Introduction: the
internationalization of management
With the increasing globalization of trade,
commerce and capital in the 1990s,
international job mobility is becoming a more
common experience for growing numbers of
employees. For many companies, the successful
management of expatriate assignments will
be an important part of the success of their
overseas commercial activities over the next
decade and into the next millennium. For
others, who are new to the international scene,
the identification, training and development
of international staff are fast becoming an important
strategic HRM issue. And, in recent
years, increasing numbers of young women
have entered full-time professional career
streams in management and, as a result, many
more are now seeking opportunities for
international careers. While a few researchers
have looked specifically at women on IAs
(Adler 1984a, 1984b, 1986–87 and 1994; Adler
and Israeli 1987; Chusmir and Frontzack
1990; Harris and Harris 1988; Harris 1995;
Kirk and Maddox 1988; Schein et al. 1996;
Symons 1984; Thal and Cateora 1979; Westwood
and Leung 1994), these are very much
the exception. Very few books on women’s
careers or on the role of women in organizations
make any references to this international
dimension (see, for example, Cooper and
Davidson 1982; through to White, Cox and
Cooper 1992 to Wilson 1995). In addition, the
small numbers of women typically involved
in these expatriate surveys have made it
difficult to come to any general conclusions
about the experiences of women on IAs or of
British women specifically.
However, this research does show us that
while there are indeed growing opportunities
for women to pursue international
careers, they still represent only a tiny
proportion of the total world-wide expatriate
population. Estimates of the number
of women employees on IAs in the 1980s and
1990s vary between 3% and 12% in this
literature. And, these figures appear to have
changed little from those cited in the mid-
1970s. However, this literature also shows
quite clearly that women are as motivated as
men to seek international career opportunities
and are likely to be as successful
as their male colleagues if they are selected
for these. However, they are still less likely
to be selected for IAs (often because of
‘family’ commitments), face greater problems
with adaptation in traditionally patriarchal
cultures and (with the noticeable
exception of the USA) are unlikely to receive
company support for their (male) ‘trailing’
partners.
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999
WOMEN ON INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 79
Address for
correspondence:
* Dr Nick Forster,
the Graduate School
of Management,
the University of Western
Australia, Nedlands,
Western Australia 6009.
Another ‘Glass Ceiling’?:
The Experiences of Women
Professionals and Managers
on International Assignments
Nick Forster*
The last fifteen years have seen an exponential growth in research on women professionals
and managers in organizations. However, much less attention has been paid to the small but
growing number of women who are embracing international careers. This paper describes
some of the main findings of a two-year longitudinal study of the experiences of 92 women
expatriates in a variety of UK-based companies. The results show that while there are a growing
number of women opting for international assignments (IAs), they are overwhelmingly
concentrated in junior and middle management positions, have less options in terms of the
countries to which they can be posted and are handicapped by cultural prejudices about
‘proper’ gender roles in some countries. The reasons for these problems are explored and some
suggestions are made for improving international opportunities for women employees in the
future.
Study objectives and methodology
The data uncovered in these surveys offered a
unique opportunity to look at a group of 92
expatriate British women professionals and
managers from their preparation for the
move, coping with new jobs and new work
demands in alien environments and their
general adaptation twelve months after the
move. It also looks briefly at personnel policies
affecting the management of women on IAs.
Where appropriate, comparisons are made
with the experiences of male expatriates to
highlight similarities and differences between
the two groups. The impact of attitudinal and
cultural barriers on work performance is also
examined. However, this paper is not intended
to be a comparison of women managers on IAs
with women managers in the UK or a detailed
account of strategic international human
resource management in UK companies.
Because of the small numbers involved, we
were not concerned with looking at any
work/family overlap issues or at male
‘trailing’ partners.
The research1
was conducted between
March 1994 and March 1996 and involved 36
UK-based companies. These were selected
from a mail shot of 200 leading UK-based
organizations in autumn 1993. Selection was
based on a number of criteria. These included:
the range of their international operations
(from multinationals down to companies who
were relative newcomers to the international
scene); company sector; the number of expatriates
who could be contacted during the
research and the willingness of the companies
to collaborate during the project (as this
required sustained administrative assistance
over a two-year period). Initially, twenty interviews
were conducted with personnel/HR
managers in a representative selection of the
companies in order to obtain information on
the management of IAs from the company’s
perspective and to elicit the views and opinions
of HR and personnel managers dealing
with expatriates and IAs. These also provided
an opportunity to pilot the questionnaires.
The study employed a multivariate theoretical
model, a longitudinal research design
and both quantitative and qualitative data
gathering methods. The longitudinal design
was employed primarily to look at changes
and processes over time rather than relying
on cross-sectional ex post factum analyses
characteristic of almost every other study in
this area (see Forster 1992 for a fuller description
of the research model). The companies
provided the names and contact addresses
of employees who had been notified of an
IA. Separate questionnaires were sent to
the employee and, where appropriate, their
partners. These were posted 4–6 weeks prior
to the move and then four and eight months
after the move. The questionnaire surveys were
conducted between July 1994 and December
1995. The questionnaires employed a variety
of measures. Some of these have been used
in previous studies of domestic relocations
and others were designed specifically for this
study. Most of these were replicated at each
time point in order to analyse changes over
time. These data were analysed using a standard
SPSSx statistical package. The paper is
divided into three main sections reflecting this
research design and reports on the main findings
at Time 1, 2 and 3.
The project was designed to look at how
these women had coped with the first twelve
months of an IA in terms of their affective
well-being, motivation, job (dis)satisfaction
and work performance. We also wanted to
look at how they perceived the effectiveness
of the training and cultural briefings they had
received prior to their move, their adaptation
to new cultures and how they coped with
different cultural expectations about ‘correct’
gender roles. Last, we wanted to look at their
personal self-efficacy and general mental
health throughout this period. The principal
measures we used at each time point to
ascertain this information were:
• Warr’s 1987 Vitamin Model (alpha = .78)
was utilized to analyse affective wellbeing
and performance. A new (piloted)
27-item job motivation and satisfaction
scale (alpha = .81) was developed for
this study that looked at autonomy and
discretion (freedom to choose work
methods, targeting of tasks and independence
of action); opportunities to use
professional and technical skills; clarity
(the setting of clear work objectives by
their boss and being able to plan effectively);
perceived workload (and stress
levels); social support (from colleagues
and senior management) and com-
munication.
• The General Health Questionnaire
(GHQ). Previous research on domestic
relocation has shown this to be amongst
the top three most stressful experiences
that people are likely to encounter in their
lives (Munton and Forster 1992). The
stress levels of our respondents were
analysed throughout the survey using
the GHQ-12 in order to see if these
women had been experiencing disruptive
levels of stress during their IAs.
This is a very reliable instrument that
has been used to detect levels of stress in
Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
80 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
hundreds of community and organizational
samples. It contains a number of
questions concerning how people have
been feeling recently. This covers areas
such as: sleeping difficulties, feelings of
unhappiness and their ability to enjoy
everyday experiences. It can also be used
to categorize people into those who are
generally healthy, those described as ‘the
worried well’ and those who are suffering
from severe stress and who may be
experiencing psychological problems
which require counselling.
• A measure of self-efficacy (alpha = .68) in
order to look at individual pro-activity in
new situations among our respondents.
• Various other single item measures looking
at: biographical, employment and
career details; expectations about the
move; selection criteria for IAs; relocation
support; concerns about specific
aspects of the move; ratings of training
and cross-cultural briefings; knowledge
of local cultures and languages and general
outcomes to the move at Time 3.
Sample characteristics
A total of 1,824 questionnaires were returned
over Times 1, 2 and 3. The return rate at Time
1 was 62%. A breakdown of these questionnaire
returns over the three time points is
presented in Table 1.
Attitudes towards work and
the impending IA at Time 1
Biographical details
Some 89% of the respondents were single
(contrasting with 27% of men in the sample).
Of those in partnerships, only seven women
reported having children who were accompanying
them on the IA. Their age distributions
are presented in Table 2. These women
worked in a variety of sectors but were more
heavily concentrated in service industries
when compared to male expatriates. For
example, 25% were in banking and finance
(men = 9%) and 24% were in retail and
marketing (men = 6%). Only a handful
worked in manufacturing and energy (see
Table 3).
The biographical data, from the whole
survey, show that British expatriates are
successful professionals, more than twice as
likely to be male than female, in middle and
senior management positions and have enjoyed
good upward mobility in career terms.
Male expatriates are usually in their midthirties
and married with children — although
there are clear signs that the number of
younger single male expatriates is growing.
When compared with all other studies of
expatriates over the last ten years, there are a
surprisingly high number of women expatriates
in this sample. This is a distinct change
from the profiles of expatriate managers of a
decade ago. This is still, we suspect, untypical
of the general world population of expatriate
managers. This higher than expected number
is due to a number of factors. First, many
of the companies in this study were relative
newcomers to the international scene. Few of
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999 Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999
WOMEN ON INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 81
Time 1 Time 2 Time 3*
Staff: 335 310 300
Men 243 236 228
Women 92 74 72
Partners: 245 230 210
Women 221 207 191
Men 24 23 21
Total 580 540 510
Table 1: Sample characteristics
Note: * Time 1 Qs sent out 4–6 weeks prior to the move,
Time 2 Qs four months after the move and Time 3 Qs
four months later. All figures rounded to nearest whole
number.
Women % Men %
Ͻ 25 17 11
25–35 50 41
36–45 32 36
46–50 1 10
56–65 0 2
Table 2: Age distribution
Sector %
Banking/finance 21
IT/electronics 16
Energy exploration/distribution 5
Engineering 2
Clothing/textiles 1
Retail/marketing 24
Chemicals 11
Motor manufacturing 5
Pharmaceuticals 2
Other 4
Table 3: Company sector
those UK international companies with long
experience of expatriate management — ICI,
BP, and so forth — were involved. Second,
many of these companies did not have enough
‘traditional’ expatriates to fill overseas posts
(because of downsizing and voluntary redundancies
amongst older employees in the
1980s and early 1990s). Third, there has been
a trend in recent years for some of these companies
to actively push the careers and job
prospects of bright young women recruits in
a domestic context (in banking, finance and
marketing, for example). As a result, many
of their junior and middle management positions
are now occupied by women seeking
more senior positions through international
experience.
However, there were noticeable differences
in the relative seniority of male and female
expatriates (Table 4). In addition, as a distinct
sub-group, they are much younger than their
male colleagues (on average — ten years) and
are in more junior management positions.
This shows that a ‘glass ceiling’ also exists in
international careers at this moment in time.
They work in a narrower range of professions
and have experienced much less upward
mobility in career terms. They are also much
less likely to be married and it is very rare for
them to have children. Their partners are
almost invariably in full-time employment.
The data, derived from the measures
described earlier, show that almost all women
staff reported a high degree of satisfaction
with their personal career development, previous
opportunities for career advancement
and their future prospects with their current
employers prior to the IA. Six out of seven
reported high levels of autonomy and discretion,
good opportunities to make use of
their professional and technical skills and adequate
to good social support and communication
(with colleagues and superiors) at
work. In short, most staff reported a high
level of satisfaction with their jobs, prior to
their IA. On a less positive note, most of the
women reported working in high pressure
and high stress jobs and one quarter reported
that their job often made them feel ‘tense’ or
‘worried’. Some 45% felt that their current
workload was ‘too great’ and 18% reported
that they felt ‘used up at the end of the
working day’. Finally, very few reported
worrying about their work while at home or
reporting any conflicts between their work
and personal lives prior to the move abroad.
There was little apparent concern about
moving away from family and friends and, in
some cases, partners.
Selection criteria for IAs
Other research has shown that there is great
variability in the selection criteria employed
by UK companies when selecting staff for
IAs. This research confirms that this variability
extends to many UK-based companies.
Table 5 shows the criteria which respondents
reported being used by their company when
selecting them for IAs.
There are some obvious differences in the
criteria used for the men and women in
this sample. Women were expected to have
greater language skills but were less likely to
undergo psychometric testing (perhaps, in
the words of one (male) HR Manager, because
‘we know that most of our younger women
already have a lot of the skills we are looking
for — particularly in terms of their communication
and learning skills’). Previous
Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
82 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
Women % Men %
Executive/Director 2 18
Senior Management 14 40
Middle Management 37 28
Junior Management 47 14
Table 4: Occupational status
Women % Men %
Job interviews 100 98
Work performance
appraisals 95 96
Domestic work
track-record 90 94
Professional/
educational
qualifications 61 52
Language proficiency 29 9
Knowledge of local
business culture 33 43
Familiarity with
local cultures 22 34
Psychometric testing 15 30
Other psychological
tests 12 19
Previous experience
of an IA 9 35
Family circumstances 6 24
Willingness of spouse/
partner to move 6 43
Spouse/partner’s
employment status 3 10
Table 5: Selection criteria for IAs
Note: Percentage of respondents reporting each item as
having been used in their case.
experience of an IA was usually not considered
important for women, nor were family
circumstances.
Another significant fact that became clear
from our interviews with HR managers was
that very few of these companies had any
clear, long-term rationale underpinning either
the kinds of competencies they were looking
for in their (potential) international managers
(women or men) or precisely what other
criteria they should employ in order to ensure
that they were getting the best person for
the job. This is not to say that they were not
actively working on these issues. All had some
ideas about the need for identifying ‘good
communicators’, ‘culturally sensitive staff’,
‘highly motivated staff’, ‘people who are able
to think on their feet’, and so forth. The interview
data shows that they were all trying to
develop, either in-house or through the use
of consultants, more rigorous and uniform
methods of selecting and developing expatriate
managers. While there was very little
evidence that companies were actively discriminating
against women, some of our
interviewees were candid enough to confirm
that women were simply not considered
for postings to what can be broadly described
as ‘traditional’ patriarchal societies in, for
example, the Middle East. Furthermore, none
of these companies had any explicit formal
policies for specifically targeting more
women for IAs. The official line in all of
the organizations was ‘the best person for
the job’.
Despite this, there are obvious attractions
for companies in selecting younger single
women (and men) for IAs, as the following
quote from an interview with an HR manager
in an energy exploration company
illustrates.
Q. When you select people for IAs, what
are your selection criteria?
A. [Laughs] Are you available, are you
single, preferably, and can you go tomorrow!?
And, I’m not being flippant about
this. At the present time there is no standard
way of selecting people for foreign
assignments … The bottom line is that if
people are told to go, they go … and line
managers have the final say in this … All
the other stuff which we have talked about
like psychological suitability, the family
and so on has not gone into the equation —
yet … Some managers are better than
others, and we do a good job but it’s
unofficial and erratic. We are hoping to
introduce a minimum set of criteria into
interviews for foreign assignments but
without support from the top, this will
only be as good as the people doing the
interviews … We are a long way from
sensitizing senior management that this is
an issue which has to be faced — soon.
Later in the interview she commented:
As regards the position of women, we are
an equal opportunities employer [laughs],
no, we do take this very seriously but even
though we do have more women coming
in to the company, we are not specifically
targeting them for overseas postings. In
fact, I would say that our younger women
are probably more reluctant to put themselves
forward for these and I’m not
absolutely sure why … but, it may well
be something we may have to address in
the future as the number of potential male
expatriates declines.
Across the 36 companies, there was also great
variability in the level of support and training
provided by the companies for these women
(as there was for their male colleagues).
Obviously, this provision is dependent on
the nature of each IA and the knowledge and
experience of the individual expatriate. In
some IAs neither language training nor crosscultural
briefings may be necessary. Table 6
shows the types of training received by our
respondents.
Attitudes towards the impending IA
These women were almost universally enthusiastic
about the impending IA, with over
90% reporting being ‘very’ or ‘extremely
enthusiastic’ about this. Some 90% saw it as
something that would involve ‘a significant
change in their lives’ and 98% saw it as ‘a
positive challenge’. In order to assess how
well respondents felt they would cope with
the IA, a ten-item measure was used to rate
perceived self-efficacy (the ability to cope with
new situations, dealing with uncertainties in
life, adaptability to new challenges, and so
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999 Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999
WOMEN ON INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 83
Women % Men %
Cultural familiarization
training 81 77
Induction programmes 73 60
Language training 61 49
Mentor in the new job 72 48
Job-related training 70 40
Table 6: Training and support provided by the
companies for staff
forth). Their average score was high at 4.7 (on
a five-point scale). These scores were actually
marginally higher than those of their male
colleagues (4.5). They were also overwhelmingly
enthusiastic about their forthcoming
move. When compared with their single male
colleagues, they had similarly low levels of
concern about the social/family aspects of the
move but slightly greater worries and
concerns about the new job in terms of how
they would perform and how they would get
on with a new boss and colleagues. This is not
a surprising result given the relative inexperience
of this group in terms of IAs.
Attitudes towards the new job and
motivation and performance after
four months (Time 2)
The Time 2 questionnaire, received three
months after starting the IA, repeated many
of the measures used at Time 1 and also
looked specifically at how our respondents
were coping with their new jobs, their ratings
of the training and cross-cultural briefings
they had received and how they were
coping with new cultures and languages.
One of the most notable early findings from
the Time 2 survey were differences in the
location of the IAs which men and women
embarked on (Table 7).
It is noticeable that most of these women
were posted to areas that have either well
established expatriate communities or to
cultures where their gender would not be
regarded as an issue in terms of actually
getting their work done or in interacting with
host country nationals. This confirms the findings
of the studies cited earlier that potential
women high-flyers are being precluded from
some IAs, because of cultural barriers in some
countries (particularly in Africa, the Middle
East and parts of East Asia). However, it
appears that younger women have an edge
over their male colleagues (of all ages) when
it comes to postings to European countries.
The interviews with HR managers indicate
that this is because more of their women
graduates have studied one or more European
languages at university, had study
placements at European universities or had
experience of working in Europe (or, in a few
cases, all three).
Relocation support provided by the
companies for women on IAs
A significant predictor of successful outcomes
to domestic relocations is the provision
of comprehensive and flexible relocation
packages (Munton and Forster 1992) and
there is every reason to suppose that this will
apply in an international context. Not surprisingly,
all the companies provided these
women with written information on the new
area and relocation expenses guides. Most
provide generous disturbance allowances,
foreign-service allowances and cost of living
premiums (in a variety of permutations). The
respondents in this survey were overwhelmingly
positive about these. For example, a
single item measure at Time 2 asked employees
to rate how helpful, overall, they were finding
the advice, information and support being
provided by their employer; 95% reported that
this had been either ‘quite’ or ‘very helpful’.
Evaluations of the pre-departure
briefings and training
At Time 2, respondents were asked to give
retrospective assessments of the preparation
and briefings that they had received prior to
the move. Their answers are summarized in
Table 8. These data show generally positive
opinions about the support and training
received prior to and immediately after the
start of an IA. But a worrying minority of
around 20% gave consistently negative
ratings to these. As well as these difficulties,
the data show changes at work compared to
Time 1. The 27-item work satisfaction measure
employed at Time 1 was again used to
assess changes over time and revealed few
significant changes in the content of their jobs
in terms of autonomy and discretion and
opportunities to make full use of their professional
and technical skills. However, one
in five reported greater problems in terms
of their relationships with their immediate
superiors and work colleagues and one in
Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
84 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
Region Women % Men %
Western Europe
(EU and non-EU) 44 21
USA/Canada 25 16
East Asia
(Japan, Hong Kong,
Malaysia, Singapore,
Vietnam, China, Thailand,
Burma and Indonesia) 21 37
Australasia 6 3
Middle East 2 11
Eastern Europe/Russia 2 6
India/Pakistan 0 4
North Africa 0 2
Table 7: Location of women expatriates’ IAs
four reported greater communication problems
at work and more difficulties with work
overload. Across the board, there was a noticeable
increase in reported stress levels amongst
women employees; 58% of respondents now
believed that their current workload was ‘too
great’ (compared to 45% at Time 1). A slightly
larger number (25%) felt ‘used up at the end
of the working day’ (18% at Time 1). Over
two-thirds now reported that their job had
made them feel ‘tense’ or ‘worried’ in the last
four months. Very few reported any clashes
between their work and home lives. Being
largely single, many of the traditional concerns
of relocating families (disruption to family
life, children’s education, effects of the move
on a partner’s career and so forth) simply did
not affect most of these women.
The data show few differences between
single men and women in terms of general
adaptation in areas such as Europe and North
America. However, they did show that women
expatriates working in China and Japan were
much more likely to report difficulties with
this. As in other East Asian cultures, women
managers faced specific obstacles and prejudices,
as this interviewee revealed:
My sex was never an issue until I came out
here — I simply did my job and got rewarded
by results … And, I’ve got to say
that the Training Centre really did not
prepare me for the problems I have had
since coming here because their basic line
was that at the worst I would be treated as
an honorary man or would not be treated
like a Japanese women … But, basically, if
you are not a bloke it is extremely difficult
to be taken seriously by the Japanese
because a lot of them, particularly the older
ones, see women as largely ornamental.
Sure, a lot of them work, but this is usually
seen as a prelude to marriage and there
are only a tiny handful at my level … I
think that this is changing but not quickly
enough to affect the rest of my time here …
Their attitudes are very bound up with
their culture, er, women should be submissive
and if you confront them [male
colleagues] they simply do not know how
to cope … I would advise any women
professional to think twice about coming
over here to work. It has been an amazing
experience and I have learnt a lot about
different ways of doing business but it has
also been a real bloody struggle and any
other overseas posting would be a doddle
after this one! (Marketing executive —
motor manufacturer)
Another commented:
I know it sounds like a cliché, but you
really do have to be twice as good as the
blokes working here. When I first arrived
here it was clear some of the British employees
resented me being there — it
seemed to break up this boys club thing
they had and, of course [laughs], I was the
only single woman in the office which in
some ways was quite enjoyable … but, the
really infuriating thing was dealing with
the local employees and businesses because
they would always go to one of my male
colleagues first or assume I was a secretary
and ask for one of the men they knew when
they got me on the phone even though I’m
quite senior here. It probably took me a
good six months before I was treated as
some kind of an equal here. (Senior Software
Programmer — computer company.
She was the first woman posted to the
company’s Beijing Office)
Some of these results may appear to be
slightly worrying both for the individual
expatriates and their companies. However,
with the noticeable exception of women on
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999 Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999
WOMEN ON INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 85
Rating (valid %)
(% responding) Essential Useful Little/no use
Job previews:
Verbal (100) 51 29 20
Written (73) 9 68 22
Job-related training (70) 36 43 21
Language training (29) 28 61 21
Cultural briefings (77) 28 47 25
Induction programmes (60) 31 56 13
Mentor in the new job (48) 23 44 33
Table 8: Ratings of the training and support provided by the companies prior to the IA
IAs in some Far Eastern countries, they are
largely consistent with other academic research
on job changes in a domestic context
(cf. Munton and Forster 1992). For example,
most staff report higher stress levels and
increased demands at work immediately
following a job move. The reasons for this
are well known: staff may have to learn new
skills or acquire new knowledge in a very
short space of time; they may have been
brought in to ‘sort out’ specific problems
which may require very long hours at the
outset of an IA; they may want to be seen to
be visibly performing well (‘presenteeism’)
and, in most cultures, they will have to build
up friendships and informal networks of influence.
The key questions are (a) were these
women well prepared for these eventualities
prior to the move and, (b) what effects have
these changes had on their personal lives and
work performance some eight months after
starting the IA? These questions are discussed
in the next section.
Psychological well-being,
motivation and performance and
cultural adaptation eight months
after the move (Time 3)
This section of the paper examines the data
from the third time-point of the survey. We
also look back to some earlier data to give an
overall picture of how the process of expatriate
assignments has unfolded over time. Respondents
were first asked to assess how
much of their work time had been taken up
in dealing with aspects of their moves. The
data presented in Tables 9 and 10 show that
they had to spend some time dealing with
relocation issues that could have been better
spent focusing on the demands of their new
job. At Time 3, respondents were also asked
to assess what the general effects of the IA
had been on their working lives and career
prospects (see Table 11).
These data show that most staff have
adapted well to their IAs and regard them as
career-enhancing experiences. Analysis of the
repeat 27-item job satisfaction scale also
shows that six out of seven were now reporting
improvements or no change to the quality
of their working lives and in their working
relationships with their colleagues and immediate
superiors. However, these data also
show that a small minority of women continue
to experience difficulties even after eight
months. The data also show that most have
adapted well to the demands of working in
different business cultures around the world
— although this does take longer in countries
Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
86 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
Amount % Amount %
None at all 0 2–3 days 17
Ͻ 4 hours 0 3–4 days 18
4–8 hours 10 4–5 days 12
1–2 days 28 More than 15
5 days
Table 9: Work time taken up in dealing with
aspects of the move
Amount % Amount %
None at all 8 4 days 8
1 day 18 5 days 7
2 days 20 6 days 6
3 days 22 7+ days 10
Table 10: Days absent from work due to the
move or anything connected with it
Rating %
Better No change Worse
Prospects for career advancement 74 15 11
Work performance and productivity 52 43 5
Working relationships with colleagues 40 45 15
Help and support from immediate superior 32 45 13
Help and support from colleagues 45 43 12
Opportunities to make full use of skills 72 20 8
and experience
General well-being 61 32 7
Table 11: The general effects of current IA on respondents’ working lives and career prospects
with ‘novel’ business cultures (particularly in
East Asia). In contrast to the experiences of
men (single or married), the location of the IA
can have a significant effect on the reported
outcomes of overseas postings. We have seen
that women expatriates working in East
Asian countries, other than Hong Kong and
Singapore (both having large expatriate
communities), reported greater difficulties
in adapting to their job and to new cultures
when compared with their peers working in
Europe and North America.
The data confirm that pre-move training
does help with general adaptation, but this is
mediated by other factors such as length of
time the company has been doing business
in the particular location of the IA, cultural
stereotypes about the ‘correct’ role of women
and the support available in the new job
situation. These problems were compounded
when a company was moving its business
activities into a country for the first time.
And, there is some evidence that companies
who are seeking to make fast inroads into new
markets (and are relatively inexperienced at
managing IAs) were throwing some of their
women (and men) ‘in at the deep end’.
Affective well-being and performance
Clearly, an IA has the potential to be a stressful
experience. And, (di)stress has the potential
to disrupt our natural coping strategies
when confronted with a potential stressor —
in this case a move abroad. The use of the
GHQ-12 enabled us to look at any changes in
the mental well-being of our respondents
over a period of twelve months. The summary
results from Time points 1, 2 and 3 are
summarized in Table 12. This provides four
sets of information. The proportion of this
sample who scored above the accepted
‘threshold’ level; the average score for this
group; the expected scores for a random
population sample and the scores from the
male employees in this survey at Time 3.
Interestingly, these respondents reported
lower stress levels than staff moving within
the UK (and with the men in this survey),
although their scores are still above the average
for a random population sample. These
data show that they all experienced higher
levels of stress during the early stages of the
IA, reaching a peak at three to four months
and then (in most cases) returning to normal
levels after about eight months. There was
little evidence that any of these women
suffered from extreme distress.
On a final positive note, it is clear that
expatriate failures rates amongst this group
were extremely low. We found only two
women who returned home prior to the
officially agreed end of the IA. From figures
obtained from the companies, we estimated
that the mean failure rate for their women
expatriates is currently 3%. This contrasts
with a mean rate of 8% for the male staff in
this survey and is considerably less than the
failure rate of 16–40% cited in most (American)
academic studies (see, for example; Baliga
and Baker 1985; Barham and Devine 1991;
BIC 1992; Black et al. 1991; Brewster 1991;
Earley 1987; Forster 1992; Harris and Brewster
1995; Tung 1988a and 1988b).
The future: returning to work
in the UK
Recent research on IAs has suggested that the
biggest problem faced by many UK companies
over the last few years has been the
management of repatriation, caused by a
cocktail of ‘downsizing’, mergers or other
forms of ‘rationalization’; redundancies and
job redesign combined with expatriates having
unrealistic or unrealizable expectations
about their career prospects and a lack of forward
planning in companies for these eventualities
(Forster 1996 and 1994). While only a
tiny number of these women have returned
or are planning to return to the UK at the time
of writing this paper,the challenges of finding
a suitable position in the home operation is
something they will have to concern themselves
with in the near future (as many of
their male colleagues have already had to do
over the last few years). Indeed, one of the most
telling pieces of information that emerged
during our interviews with HR Managers in
1994 concerned the lack of information on
repatriation in these companies. Little advice
was provided to staff about the possible
implications of moves abroad for their career
progression after they return to the UK —
particularly those of a long duration. And
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999 Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999
WOMEN ON INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS 87
% Over Average
threshold score
Expected scores 17 8.8
This sample:
Time 1 22 8.7
Time 2 34 11.2
Time 3 24 10.1
Male employees 27 10.3
— Time 3
Table 12: Psychological well-being during IAs
because of the changes that all of these organizations
have experienced over the last five
years, they will all continue to have problems
with the management of repatriation in the
future (Forster 1994, pp. 196–8). One significant
finding of this study is that all of these
companies expect their overseas operations
to grow, while their home operations will
continue to shrink. While a few companies,
notably in the oil sector, have embraced the
notion of the career expatriate, most UK expatriates
still return to their country of origin
at the end of their IA. This does not bode well
when these women return to work in the UK
over the next few years.
Improving international career
opportunities for women
in the future
Many of the principles of the effective management
of (male) expatriates also apply
equally well to women and a detailed discussion
of policy recommendations for improving
opportunities for expatriates can be found
elsewhere (see, for example, Adler and Israeli
1987; Brewster 1991; Forster 1996; Handler
and Lane 1994; Tung 1988a). However, this
research reinforces the suggestions, made over
the last decade, by Adler in particular, that
there are still specific steps that companies
could take to improve international career
opportunities for women.
1. Re-evaluating the training and crosscultural
briefing sessions provided for
potential overseas staff. Many of the
courses run at training centres focus
largely on the experiences of male expatriates.
This means ensuring that premove
cultural briefings are up to date,
relevant and catered specifically for
the needs of women expatriates — with,
for example, appropriate coping and
behavioural strategies in highly patriarchal
societies, appropriate protocol,
customs and dress codes. There is little
doubt that the right sort of pre-move
cultural briefings can benefit women
expatriates, but most of the women in
this study had some criticisms of the
briefings that they received either inhouse,
from consultants or at training
centres. Their main criticisms were (a) the
lack of up-to-date knowledge concerning
local business environments, (b) the very
short duration of most of these courses,
and (c) the lack of advice on coping with
problems of isolation during the IA.
These criticisms were common amongst
women in new markets (particularly in
East Asia). This also implies that training
companies could involve more women
with previous experience of IAs in their
briefing sessions in the future.
2. Recognizing that, while there are
growing opportunities for women in
international careers, they are still concentrated
largely in junior and (some)
middle management positions. They are
also concentrated in a narrower range
of professions when compared to their
male colleagues. They are rarely entrusted
with major project work in new
markets and they face greater restrictions
in terms of the range of countries to
which they are posted — although they
do seem to have an advantage over their
male colleagues in terms of European
postings. Obviously, cultural barriers
and ‘traditional’ views about gender
roles are largely out of the control of
companies. However, most companies
are in a position to promote the interests
of women by, for example, insisting on
the ‘best person for the job’ principle —
regardless of gender — and by promoting
the interests of women in more
informal ways. This is essential if companies
are really committed to recruiting
the best managerial talent in increasingly
diverse work forces.
3. Involving, at an inter-organizational
level, organizations like the International
Labour Organization who are constantly
seeking to improve the position of
women in international labour markets.
Improvements can and should be made
to international opportunities for women
employees in the future. Up to this
moment in time, all of the companies
in this study have been able to rely on
either younger single women and men
or employees in ‘traditional’ families to
fill a relatively small number of expatriate
positions. As the size of expatriate
work forces increases (as most commentators
argue), only a supreme optimist can
believe that this situation will continue
indefinitely and, in the future, greater
cognizance will have to be taken of dualcareer
couples in terms of the management
of IAs (Price-Waterhouse 1993).
‘Trailing’ male partners will become
more of an issue in the next few years —
for both individual employees and
companies (Greenbury 1996). It is clear
companies need to take greater cognizance
of both these changing demographics
and of ‘alternative’ personal
Volume 6 Number 2 April 1999 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
88 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
lifestyles. This may well necessitate
greater networking between companies
with foreign operations in order to improve
the job opportunities of working
partners.
Conclusion
The findings of this research project clearly
have implications for companies operating in
the international arena — some more so than
others. On the one hand, most of the women
that we surveyed and interviewed reported
successful outcomes to their IAs and only
two had returned home early from these by
the Time 3 survey. There is also evidence to
support the view that pre-move cultural briefings
have a positive effect on their adaptation
to an IA — although the benefits of these are
clearly influenced by other factors that were
discussed earlier. On the other hand, there is
clear evidence that women are still in more
junior management positions when compared
to men (clear evidence of a solid ‘glass
ceiling’ in an international context at the
present time). They are much less likely to be
entrusted with major projects in new markets.
It is also clear that some of these women
struggled in overseas postings (particularly
in East Asia) and women who are seeking
international careers still have major cultural
obstacles to overcome in certain areas of the
world if they are ever to achieve equality
with their male colleagues in the future. However,
all the evidence from graduate careers
advisers in the UK indicates that growing
numbers of well-educated and highly motivated
younger women are looking for international
job experience as a route to fast-track
promotions and senior positions in organizations.
If companies are really committed
to turning the dual mantras of ‘internationalization’
and ‘equal opportunities’ into
strategic and HRM realities, then many will
need to take a critical look at their current
expatriate management policies. As increasing
numbers of bright younger women seek
international career opportunities, those
companies which do address these issues are
more likely to attract the very best global
female managerial and professional talent
over the next few years. As Fisher has
commented so accurately and succinctly: ‘The
best reason for believing that more women
will be in charge before long is that in a
ferociously competitive global economy, no
company can afford to waste valuable brainpower
simply because it is wearing a skirt’
(Fisher 1992, p. 46).
Note
1. This research was funded by an ESRC Research
Grant of £27,000 awarded in 1993.
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