addition, the tension between work and home demands, which is often the
cause of women opting out at higher management levels, becomes even more
critical in the case of an international move.
3 WOMEN IN INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT:
CRITICAL ISSUES
The preceding section has highlighted the fact that women and men are not
on an even playing field when opportunities for international assignments
arise. The complexity of these internal barriers is only partially acknowledged,
however, in research into women in international management. Here, the
impact of gender on international assignments is discussed under four main
categories: (1) personality traits, (2) family characteristics, (3) host nationals’
attitudes towards women and (4) organisational processes.
Personality traitsMotivation
A common myth held by decision makers is that women do not want to go on
international assignments. Adler addressed this myth in her research (Adler,
1984b) amongst 1,129 graduating MBA students in Canada, the United States
and Europe. Her findings showed that new women graduates expressed as
much interest in international careers as their male colleagues. Women, how-
ever, saw organisational barriers facing females as greater potential constraints
to achieving this goal than did the male sample. A more recent study, by Lowe
et al. (1999), amongst graduate and undergraduate business students in the
United States, reported however that gender was a significant predictor when
specific referent countries were identified. Differences in cultural distance and
human development explained substantial variance among males and females
in their willingness to accept certain international assignments. Political risk
was not deemed to be a significant factor. The authors acknowledge that their
findings need further replication to ensure generalisability. However, they do
raise issues for organisations in terms of the amount of support needed to assist
women to successfully undertake assignments in specific countries.
Personality orientations
Personality traits have been linked to successful cross-cultural adjustment
(Mendenhall and Oddou, 1985). Caligiuri et al. (1999) argue that three key per-
sonalitydimensions are unique in the context of a female expatriate’s experience.
These are self-orientation (stress reduction, technical competence and reinforcement
366 International Human Resource Management