Challenges for Women Expatriates on International Assignments

Introduction

A significant growth in cross-border worldwide business activities driven by globalisation have augmented the importance of International Assignments (IAs) (Culpan & Wright, 2002). International mobility of workforce is getting widespread in multinational corporations (MNCs). It has become an uphill task to find right employees with specific skills and capability keen to relocate for multinational companies to gain success on their global business projects (Caligiuri & Cascio, 1998). As international competition intensifies, the expatriates assume a significant role of conducting business across diverse cultures. Multinational enterprises have to urgently expand the worldwide talent pool and consider female candidates possessing potential talent as compared to male counterparts (Xavier & Doris, 2014).

Menzies (2012)
argues that due to the presence of ‘glass border’ the participation of women on
international assignments in MNCs even today remains substantially low. Linehan and Scullion (2001)
estimated that only 3% to 15% of expatriates are women on overseas assignments.
The number of women pursuing a career in global organisations into higher
management positions is growing (Peter & Lakshmi, 2017).
Transnational corporations gain an advantage by hiring women which facilitate the
expansion of company’s knowledge structure. Women can be associated as a valued
and untouched source of human wealth for global enterprises.

Expatriate
may be defined as an individual’s sent by a multinational enterprise on
international assignments in foreign countries for a specific timespan (Xavier & Doris, 2014).
 Peter and Lakshmi (2017),
in their study, reported that it is a challenging task for MNCs to distinguish,
captivate and keep hold of skilled expatriates to gain competency in this international
environment. International projects are becoming more demanding which comprises
working in diverse and risky cross culture environment with higher
accountability. The expatriates must possess cultural awareness and unique
skills to adapt and adjust in the host country.

Forster (1999)
argued that there is the limited number of books focusing on the women’s role
in international assignments. As compared to male, female on global expatriate
projects are visible on accepting additional work and non-work task. This issue
is worth for examining as the number of women is noticeably lesser out of the
human resource pool for global assignments. Sharp (2018) have agreed that women
managers are understated in IAs as selection process is ad-hoc and informal
approach and there is a need to focus closer to explore more opportunities for
selection of females in the international placement.

The research aims to address the challenges and barriers confronted by women expatriates on international assignments in their career advancement to senior managerial place. On a deeper level, the research paper attempts to obtain an improved understanding of the factors influencing women’s participation in IAs. The objective of this paper will be to spotlight the implications of various barriers for global human resource organization. The contribution of this research paper will be by contributing to emerging scarcity of female global managers willing to work on IAs. According to Linehan and Walsh (1999), nearly 15% of candidates decline the application for IAs because of the occupation of the partner’s. The numerous problems for instance family issues, relocation, repatriation and financial instability acts as a hurdle for appealing the employees. Menzies (2012) found that almost 25% of repatriate employees tend to resign from their companies less than a year of repatriation due to the loss of career in home country.

The
literature review will study and examine the factors that act as a barrier for
women to obtain global career opportunities. This would be a significant area
of research, as the knowledge and expertise that women are endowed with act as
an essential role towards the success of IAs for multinational companies.

In
the subsequent sections, a review of the literature on women in international
assignment will be studied in-depth that formed the basis for their selection
by multinational enterprises. Following this review would further help in
determining the challenges encountered by women in their global careers. Furthermore,
it leads us to the discussion and recommendations that would conclude the
research paper. Finally, outlining the future research prospects.

Literature Review

The
review of literature discloses that the numerous research has been conducted on
expatriate managers, however, the women’s position in global projects are not considered
much (Menzies, 2012).
Menzies (2012)
study shows that family concern and gender discrimination are found to be the reason
of the slower growth of women expatriates in the global market. It was also
found that women expatriates are honoured for their performance as compared to
male expatriates in North America. A study by Linehan and Scullion (2001)
on female expatriates in Japan reported that American female expatriates were
as effective as their male expatriates and argue that multinational enterprises
can reap the benefit of widening the potential expatriate’s pool by including
talented women managers. Similar to this view, Forster (1999) shows
that women are inspired and successful in pursuing the international career as
their male counterparts. However, in absence of company’s support, the chances
of women to be nominated for IAs are very less. Linehan, Scullion, and Walsh (2001)
argue that despite the implementation of European Union protocol to ensure
equal work opportunities for women to gain equal pay, the number of women
advancing their career at higher management designations has been very slow based
on the 50 senior global women managers research conducted in Europe.

Caligiuri, Joshi, and Lazarova (1999),
in their study, have proposed a model with four precursors namely, personality
traits, organisational support, family support and host nationals’ attitude
towards female expatriates for predicting the success of female international
representatives. Fischlmayr (2002)
claimed that there are numerous reasons why MNCs are unenthusiastic to send
female managers on IAs, for instance, stereotypical view of personnel managers,
cultural factors, gender-based stereotypes and self-perception of females. On
the contrary, Van Der Boon (2003) suggested
from their case study research comparing the management styles of  900 female to 900 male managers and career
strategies adopted by women expatriates in international projects and analysed
that women managers encountered the major barrier from within the companies.
The research shows that women’s phraseology of leadership is significant in
handling emotions and result-oriented at work, whilst their male managers are
decision makers and involved in analysing business policies and planning
strategies. MNCs have realized the need for requisite skills possessed by women
for instance, intuitive and empathy and grabbed the attention of incorporating
them into their labour force.

Culpan and Wright (2002)
mention in their research study that researchers have been negligible on
researching female’s viewpoint on their job satisfaction on global work
environment, whilst researchers were more attracted on the success, cultural
adjustment and accomplishment of expatriate managers. The research investigates
the four key factors which include, distinct features and skills of female
expatriate managers, the nature of job design in international assignments,
global workforce policies of MNCs and cultural factors in the host country. On
the other hand, Caligiuri and Cascio (1998)
propose four variables such as individual characteristics, organisations
supporting policies and practices, family adjustments and attitude of the host
country as building blocks to predict the success of female expatriates.

Mathur-Helm (2002)
examined the in-depth interview of 25 female expatriate managers from MNCs
operating in South Africa and explored the challenges faced by female managers.
She classified questions for the interview into four categories viz., social
and family issues, work related issues, selection and gender discrimination
issues and lastly, cultural and environmental issues.

Though
the literature highlights the growing importance and opportunities of women
expatriates in the international business environment. Most of the studies
focus was on analysing the willingness of females in IAs as compared to males
and discriminatory policies of companies. There is a need to emphasize the
issue of women’s involvement as an expatriate to advance on their global career
ladder as important.

Barriers related to women’s participation in IAs

The
literature review reveals that the many studies have been conducted however,
they lack in developing a broader model of barriers related to women’s
participation in IAs (Menzies, 2012).
The researchers have tried to study the constraints faced by women expatriates
from individual and multinational corporation’s viewpoint, very few studies
have scrutinized this from macro and interpersonal standpoint. In this
following section, I would discuss four main factors, namely, macro,
organisational, interpersonal and individual in detail to understand the
barriers related to women expatriates on international assignments.

1.
Macro Barriers

With
the rapid intensification of globalisation and liberalisation, it has brought a
tremendous change in the international business environment. Globalisation has
increased the competition and impacted international human resource management
to employ expatriate staff to undertake international projects by taking
advantage of women workforce. Consequently, more women’s pursuing international
assignments could be seen with an increase in globalisation in international
marketplace. Further, cultural factors of host nationals are the major
performer in which the women expatriate do her work. The foremost anxiety while
sending female expatriates on IAs is whether the host countries nationals would
be willing to work with them or not as business colleagues. Caligiuri et al. (1999)
showed that the success of women expatriates is likely to increase in countries
where females are well acknowledged for their work in organisations. However,
there are countries in which the female expatriates have to face a difficult
time at professional front and sometimes it becomes impossible for them to work
where cultural issues, for instance traditional, regional or leadership
constraints (Fischlmayr, 2002).
Therefore, cultural factors are the factors that determine the acceptance of
women in both home and host country. To support this statement, Caligiuri and Cascio (1998) found
that women expatriates are well recognized if they were regarded as foreigners
principally and subsequent as women. The culture of country being sent from
also affects the decision of sending women expatriates on IAs. Mathur-Helm (2002)
found similar outcomes in Western countries for example UK, America and
Australia where more and more women are at higher positions in management with
compared to rest of the world. Hence, the higher participation of women in IAs
could be experienced in these countries. On the contrary, countries like
Thailand, Japan and India where women’s are not encouraged working in
management and do not send women on IAs. This means that these countries have
masculine societies with the perception of male as breadwinners and female as
homemakers. Therefore, it also indicates that foreign women being sent on IAs
in these countries will face difficult times in managing and remain
uncomfortable in the working environment.

Linehan et al. (2001)
investigated that the Middle East and some parts of Asia such as Pakistan,
Japan and India are believed to be unsuitable places for sending female global assignees.
Hence, a major cause of not sending female in IAs is a heavy impact of cultural
limitations on the women’s role in international business.

2.
Organisational Barriers

The
organisational barriers still exist and seem to affect the women expatriate’s
involvement in IAs. The women expatriate managers pointed gender-based stereotypes,
recruitment and selection barriers, the support provided by companies for women
on IAs and type of industry.

The
male model of career advancement acts a barrier for women expatriates. Women
need to prove their worth to the organisation by staying highly competent and
succeeding on their career ladder. In general, women are not evaluated and
rewarded equally as compared to male managers. In the research by  Linehan and Walsh (1999),
women expatriate managers need to face more challenging competitive such as
more qualified, career driven and easily mobile enough when compared to male
managers for being promoted to the senior managerial designation. Women are
believed to come at the upfront of breaking the glass ceiling at first and
secondly breaking the glass border and actively demanding the next career move
rather than waiting for the opportunity to be offered which is very important.
They are required to perform an additional task to struggle to remove the
tagline of low performance held by the home country managers. Mathur-Helm (2002)
states that female is anticipated to work for long hours and behave like males
to adjust themselves in this male dominating society. The larger number of
female in the pool of workforce to select from also increases their probability
of selection in IAs (Fischlmayr, 2002).

Peter and Lakshmi (2017)
point out that due to the deficiency of few females at the decision-making
levels, the senior male managers select male candidates for international
assignments. Women are left at home country and excluded from expatriate
process dominated by biasness and informal selection procedure (Linehan et al., 2001).
In many cases, due to the such myths that women are not interested in global
assignments automatically rejects women professional managers (Adler, 1994).
Thus, organisations that use informal selection model they won’t send women in
IAs.

Organisations
give little significance to predatory programmes and do not provide training on
cross cultural skills mandatory for international expatriate managers victory.
Training is very vital for female expatriates as it facilitates quickly
adjustment and resist cultural shock. Linehan and Walsh (1999)
reported that for stress management organisations should conduct training
together with family members which act as pioneer supporters during
international assignments. Menzies (2012)
found that women’s could be encouraged for international assignments by
organisations support such as male trailing spouse which were neglected by
organisational policies. It was observed that women have higher expatriate
career achievements due to the perceived organisational support as compared to
male counterparts (Peter & Lakshmi, 2017).

3.
Interpersonal Barriers

Interpersonal
barriers also have an impact on women’s participation in IAs. It includes
networking, mentoring, support from top management positions, similar male and
female selection and women in-group and fitting perception of selection
criteria.

Networking
is very significant in international assignments to bridge the gap from being
isolated to maintaining contact. It helps in career advancement such as
promotions by creating awareness. Peter and Lakshmi (2017)
found in their study that helped women expatriates in culture and lifestyle of
host country and prepared themselves for work and issues in advance. According
to (Fischlmayr, 2002)
female gained jobs by engaging in professional networking which improved their
capabilities to grab international assignments as selectors also relied on
networking for selection of expatriate managers out of the pool of networking
workforce. The importance of networking is emphasized as we move upwards to the
top management designations as the number of jobs lessens. Formal networking is
more profitable to learn and seek expert advice when compared to informal
networks. This suggests that building a formal international network is
advantageous for women which facilitates their way of getting position in
global offices. Linehan (2002)
highlighted that women could not extend networking beyond working hours because
they don’t have time as compared to their men’s extend their networking by
engaging in many options such as sporting and male bonding gatherings.

Mentoring
is crucial for career advancement of expatriates. It helps in boosting the self
confidence by discussing the problem area and formulating possible solutions at
the same time. Linehan et al. (2001) stated
that due to the shortage of women at senior positions in international business
management, women are hesitant to discuss their issues of glass ceiling and
gender discrimination with their male mentors. This means that due to the lack
of mentoring women expatriates are not successful in obtaining IAs. Menzies (2012) has
researched in his study that mentoring serves as a support to mentee who
receive thorough developmental relationship through contacts and support from
native land for career enhancement.

Fair
selection between male and female managers has been the topic of debate for
researchers. This can be explained by similarity attraction theory (Peter & Lakshmi, 2017).
It has been clearly visible that managers give preference to the selection of
similar subordinates. The existing managers are typically men and it is
expected that same sex manager would be appointed prevents the probability of
women going for international assignments. Thus, it is vital for organisations
to guarantee that selection criteria of expatriate mangers in IAs is not
biased.

4.
Individual Barriers

Individual
barriers consist various factors like dual-career relationship, family issue,
child raising, length of assignment and individual characteristics and skills
that impact the women for going on overseas assignment.

Family
concerns is noteworthy, and it is a complex decision to relocate for female
expatriates. The defeatist and conventional frame of mind of males which is
associate with successful males management were also supposed to be negative to
career progression by the women managers. (Caligiuri et al., 1999)
has noted that incapability of the adjustment of family members in overseas is
directly linked the performance and failure of women expatriate managers on
IAs. In Caligiuri and Cascio (1998)
study, it was found that family attributes for instance, family support can be
related to the adjustment of women expatriates to projected work. Male partners
may get easily caught in the web of isolation as mostly the trailing spouses
would be women and it would be difficult for them to build their male network
overseas. Adding to this, the difficulties of male spouses to acquire their
work visas and force them take a non-acceptable role of homemaker (Forster, 1999).
Therefore, it is an important decision for both male and female partners to
survive in the international environment with an additional obligation of
society     where males have a dominant
role of “bread-earner”.

The
findings from the study of Linehan and Walsh (2001)
confirms that the women have the primary responsibility of performing household
task and child-rearing, regardless of the long working hours in office. There
are several complications related for women managers travelling with offspring,
such as the taking care of them, their health anxieties, cross-cultural
adjustment and finding international schools. The relocation of kids in early
years of school would be a problem, especially when the children are not able
to communicate in the regional language and express their views. Future
research needs to be undertaken focusing on the effect of relocating abroad on
family of women expatriate managers in IAs.

With
the rise of dual career spouses issues, the main issue has been whether men
will give up their jobs for female partners. Caligiuri and Cascio (1998) mentions
that in societal context, it is a non-traditional practice for husbands to
reign from their companies with the motive of their wives’ career. This can be
linked to the spousal support and male partners adjustment and could be a
burden on women expatriate mangers making their journey overseas more difficult
(Mathur-Helm, 2002).
Because of these causes women managers would reject IAs and human resource
management fails to offer support for male trailing partners (Caligiuri & Cascio, 1998),
for instance, in Linehan and Walsh’s (2000) study, female managers face
difficulties  in finding a relevant job
for their husbands, and to obtain work permits. Therefore, further studies need
to explore their problems in larger aspects.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Overall,
in this male-controlled society the women’s participation in IAs has still to
go a long way as women experience numerous complications. The research paper
has emphasized on the barriers that female expatriate managers encounter in
international assignments. It is imperious for global corporations to
proactively incorporate strategies to promote women empowerment to conquer the
challenges faced by women and ensure their carer advancement same as their male
managers. It has become imperative for organisations to facilitate promotion
and moral support to females at all the level of the organisation. The gender
discrimination should be acknowledged, and corrective actions must be taken
proactively to abolish the unlawful practices. While tackling the individual barriers
and organisational barriers, MNCs should instigate combined approach to address
the issues through successful mentoring and developing official and unofficial
networking approaches to ensure the success of international assignments. The
global human resource management must ensure that women’s should be promoted to
next level of hierarchy and their positions should be filled by selection of
new talent and skilled female expertise into the organisation which would
ensure a balance between the gender. Pre-departure and repatriation training
programmes upgrade the effectiveness of women expatriate managers in the
organisation. Organisations must concentrate on the determining the ways of
managing the stress emerging out of handling the balance between work and
family life. Psychological support can be an effective way to remain in
continues connection with female expatriates during their transnational
assignments overseas. International human resource management must induce
participation of women by providing equal opportunities and positive action
through crystalline policies, flexible working hours such as work from home
arrangements, using communication technology like skype conference meetings and
other working provisions. The multinational corporations has to withstand by
buckling down the challenges and simplifying the career advancement of female
managers at national as well as international level.

Some Recommendations

Multinational
Corporations should look out for information related to the individual necessities
and career ambitions of female managers who may be inquisitive in a job in
international management. International human resource strategies could be elaborated
to encounter the diverse requirements of female managers and refine the
policies that are focused to gain clarity on women’s enthusiasm for climbing
the career track.

During
the tenure of global projects, it should be recommended to corporations to stay
in consistent communication with the home-based corporation which could be
simplified by mentoring that in turn would make the repatriation process less
traumatic. The organisations must strive to revamp the encourage the global
managers to construct a healthier environment for both male and females.
Multinational companies should commence official and unofficial programmes
particularly outlined to stimulate the female expatriate managers in
intercontinental assignments. This approach recommends that women managers may require
non-identical mentoring obligations than men and checks former studies which reveals
that women must be supported in their career growth as compared to their male
counterparts.

In
order to strengthen dedication to mentoring strategies, MNCs should hire a
superior mentor at the overseas location which be easily accessible by women
expatriate managers. Due to the scarcity of female mentors in international
business, multinational corporations have to come up with some strategies to
motivate women managers to accept the challenge and occupy the responsibility
of mentors. There is a need for companies to enlarge their pool of top female
mentors who can assist female expatriate mangers by providing moral support and
break the glass ceiling by representing as a role model for the future female
managers in international business management.

The
findings suggest that ‘trailing partners” serves as a key issue for both female
managers and multinational corporations striving to send women in international
assignments. When considered from the perspective of female managers and their
partners, the challenge of partners adjustment in overseas location is a major
problem which has increased and needs to be addressed by international
researchers (Linehan & Walsh, 1999).The
findings of the research paper also suggest that male spouses are not willing
to resign their jobs to go along with their wives overseas. Therefore, this has
intensified the difficulties faced by women expatriate managers with international
projects with their partners. Hence, to address this issue global human
resource of MNCs should introduce policies and programmes where pre-departure
training and assistance for job-seeking needs to be provided to male spouses as
well to reap the complete benefit.

The
findings also point out that in this male dominant society, pessimistic and
orthodox outlook of males were also considered to be deleterious for women’s
career progressions. MNCs needs to address the issue and encourage policies to
abolish this backward-looking attitude to ensure women expatriate managers accomplish
their complete advantage. It was observed by the corporate managers working
with female managers that differentiation and intolerance against female
managers hampers their prospects of promotion. This recommends that female who
wants to pursue international assignments face major challenges within the
corporate culture. Hence, it is essential for organisations to raise awareness
among genders for equal career opportunities and change negative attitude
through well designed training programmes.

Limitations and future research

This
study has some limitations which should be accepted. Tracing attention on the discernments
of senior women managers disregards other hierarchical levels of female managers,
whose knowledges might be remarkably contrasting to those of their top level
fellow managers. The future research should be extended to the inclusion of
other managerial levels which could assist in critically carve the results of
the paper. The study fails to collect statistics from the corporations which
can be vital to enlighten the practices and policies adopted to monitor the
female expatriate’s profession and evaluate the changes made during the time
span.

In
a nutshell, numerous implications for additional research can be contemplated. Firstly,
these comprises an emphasis on the multinational corporation’s policies and
practices in the career enhancement of female managers where it affects both
senior and middle level managers on international assignments. Secondly, a
multi-level attention that would provide a large-scale statistic for complete
valuation of the professional paths pursued by women managers. Finally, insertion
of husbands of women managers would offer substantial details relating to
occupation impact on external job responsibilities and company’s framework.

It
would be appreciated for forthcoming researches to investigate women in the
course of and at the end of distinct types of global assignments to comprehend
the changes in the perspectives on barriers and opportunities. Lastly, only
women’s perspective has been addressed, it would be valuable if the future
researchers investigates their study from both partners perspective on barriers
and opportunity of going on international assignments overseas for longer
durations.

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