Female on International Assignments

World is growing with lightening speed to become a global village, business horizons are widening their wings to take over every street of the world, no matter how different market style is, how different cultural barriers are. Different customs, norms, language, gender are crucial issues for any individual, team, or organization. We are focusing about women facing problems at international assignments. This for sure affects the success of women who work across borders. Gender perspective varies a lot across time, culture.

There are some countries like Sweden with low gender discrimination and on other hand its Japan with very high gender discrimination. Different cultural environments, cultural beliefs, and attitudes significantly impact gender expectations and govern much of the interactions and interpretations that occur between men n women. It came to known by a survey that more women are sent to work on international assignments than men, but the question arises, aren’t the challenges faced by women the same as those for men…?

Is working in Australia is same as working in India? The first problem faced by women on international assignment is the cultural difference. Where in male dominating business world n environment it’s hard for a lady to be acceptable as a decision maker. Clients will not do business with women in the way they would with a man. Especially in the Middle East countries where boys have to be boys and girls to be girls, one has got to play along with it.

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One have to be respectful in order to get their respect, and noting that women need to be "very mature" in their behavior. Women, who want to lead in business, have a family knot with them. The first question, an owner going to think prior to appointing an assignment, is she a lady with family, and the amount of travel she can carry along? Whereas men can easily be mobile for international assignments. It is as well a cultural attitude toward the role of women in child-rearing and family life which play a role in this shortfall.

It is difficult for women to take expats routes than men but the paradox is that women have more of communication skills n qualities that companies require for today’s business world. In ancient societies men were a symbol of strength and protection, they used to go out either for hunting or for protection and keeping out the outsiders n women were used to trade and provide services. Now we are moving into a period where couples have to care for a wider range of things.

Companies need a better understanding of relationships and wider management through teams rather than through dominant male hierarchies. Women care about relationships a lot more than men do, which makes them better at management because they are better at recognizing emotions, voracity and other people’s needs, which on average, makes women better at working in teams. But, on the other hand, it is generally more difficult for a female to sever the relationships she’s established and take-off for another country.

Another issue for women is when the accompanying spouse is a man. On average the male is the person in the highest position in society and it gets much more difficult to get the guy to follow the woman as the trailing spouse. In many countries it is more difficult for female expats because they may have to accommodate their males’ egos. In male-dominated societies, the trailing male spouse does not want to feel inadequate. So what companies should do to help women carry their international path.

First and foremost, they should find the person qualified to fit the clients’ needs and then HR ensures that qualified women are part of those short term assignment. Specially when a female employee is to send to the Middle East she has to be able to cope with the cultural complexity. Whereas, the younger women generation is much more capable than the fifty years old generation. We need to bring these women up; we have successful female role models, which helps bring about change. Women should get international assignments like any one else because it is a great way of developing as well as being essential for their careers.

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