Repatriation of European female corporate executives: an empirical study

The increased internationalization of business in recent years has made the understanding of international human resource management problems more important for executives in multinational companies. In recent years, researchers have paid considerable attention to the issues of adjustment of managers to international assignments. Interestingly, comparatively little research has been undertaken on the topic of repatriation, i.e. re-entry and readjustment of international managers and their families to their home countries. Despite the growth of women in international management there are very few studies that document the repatriation experiences of female international managers. In particular, very few studies have been conducted outside North America on the topic of repatriation of female corporate executives. This paper reports on the experiences of re-entry to home organizations and home countries by an exclusively senior sample of female international managers in Western Europe. Based on extensive empirical research, the findings establish that the repatriation phase of the international career move may be even more stressful than expatriation. The findings also establish that female international managers experience more difficulties than their male counterparts because of their pioneering roles. Finally, the paper suggests that home-based mentors and access to networks while abroad are important factors in contributing to the successful repatriation of international managers. The research findings make a theoretical contribution, not only to the analysis of gender and international human resource management but, also, to wider debates within the contemporary women in management and career theory literatures.     

The impact of cultural dimensions on Chinese expatriates' career capital

The existing expatriation literature confirms that international assignments (IAs) are an essential tool for developing international talent and global managers. However, the majority of relevant studies are conducted in Western developed contexts and neglect the effects on individuals from emerging countries such as China. In the Chinese multinational companies context, this paper explores the concept of career capital comprising knowing-how, knowing-whom and knowing-why. Using Hofstede's cultural dimensions, it investigates the impact of IAs on an individual's career capital. Twenty-eight semi-structured interviews with Chinese expatriates were conducted. Results suggest that the Chinese expatriates develop limited career capital from IAs. The research shows that the Chinese culture plays an important role in shaping organisational practices and individual behaviours and, consequently, the development of expatriates' career capital. It goes beyond the current individual and organisational focuses on IAs to include a cultural perspective on the development of career capital. Implications are rehearsed, exposing areas for further research.     

Female self-perception as barrier to international careers?

It is a matter of fact that women are underrepresented in international management. In most of the articles on female expatriates, the companies' reluctance to send women abroad is usually named as first justification why female managers are rare in the international arena. The reasons cited are manifold, ranging from stereotypical views of the personnel managers to the prejudices women are expected to face abroad. Some authors tried to find additional causes such as dual career couples, cultural factors or the general lack of women in top management. However, only little has been written about the women's own fault for not being selected. Literature on gender-based stereotypes, female self-perception or traditional role models is broad. Typical issues are a perceived lack of self-confidence, stereotypical behaviour or underestimation. But a relation to expatriation is rarely found. Therefore, the aim of this article is to answer if and how women themselves contribute to their under-representation in international management.     

Attitudes toward employee participation in decision-making: A comparison of european and american managers in a united states multinational company

This article examines an American multinational company to uncover any crossnational differences in managerial attitudes toward employee participation in decision-making. Human resource practices of the parent company toward its European subsidiaries were also examined, especially those relevant to employee participation issues. Data were collected from the company's manufacturing facilities in Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States. Managers were interviewed and then surveyed regarding their attitudes toward participation. The interviews revealed resistance to the parent company's efforts to “export” an American vision of employee participation to its European subsidiaries. The survey data revealed attitudinal differences among European managers as well as among their American counterparts. Possible explanations, implications for human resource executives and research directions are discussed. © 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Network capitalism: the role of human resources in penetrating the China market

In the West, there is growing awareness that connections can be pivotal to a firm's success in gaining competitive advantage in the global arena. This paper compares Western networking with guanxi (connections) prevalent in Confucian societies. Guanxi are built between and among people. Hence the effective deployment of human resources is critical to the success of building such relationships. Data from forty West European multinationals with operations in China were collected. Where relevant, these were compared with the findings of Hong Kong firms in China. Specifically, the paper examined (1) how large European multinationals perceive the characteristics of guanxi ; (2) the importance of guanxi for market entry and long-term success in China; and (3) how guanxi is built and maintained by European companies in China. While the European companies have been able to establish a presence in China, their moderate level of satisfaction with performance there may be attributable to their inability to build very strong and appropriate guanxi with the relevant authorities. This may stem from their use of expatriates to staff senior management positions and insistence upon sole or majority-equity ownership to allow for maximum control. The implications for international human resource management are discussed.     

Towards an understanding of the female expatriate experience in Europe

The increased participation of women in the workforce has been one of the major changes in the structuring of the labour force in recent years, and it is anticipated that this trend will continue. Despite growing numbers of women in senior domestic management roles, the participation rates of women in international management remains low across the globe. In Europe, international management has generally been a masculine preserve. Much of our knowledge of female expatriation comes from North America and is based on the experiences of female managers working for North American MNCs. This article builds on that base of understanding but highlights a growing stream of research into female expatriation in Europe, which remains largely “invisible” to specialists outside Europe. Given the paucity of empirical research in this area in general and the need for a more international understanding of the phenomena which can arise from examining different contexts, the article suggests that researchers outside Europe may find useful insights in this paper which pulls together and summarises what we know from the existing research on female expatriates in Europe and offers some avenues for future research.     

Women Managers’ Careers in China: Theorizing the Influence of Gender and Collectivism

This article is concerned with developing an understanding of the careers of women managers in China. Existing literature suggests that while women in China are comparatively well represented in management roles, they face distinctive pressures and barriers to their progress arising from entrenched patriarchal and collectivist aspects of the Chinese cultural tradition. However, little is known about how these aspects impact on women's orientations towards their careers and to what extent influential Western career theories are adequate in interpreting their experience. Drawing on interviews with 20 women managers in China, the article interprets women's orientations towards their careers in relation to their adherence to traditional gender roles and collectivist values. Using this framework, a fourfold taxonomy is developed which identifies “conformist,” “revolutionary,” “soloist,” and “dissident” orientations. The article suggests that Western career theories fail to capture the collective dimension, and thus do not account fully for the range of experience and orientations of Chinese women managers that are captured in the taxonomy. Implications, both practical and theoretical, are discussed. Recommendations are also made as to how management and career development policies might be developed in organizations in China in order to address the diverse needs and preferences of women managers. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Chinese managers' career success networks: the impact of key tie characteristics on structure and interaction practices

Structured personal interviews were conducted with 105 senior and mid-level Chinese male and female managers, in which each respondent provided information about their career success network (CSN) ties. Using this data, we tested hypotheses on: (1) the age composition of Chinese managers' CSNs; (2) the face-to-face interaction practices within Chinese managers' CSNs; and (3) the roles of tie sex composition and tie content (position-centred versus person-centred ties) in influencing the age composition of and interaction practices within Chinese managers' CSNs. The results demonstrated that both Chinese male and female managers, while generally preferring to form CSN ties with individuals who are older than themselves, are relatively more reluctant to include middle-aged or elder women in their CSN. The age of those included in the respondents' CSN was also influenced by tie content and whether the tie spans the organizational boundary. With respect to interaction practices within the CSN, tie content moderated the relationship between tie sex composition and interaction practice. Female managers' person-centred ties with men had significantly lower levels of interaction outside the workplace than person-centred ties composed of members of the same-sex. However, this difference was not exhibited in the case of position-centred ties. Interestingly, the reluctance to socialize with the opposite-sex exhibited by female managers did not appear to be shared by their male counterparts. The implications of these results for career success in China are discussed.     

Careers and human resource management—a European perspective

Although many of the principal milestones of current career research are of U.S. origin, the influence of European contributions slowly grows. Drastic changes of careers and career contexts surfacing in the early 1990s have renewed the interest in career issues. In addition, new concepts such as the boundaryless career propelled the European career discourse and triggered career studies in Europe. Despite the difficulty to give a comprehensive picture because of the differences within Europe and the many possible measures of comparison, this paper identifies three major characteristics of European career research and practice: (1) Substantial heterogeneity in terms of career practice; (2) The use of theoretical concepts usually coming from social sciences in career research; (3) The emphasis on social structures in conceptualizing influencing factors of career. After identifying and explaining these characteristics, the paper discusses their implications for human resource management research and practice.     

Individualization and Marketization of Responsibility for Gender Equality: The Case of Female Managers in China

This article investigates the question of where the responsibility for promoting gender equality resides in the Chinese employment context. Utilizing Acker's (2006) inequality regimes framework, the study explores women's underrepresentation in management roles in China and explains the persistence of gender inequalities in managerial echelons of Chinese organizations. Based on 30 interviews with female managers, the findings demonstrate the marketization and individualization of gender equality in organizational activity. The existing gender inequality, and the lack of responsibility for tackling it, has been either legitimized by eluding to the commercial‐only focus of organizations or rendered invisible through a belief in individual choice as the determining factor of career progression for women. Gender inequality in management is also maintained through the compliance of female managers themselves with the presumed legitimacy of gender‐based differential access to managerial roles. References to culture and tradition, market forces, competitive pressures, and individual choices by female managers are often made in explaining the unequal career paths and outcomes for men and women in their organizations. Our findings contribute to the human resource management (HRM) literature by framing macrosocietal context as a dynamic and endogenous aspect of management of human resources in organizations and provide novel insights into the interplay between HRM and societal context. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Career advancement in large organizations in Europe and the United States: do international assignments add value?

We look at the relationship between the number of assignments, the length of international assignment experience, the type of employer commissioning the international assignment, the individual's career stage at the first assignment, and career advancement: the time that the executives took to be appointed to the CEO position from the start of their career. Our sample of 1001 chief executives, based in 23 countries and affiliated with the 500 largest corporations in Europe and the 500 largest in the United States, allows us to examine important individual- and organization-level contingencies that affect the relationship between international assignment experience and career advancement. We find that international experience slows the executives' ascent to the top, longer assignments and a larger number of assignments being detrimental to their speed of ascent to top corporate positions. Further, international assignments at corporations other than the CEOs' current employer and assignments taken at later stages of executives' careers damage career advancement.     

Tensions between assessment,grading and development in development centres: a case study

Development centres capitalize upon tried and tested assessment centre methods and are quite widely used in career management. However, a number of issues arise in their operation. Some of these reflect the balance between, on the one hand, assessing and grading people and, on the other hand, facilitating and guiding their future development. An investigation is reported of how these issues are experienced and made sense of in a UK-based international company. Data were gathered on two occasions one year apart (Ns = 95 and 113) from participants and other stakeholders in a development centre for potential senior managers. Findings indicate that participants who were awarded a high grade at the centre did not necessarily have more positive perceptions of the development centre process. However, grading, with its consequences for development, motivation and social networks, was salient in respondents' comments about the centres. Themes in these responses are identified and described. Participants were more likely than others (e.g. assessors, line managers) to value the development centre for reasons related to their development, whereas others were more likely to mention assessment/grading. Few respondents mentioned both. Overall, the findings support, to some extent, concerns about the incompatibility of grading and development, but also suggest that the use of grading does not entirely negate the developmental value of the centres. Much depends on perceptions of how the grading information is used.     

High performance work systems and organizational performance: an empirical study of Taiwan's semiconductor design firms

This paper presents a study examining the relationship between high performance work systems (HPWS) and organizational performance in Taiwan's semiconductor design industry. The hypotheses are tested by matching and analysing data collected from field interviews with 21 HR managers and surveys of 21 senior operations managers and 1,129 employees. The results of the statistical analysis demonstrate that the effective use of employee empowerment practices is positively related to organizational performance.     

Global managers: no longer men alone

The reasons companies give for choosing to include women along with their male managers, how they expect women to contribute once hired, and the levels at which women managers are invited to contribute have been changing rapidly, but subtly, over the last fifty years. Companies' expectations have varied depending on their assumptions about the value to the company of diversity, the value to the company of men's and women's unique contributions, and to belief, or lack thereof, of the possibility of positive synergies. This article explores these issues in the context of global management.     

Not part of the family? The limits to managing the corporate way in international hotel chains

Companies increasingly seek solutions to the corporate/local dichotomies perceived to be a feature of more traditional approaches to managing across national boundaries. At the human resource level, the rhetoric of transnationalism emphasizes integration being achieved through 'soft' mechanisms, such as corporate culture devices, which encourage all managers to develop an international (for this read corporate) perspective on what they do. In theory, managerial staff are recruited and promoted on a 'best person for the job' basis and national identities are played down. Drawing upon evidence from three international hotel chains (one American, one French and one Swedish), this paper argues that there is a disjuncture between corporate culture devices which assume that they can transcend national origins and the issues of interest and identity which inform the activities and experiences of managers at unit level. The paper suggests that companies need to be aware of the danger of assuming that one can be trained to be 'one of the family'. Rather, we argue that local managers are potentially disadvantaged in terms of career progression as managers from the parent country utilize criteria of acceptability informed by processes of socialization which are more institutionally embedded and derived than has been assumed.     

Female Managers in Britain – A Comparative Perspective

The aim of this article is to present the current position of female managers in Britain and examine the similarities and differences between male and female managers. In terms of managerial efficiency and performance per se, the evidence strongly suggests that there are far more similarities than differences between the way men and women ‘manage’. However, there are some major sex differences in relation to demographic profiles, job status and employment factors, career development, occupational stress levels, and attitudes towards female managers compared to their male counterparts. One in nine managers in Britain are women and less than one per cent occupy senior management positions. Women managers tend to have to be more highly qualified than men managers, are more likely to be single or divorced, and encounter more prejudice and discrimination in the work environment. In addition, compared to male managers female managers have to cope with additional stresors stemming both from their work and home lives. It is suggested that many of these differences are hampering the career prospects of women in management and contributing towards the difficulties they have in reaching the higher levels of management compared to men. Finally, recommendations for changes in corporate and legislative policies are also proposed.     

Behind the veil: an exploratory study of the myths and realities of women in the Iranian workforce

Despite significant advancements, women executives and professionals have continued to complain about the existence of a glass ceiling in the UK, the USA, Canada and other countries that espouse equal employment opportunities. Little is known about the role and plight of women in the workforce in Islamic countries. In general, Western societies perceive the participation of women in the workforce and their upward career mobility as very limited in Islamic societies. This article seeks to address this limitation in the field by unravelling some of the myths and realities pertaining to women in the Iranian labour force. Based on interviews with 12 Iranians, reality checks were performed on five widely held perceptions of the status of women in Iran, including women's participation in the labour force, appointment to managerial/professional positions, representation in higher education, segregation in the workplace, and Islam's attitude towards non‐Muslims. These issues are discussed in the contexts of foreign direct investment in Iran and other Islamic countries. Implications for international human resource management, including the assignment of women expatriates to Iran and other Islamic nations, are also addressed.     

Accounting for technological innovation: an overview

Technology and, more specifically, significant technological innovation is increasingly being recognized by business executives as both an integral part of business strategy and either a major opportunity for, or strong threat to, their firm's development. A growing number of executives are giving equal attention to both process and product forms of technological innovation, and are scanning technological innovations in the international arena.This paper argues that R&D is an important but not exhaustive component of technological innovation. Its main conclusions from the viewpoint of accounting standards and practice are: - Net cash flow rather than net profit (or loss) is the most relevant financial criterion with which to judge the commercial value and results of innovation. - Both accounting practice and standards should be developed with the clear attempt to ensure international compatabilily. - Given the speed of change in technological innovation, accounting practices and standards should be regularly reviewed, and if necessary altered—two-yearly review seems a justifiable suggestion. - Several standards on accounting for the major fields of technology may need to be developed; however, a broad standard dealing with common issues may be possible. - The input of technologists, researchers and general managers is necessary to ensure that accounting practices and standards are conceptually sound and useful to business managers.     

Sex Differences in Responsiveness to Organizational Career Management

This is a study of differences between women and men in their responsiveness to formal organizational career management. Questionnaire data from 272 men and 101 women were analyzed. It was found that women's individual career variables were mostly similar to men's, but their responsiveness to organizational career management was higher than men's. Women's career effectiveness (performance, attitudes, identity, and adaptability) and career planning increased when the level of perceived organizational career management was high. The sex difference remained even when the effects of two other responsiveness-reducing factors, managerial position and tenure, were controlled. The results are interpreted in terms of women's cognitive construction of organizational reality. It is suggested that human resource managers have to distinguish between two different objectives: enhancing women's effectiveness vs. enhancing their career progress. To attain the first objective, formal career management systems should be developed. To attain the second, it is argued that women need to relate differently to the informal organizational system.