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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.

Reasons for women’s underrepresentation in international assignments include stereotypical assumptions within organizations about their ability to adjust abroad and more broadly a lack of trust from the corporate headquarters. Female expatriates’ adjustment may strongly vary depending on the host country and on host-country nationals’ attitudes toward them. Yet up until today, very few studies have examined female expatriate adjustment in a single and non-Asian host country. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by comparing the cross-cultural adjustment of male and female expatriates in Switzerland.

This study replicates Selmer and Leung’s (2003a) study design in order to compare adjustment of male and female expatriates working in multinational companies in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Based on 152 valid questionnaires collected, the authors performed a multivariate analysis of covariance and further analyses of covariance to compare male and female expatriate adjustment.

The authors find that female expatriates have significantly higher interaction and work adjustment levels than their male counterparts, while no significant differences between men and women were observed in terms of general adjustment. These findings in a European context are consistent with those of Selmer and Leung in an Asian context.

Very few studies to date have examined the adjustment of female expatriates in a western host-country context, despite the fact that host-country cultural norms might strongly influence women’s experiences. The research brings new empirical evidence about cross-cultural adjustment of female and male expatriates in a western location. Contrary to persistent stereotypical assumptions, results emphasize again that women are able to adjust better or at least as well as their male counterparts.

Male expatriate spouses represent a surprisingly under‐researched area, especially given the crucial importance of spousal support to ensure successful expatriate assignments and the increasing trends of both dual‐career couples and female business expatriates. To somewhat alleviate this deficiency, 46 Western female business expatriates assigned to Hong Kong responded to a mail survey. Almost half of them were married and accompanied by their husbands. The tentative results of this highly exploratory study seem to indicate that, although moderated somewhat by respondents’ perceived adequacy of the extent of corporate support, companies generally failed to support male expatriate spouses. Unfortunately, this main finding does not contradict results of what little previous research there is on the subject. This can be regarded as an early warning sign to international firms trying to globalize, since there is no reason to believe that the escalating trend of women assigned abroad will not continue, given the rising demand for business expatriates. Internationalizing firms need to introduce more corporate support for male expatriate spouses, before reluctance to act in this respect may block their global expansion.

The purpose of the paper is to assess the relevance of the personal value called self‐transcendence as an explanatory factor regarding gender differences in the socio‐cultural adjustment of expatriate employees.

A sample of 37 male and 31 female expatriates responded to an online questionnaire concerning their self‐transcendence value and their adjustment as expatriate employees.

Self‐transcendence of the expatriate predicted interactional and work adjustment. Perceived expatriate‐local difference in self‐transcendence was a negative predictor of work and interactional adjustment. Females had higher (non‐significant) self‐transcendence than males. Further gender differences in the impact of self‐transcendence and perceived expatriate‐local differences in self‐transcendence were found.

Further research into the effect of expatriate levels of the personal value of self‐transcendence, its two components, universalism and benevolence, and gender differences therein appears warranted. Statistical techniques to establish causality should be used.

Knowledge regarding the self‐transcendence values of candidates for expatriate assignments may assist global human resource managers to make more effective selection decisions regarding expatriate assignments.

The study described in this paper is among the first to assess potential explanations for the better interactional and work adjustment of female expatriates compared to males. This study replicates earlier findings regarding the relationship between perceived expatriate‐local differences in self‐transcendence and expatriate socio‐cultural adjustment and provides new knowledge regarding gender differences in this relationship.

With the steady increase in the number of female expatriates and multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) pressing need for global female talent, understanding the factors that attract and retain female expatriates is urgent. Drawing from the literatures on gender differences in (domestic) labor turnover and gender differences in social networks, the purpose of this paper is to investigate gender differences in expatriates’ turnover intentions.

The authors collected data via a questionnaire survey from an international sample of female (n=164) and male (n=1,509) expatriates who were on a company-sponsored international assignment at the time of completing the survey.

The findings show that female expatriates’ turnover intentions are mainly explained by satisfaction with company support. In contrast, male expatriates’ turnover intentions are explained by repatriation concerns and perceived gap between within- and outside-company career-advancement opportunities, in addition to satisfaction with company support. The authors did not find any gender differences in the levels of turnover intention per se.

Since males dominate the expatriate cadre of most companies, existing expatriate retention strategies are likely to be geared toward males. Companies that value and want to retain their female talent need to gain a better understanding of what matters to female expatriates in their decisions to stay or leave the company, and adjust their expatriation and repatriation management strategies accordingly.

The study is one of the first to empirically test the gender differences in expatriate turnover intentions. The authors propose two underlying mechanisms that explain gender differences in expatriate turnover intentions: social integration and career advancement. The findings point to an important new research frontier that focuses on gender differences in the underlying mechanisms of turnover intentions rather than in the level of turnover intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role that gender differences play in evaluating perceptions of global competence, individual readiness for expatriate assignments and overall job performance.

A total of 11 global leadership competencies and perceptions of expatriate readiness for international assignments, along with job performance are rated by self raters and supervisors.

The results suggest mixed support for sex‐role stereotyping and role‐congruity theory (e.g., women will be rated lower than men for expatriate positions which have typically been held by men) and the similar‐to‐me hypothesis (supervisors will rate same‐sex subordinates higher than opposite‐sex subordinates).

The most interesting finding is that supervisors overall (and male supervisors in particular) rated women lower than men on perceptions of expatriate readiness for international assignments, while there were no differences in ratings of overall performance.

This study uses a sample of male and female self raters and supervisors to examine the relationship between perceptions of expatriate readiness, global competencies, and overall performance. Results suggest that although women may be perceived by their supervisors as having the same level of performance as men, they are not seen as being ready for international assignments at the same rate.

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.

This research aims to explore whether or not the widely adopted diversity management strategy of Japanese firms aids female self-initiated expatriates' careers. Japan is famous for its male-dominated society (e.g. Hofstede, 2003), which seems to conflict with the recent fading of this strategy in Japanese firms. To what extent does the strategy work for Japanese organisations and how do female self-initiated expatriates perceive it?

An interview-based qualitative methodology is used to collect testimony from female self-initiated expatriates who are currently working fulltime in Japanese firms. The interviews were conducted with 22 female expats who come from 13 different countries.

Although the strategy aims for equality, gender still matters in Japanese society and within firms. The interviews found that male-centred rules set out every single step for local employees' behaviours. “Male things” are defined everywhere at work, which makes female expats sceptical of Japan and Japanese firms. The dynamics of the male-based rule seem to eliminate female expats from the centre of organisational society.

Discussion over female expatriates has been increasing due to the frequent movement of international labour to Japan. Also gender fairness has been pushed by the international community, including Japanese. These factors, however, have yet to be explored in the context of the Japanese workplace for female international expatriates. What do we know about female expats working in Japan? What does the male dominance mean for female expats? This study provides an initial insight on female and expatriate diversity management in Japan.

Corporate business activities can require expatriates to relocate to dangerous countries. Applying the expectancy value theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in female and male expatriates in their relocation willingness to dangerous countries as a function of sensation seeking. The authors further examine money orientation as a moderator of the effects of sensation seeking.

The sample is comprised of 148 expatriates currently residing in safe host countries. The authors build and examine a moderated mediation model using the PROCESS tool.

The results show that male expatriates are more sensation seeking than female expatriates. Further, the results indicate a positive main effect of sensation seeking on relocation willingness to dangerous countries. Most importantly, sensation seeking was found to mediate the effects of gender on relocation willingness. Accordingly, male expatriates are more willing to relocate to dangerous countries due to higher sensation seeking. Money orientation was not found to interact with sensation seeking.

The authors analyzed cross-sectional data. Future studies are encouraged to use multi-wave research designs and to examine further predictors, as well as mediators and moderators of relocation willingness to dangerous countries. Another limitation is the low number of organizational expatriates in the sample.

The study provides implications for the process of selecting eligible individuals who are willing to relocate to dangerous countries.

The study is among the first research endeavors to investigate antecedents of expatriates’ relocation willingness to dangerous countries. The authors also introduce the sensation seeking construct to the literature on expatriation management.

Attempts to verify anecdotal and field evidence of an unfounded expatriate assignment selection bias against American females. Surveyed the perceptions of US, German and Mexican managers across six areas for assessing the business success viability of female American expatriates. Shows that American managers were less positive than their counterparts who knew the foreign marketplace better. States that the gender of the manager played a significant role in the US sample, where female managers gave amore favourable assessment.