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The purpose of this paper is to investigate workplace gender harassment of female expatriates across 25 host countries and consider the role of institutional-level gender discrimination as a boundary condition. Further, the study investigates the effects of workplace gender harassment on frustration and job satisfaction and general job stress as a moderator.

The sample is comprised of 160 expatriates residing in 25 host countries. The authors test the model using partial least-squares structural equation modeling.

The results show that female expatriates experience more workplace gender harassment than male expatriates. This effect is particularly pronounced in host countries with strong institutional-level gender discrimination. Moreover, the authors found significant main effects of gender harassment on expatriates’ frustration and job satisfaction. Further, the authors identified a significant association between frustration and job satisfaction. No significant moderation effect of general job stress was found.

The study’s data are cross-sectional. Future studies are encouraged to use longitudinal research designs. Further, future studies could center on perpetrators of harassment, different manifestations of harassment, and effective countermeasures.

The study raises awareness on the challenges of harassment of female expatriates and the role of the host country context. Further, the study shows the detrimental effects of gender harassment on female expatriates’ job satisfaction which is a central predictor of variables crucial to international assignments, for example, performance or assignment completion.

The study is among the first endeavors to include institutional-level gender discrimination as a boundary condition of workplace gender harassment of female expatriates, and therefore puts the interplay between macro- and micro-level processes into perspective.

Gender diversity and equality vary tremendously among countries. This is a particular challenge for foreign subsidiaries, when the level of gender diversity and equality differs between the home and host country. Various indicators such as a low-gender pay gap or a high ratio of females in managerial positions suggest that Scandinavia is ahead in terms of gender diversity and equality, whereas those indicators suggest that the level in Japan is currently lower. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how executives leading Scandinavian subsidiaries operating in Japan perceive this situation, and whether and what kind of actions they take to initiate change.

This study is based on a qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with executives of Scandinavian subsidiaries in Japan.

Findings reveal that executives of Scandinavian subsidiaries respond to the major differences in gender equality between Scandinavia and Japan with three strategies of change: resistance and rigid change, compromise and moderate change, and adaptation and maintaining status quo. Moreover, the findings indicate that the strategy of change varies depending on individual differences of the executives, e.g., nationality, and organizational differences, e.g., subsidiary size.

Due to the small sample size, the generalizability of the findings is limited. Given the paucity of research on this topic, this approach provides first insights for building a basis for future studies.

This study contributes to the scarce literature on gender diversity and equality in multinational enterprises by identifying strategies of how gender equality can be fostered in a non-Western context from a top executive perspective.