriate academics

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to provide clarity around the notion of the expatriate academic (EA), a construct that is increasingly essential to theories of expatriate management and higher education management. A review of the literature on academic mobility showed that terms such as “international academic” and “foreign faculty” provide highly variable definitions and results, while those papers that self-consciously used the term “EA” were more likely to provide consistency across definition and findings. This allowed for analysis of the characteristics of this unique group.

Design/methodology/approach

– This study appropriates a meta-narrative approach to literature review, analysing 23 papers about EAs to develop a more comprehensive conceptualisation of this term and to identify key-related themes.

Findings

– By reviewing 23 papers identifying with the term, a carefully constructed definition of the EA is provided, distinguishing EAs from other types of internationally mobile academic and demonstrating characteristics that EAs display in their professional lives. Recommendations are made to researchers, universities and EAs themselves for how these findings may affect the EA employment cycle. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Originality/value

– This is the first paper to aggregate the results of literature on EAs, putting forward a clear definition and description to aid future research and clarify the research stream.

Long-term assignment reward (dis)satisfaction outcomes: hearing women’s voices

Purpose

– Drawing upon compensating differentials, equity theory, and the psychological contract, women’s voices illustrate how organisational policy dissemination, implementation and change can lead to unintended assignee dissatisfaction with reward. Implications arise for organisational justice which can affect women’s future expatriation decisions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

– A qualitative case study methodology was employed. Reward policies for long-term international assignments (IAs) were analysed. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted confidentially with 21 female long-term assignees selected using stratified sampling, and with two managers responsible for international reward policy design/implementation.

Findings

– Policy transparency is required. Women perceive inequity when allowances based on grade are distorted by family status. Women in dual career/co-working couples expect reward to reflect their expatriate status. Reward inequity is reported linked to specific home/host country transfers. Policy change reducing housing and children’s education are major causes of reward dissatisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

– This case study research was cross-sectional and set within one industry. It addressed reward outcomes only for long-term IAs from the perspectives of women who had accepted expatriation in two oil and gas firms.

Practical implications

– Reward policy should be transparent. Practitioners might consider the inter-relationship between policy elements depending on grade and accompanied status, location pairings, and the effects of policy content delivery to dual career/co-working couples.

Originality/value

– This paper advances the field of IA reward by examining compensating differentials, equity and the psychological contract and takes these forward via implications for organisational justice. It identifies reward elements that support women’s expatriation and address their low share of expatriate roles, thereby fostering gender diversity. Future research themes are presented.

International adjustment of female vs male business expatriates. A replication study in Switzerland

Purpose

– Reasons for women’s underrepresentation in international assignments include stereotypical assumptions within organizations about their ability to adjust abroad and more broadly a lack of trust from the corporate headquarters. Female expatriates’ adjustment may strongly vary depending on the host country and on host-country nationals’ attitudes toward them. Yet up until today, very few studies have examined female expatriate adjustment in a single and non-Asian host country. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by comparing the cross-cultural adjustment of male and female expatriates in Switzerland.

Design/methodology/approach

– This study replicates Selmer and Leung’s (2003a) study design in order to compare adjustment of male and female expatriates working in multinational companies in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Based on 152 valid questionnaires collected, the authors performed a multivariate analysis of covariance and further analyses of covariance to compare male and female expatriate adjustment.

Findings

– The authors find that female expatriates have significantly higher interaction and work adjustment levels than their male counterparts, while no significant differences between men and women were observed in terms of general adjustment. These findings in a European context are consistent with those of Selmer and Leung in an Asian context.

Originality/value

– Very few studies to date have examined the adjustment of female expatriates in a western host-country context, despite the fact that host-country cultural norms might strongly influence women’s experiences. The research brings new empirical evidence about cross-cultural adjustment of female and male expatriates in a western location. Contrary to persistent stereotypical assumptions, results emphasize again that women are able to adjust better or at least as well as their male counterparts.