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Previous research indicates that accompanying partners often struggle to find employment upon international relocations. This study aims to highlight diplomat’s partners’ employment situation and to examine how unrealized professional aspirations affect their socio-cultural and psychological adjustment in the foreign environment.

This study applies OLS regression analysis to a sample of 220 partners of German Foreign Service diplomats who were surveyed regarding their locational adjustment, general stress and perceived quality of life using an online questionnaire. This study differentiates between working partners (19.5% of the total sample), non-working partners with a desire to obtain paid employment (65.5%) and partners who are unemployed by choice (15.0%).

The results demonstrate that partners’ employment situation and employment aspirations are important variables explaining differences in socio-cultural and psychological adjustment. Working partners reveal the highest levels of general stress, non-working partners with an employment desire report the lowest levels of locational adjustment and non-working partners without employment aspirations experience the highest quality of life.

As this study has a cross-sectional design, the authors are not able to deal with potential issues of reverse causality.

Sending organizations should consider accompanying partners' unrealized employment aspirations by providing services with regard to job search and career development. Moreover, they should ensure the provision of services that support the work–life balance of working couples.

Previous research only sparsely examined the adjustment and well-being of partners accompanying foreign service employees, who are in contrast to business expatriates required to relocate every three to five years. Moreover, this study features the crucial role of partners' employment situation and discusses possibilities to promote spousal employment, as well as complementary measures to improve work–life balance for dual-earner couples.

The particular focus of this paper is female expatriates in Europe, which is a relatively under‐researched area. A total of 50 senior female expatriate managers were interviewed, representing a wide range of industry and service sectors. The aims of the paper are to highlight a number of critical factors which are necessary for successful female expatriate assignments. The results of the study show that female expatriates are disadvantaged in their careers because of the lack of organizational support which is readily available to their male counterparts. This lack of organizational support, together with the invisible barriers which constitute the glass ceiling, explain the relative scarcity of female expatriate managers.

Identifies a number of critical spouse/partner preparation and adjustment factors derived from a larger study that examined the expatriate career management practices of 20 Australian business enterprises with a physical presence in the East‐Asian business region. Addresses concerns expressed by Adler (1991) that attention to the needs of an accompanying spouse is at best only having a neutral impact on spouse adjustment. That is, organizations have largely failed to assist spouses in establishing what Adler (1991) described as “a meaningful portable life”. Reviews spouse/partner preparation and adjustment from the views expressed by Australian business executives, expatriate and repatriates involved in business operations in East‐Asia. The views of spouses and partners were not gathered in this study. Results point to the need for re‐assessment of existing spouse/partner preparation and adjustment. While results are tentative, evidence from this study confirms the need for more attention by Australian organizations to spouse/partner preparation and adjustment, with particular attention to the development of business environment awareness and empathy which may assist in advancing Adler’s concept of “a meaningful portable life”.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how repatriates’ emotional support network affects their experience of re-entry.

This inductive, qualitative study is based on 27 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Belgian organizational repatriates.

The analyses suggest that expatriation empathy is a key attribute of organizational repatriates’ main emotional support providers. In addition, the results show that although partners are a main source of emotional support on re-entry, they are also important potential causes of distress. Lastly, the results suggest that the cultural diversity of a repatriate’s emotional support network is linked with characteristics of the assignment and that it affects the experience of repatriation.

The results provide empirical evidence that the expatriation empathy of repatriates’ support providers is a more informative characteristic to consider compared with whether they have personal experience of expatriation. In addition, the results suggest that research should also take into account the negative side of social support, and, for example, consider the influence of crossover distress of partners who experience relocation difficulties themselves.

This study points to the possible benefits of organizing social activities or training for repatriates and their partner and any children, as well as the advantages of encouraging expatriates to invite home-country friends to visit.

Although most scholars agree on the importance of support for expatriates’ well-being, the sources of relevant emotional support have received little research attention so far, as has how this influences the repatriation experience.

Despite more than 50 years of research into gender and work, the impact of female expatriates persists to be underrepresented in mainstream international human resource management (IHRM) literature. The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the perceptions of married Indian information technology (IT) women regarding career and expatriating discussions they have with their husbands and its impact on their decision making to undertake international assignments.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 married Indian IT women who had undertaken international assignments after marriage. The study includes two data sets, 1: women on less than one-year assignment; 2: women on greater than one-year assignments.

The study found that women who went on short-term assignments of less than one year travelled alone and found it fortunate and convenient to leave their children in the care of their husbands, in-laws, parents and maids. While in the cases of women travelling for longer-term assignments, most husbands accompanied them. The study suggests that while spousal support was the key, having a shared purpose with husbands along with extended family support was equally significant to facilitate women undertaking an international assignment. As an impetus, the authors note a change within the Indian society where both partners come together to make decisions about expatriating.

The authors discuss the implications for IHRM as they relate to gender diversity within organisations.

The research, underpinned by the early workings of a theory of career hierarchy, explores the complexities in expatriation decision-making processes of married women from the emerging economy of India with traditional family values, who are working within a modern and liberal IT industry.

The context in which careers are being played out has changed and is constantly changing, both in domestic employment settings and more particularly in global business environments. Such international business environments highlight career choices often hidden in domestic situations. It is here that the balance between family and career become tangible. The career costs and benefits of taking an overseas assignment for both partners become open to question. This article considers the situation of the accompanying partner and considers their relationship to the expatriate employing organisation. It considers organisations offering career development resources to partners to support their job search abroad. Such provision has often been adopted in response to practical mobility problems on an ad hoc basis. This article looks at how underlying theory may offer guidance to companies offering such provision.

The purpose of this paper is to explore gender differences in career prospects and changes in attitudes to international assignments over recent decades in Finland. This is relevant in light of the international immobility trend among staff with which MNCs especially are struggling, coupled with the persistent unequal ratio of male to female expatriates. The paper aims to increase the understanding of how gender and family relations affect international career prospects and what changes have evolved over time.

The paper compares differences and changes in opportunities to and preferences for long-term international assignments between male and female business graduates in Finland. It uses survey data on attitudes to expatriation from 1994 to 2008.

A general shift from individual career centeredness towards family centeredness was detected between the two points in time. Paradoxically, this research shows that while gender equality seems to be increasing between spouses, it seems to be decreasing in who is being offered international assignments. The results give valuable insights into how the trend of international immobility has occurred and how the gender relations and gendered values are developing in society.

While the international immobility trend persists, women apparently remain as an under-utilized resource when searching for employees to send on long-term expatriate assignments. Global HR professionals should pay more attention to whom expatriate assignments are offered and to how dual career couples and families can be better supported in the expatriation process.

The paper contributes to the understanding of gendered careers and women's opportunities in international assignments with a unique comparison of changes over time.

The aim is to review the progress as well as the setbacks that have occurred since the author's first article “Removing the boardroom glass ceiling” in Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 44 No. 3, 2012, in the appointment of more women to the boards of companies.

The article is a review of current developments including initiatives pursued by companies and governments. It covers developments in the UK and the rest of Europe and in Asia.

The article shows that the trend toward more equality and greater diversity is most likely to continue as the momentum for change is now fully established.

The article covers published articles and statistics 2011‐2012.

The imposition of mandatory quotas is discussed, problems in particular sectors highlighted, as well as developments in increasing equality regarding gender and pay. The merits of women providing the “human face” in business and suggestions how to remove the barriers that inhibit their progress to senior appointments are also discussed.

Current sociological trends are discussed including the “trailing male”, more self‐sufficient and independent career women, and the need for affordable child‐care.

The article provides a comprehensive review of the current developments with suggestions for further progress in the future.

In the context of international assignments, repatriates are confronted with social, organisational and cultural challenges. However, the impact of community and social support on the reintegration process has gone unnoticed. The purpose of this paper is to identify the influencing factors on the reintegration process of expatriates who were sent to Asia, especially considering social support and the role of the community. In the context of the community, this paper discusses which factors influence the reintegration process after repatriates return to Germany.

In order to research reintegration problems as well as social support and the role of the community, seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with repatriates from Germany.

The central results of the study show that there are variables in different areas that influence the reintegration process of repatriates sent to Asia, which have both reintegration-promoting and reintegration-inhibiting effects. Furthermore, it was found that a lack of support from social networks in the home country has negative effect on the reintegration process causing repatriates to stay in known repatriate communities.

The results of the study demonstrate that social networks and communities in the home country represent crucial challenges in the reintegration process. Furthermore, it demonstrates the need for future exploratory research into this area to gain further insights into this topic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the social role played by expatriate spouses during international assignments, using a dramaturgical approach.

Role expectations were investigated on the basis of an exemplary case: the spouses of diplomatic and consular employees of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Qualitative data were collected in interviews with 40 male and female spouses and analyzed with a “goffmanian” dramaturgical role analysis approach.

The dramaturgical analysis of the accompanying persons’ discourse highlights the different dimensions of the expatriate spouse role and how expatriate spouses construct and personalize their role. Furthermore, this analysis brings new insights into the way male spouses may support female expatriates and reveals gender differences in the enactment of the expatriate spouse role.

This study has been carried out in the diplomatic sector, which might be more structured for the spouses in terms of role expectations than in multinational companies. Further research should be carried out to better understand these expectations in the context of multinational companies.

The dramaturgical approach is a useful conceptual framework to explore the role enactment of the expatriate spouse, especially by considering the spouse role with a new distribution of gender roles. In this context, the role repertoire approach represents a promising field of investigation for research on expatriation and international mobility.