Despite this increase in demand for international assignees, the numbers
of women in such positions remains stubbornly low. In North America figures
show that between 2 and 14% of global assignees are women, compared with
45% of women in management in domestic contexts (Adler, 1984a, 1994a and
b; Florkowski and Fogel, 1995; The Conference Board, 1992, Tung, 1997).
Figures from Australia indicate that approximately 6.5% of global assignees are
women compared to 22% of women who are in management (Hede and
O’Brien, 1996). In Europe a similar picture emerges, with between 9 and 15%
of women on global assignments, compared with 26% representation in man-
agement (Brewster, 1991; Harris, 1998, 2002; ORC, 1997). Such statistics ques-
tion the assumption that diversity is being acknowledged and incorporated in
the development of a geocentric mindset. It is particularly worrying to see that
the representation of women on international assignments is increasing at such
a slow rate since Adler’s study in 1984.
The low incidence of women on international management assignments is
even more puzzling when one looks at research into the criteria for effective
international managers. Here, the emphasis is on interpersonal, intuitive and
cooperative styles of management as the key skills for working internation-
ally (Barham and Devine, 1991; Birchall et al., 1996; Coulson-Thomas, 1992;
Mendenhall and Oddou, 1985; Wills and Barham, 1994). These same skills have
been argued to be more suited to a woman’s style of management. Rosener
(1990), for instance, argues that women adopt an ‘interactive leadership style,
particularly well suited to the versatile and rapidly changing business environ-
ment of today’. Women’s ability to work well with people, developing ‘smooth
and cooperative relationships’ is also stressed by Wentling (1992). Sharma
(1990), meanwhile, sees the main attributes of their approach as collaboration
and cooperation, teamwork, intuition and creativity. We will come back to this
later in this chapter, especially in our discussion of managerial/leadership
behaviour.
Many of the reasons put forward for minimal participation rates of women
arise from assumptions about the likelihood of women experiencing problems
whilst on assignments. Research into expatriate failure, however, provides no evi-
dence with which to support these assumptions (Copeland and Griggs, 1985; ECA,
1994; Mendenhall and Oddou, 1985; Stone, 1991; Torbiorn, 1982; Tung, 1981;
Zeira and Banai, 1985). The most significant feature of the research into expatri-
ate failure rates and reasons for failure is that it is based on a male population. This
research contains actual evidence of male expatriates facing cross-cultural adjust-
ment problems and family problems. In contrast, research conducted on the out-
comes of women’s global assignments indicates that female expatriates are
successful in their assignments (Adler, 1987; Caligiuri and Tung, 1998; Taylor and
Napier, 1996). The attribution of male expatriates’ problems is however assumed
to be a lack of adequate preparation on the part of the expatriate or lack of organi-
sational support and is therefore seen to be open to remedy. This contrasts starkly
with the situation for women where assumptions of potential problems, not linked
358 International Human Resource Management