Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how cultural orientations influence Emirati women’s career development. Drawing on the cultural theories of Hofstede (1980, 2001) and House et al. (2004), the authors investigated the cultural orientations of a sample of 19 women in the United Arab Emirates. Design/methodology/approach In-depth interviews were conducted to collect life history data about women’s early lives, education and employment. Findings The findings identify three themes that influenced the participant’s careers: family influence on careers, individual-level attitudes toward education for careers, and workplace career development. Research limitations/implications Limited by the small sample of 19 female national participants that implies further international study is required to extend this research. Practical implications The business application is that social values, beliefs and norms can be leveraged for women’s career success. Social implications Policymakers are guided on key factors that influence Emirati women’s careers from a cultural perspective. Originality/value The study makes a unique theoretical contribution in a model that shows: cultural dimensions are interrelated, cultural values and practices are interdependent, and cultural orientations vary between women and men

The lived experiences of foreign women were explored to discover influences on their international working lives. Life history narratives were collected in interviews with 12 participants who were female, foreign (nationality differs from their country of employment) and employed or a business owner in the United Arab Emirates. A phenomenological framework of analysis resulted in identification of three emergent themes around life experiences that had shaped participants' working lives: becoming a new generation of expatriates; adjustment to sociocultural change; and centrality of womanhood. The implication of these themes was the influence from lived experiences on the development and professional identity of foreign working‐women. Findings offer insight about influences on the actual and potential economic participation of foreign women for business practitioners and policymakers. A new classification of foreign worker, the ‘foreign working‐woman’ (FW‐W), extends the body of academic knowledge. A research direction is proposed for further international study about influences from life experiences on the FW‐W.

Gender was consistently identified as a major force in all editions of Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986(Morgan, , 1997(Morgan, , 2006), yet 30 years after publication of Morgan's (1986) seminal work, women's equality remains elusive in twenty-first-century workplaces. This state of affairs became the stimulus for the present research study, and its purpose the exploration of influences on women's equality and inequality from the eight metaphors contained in Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986(Morgan, , 1997(Morgan, , 2006. Data were collected from a sample of 70 articles in 30 leading academic journals that referenced Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986(Morgan, , 1997(Morgan, , 2006, and were analyzed for within-domains similarity between the eight metaphors and imageries of women in organizations. The results were then investigated for women's equality and inequality via content analysis. Four themes of influences on women's equality and inequality were identified from these metaphors for organizations. The implications of these findings are discussed, and two novel images are introduced to progress equality for women. The contribution to scholarly knowledge from this study is the proposition that the influence of these metaphors for organizations has in effect trapped ways of seeing and thinking regarding women's equality and inequality. The practical value of the current study lies in the proposal of new images to release organizational praxis for women's equality to become a real force in twenty-first-century organizations.

This scholarly study is the first to compare business leadership in the Arab Gulf states in terms of the presence of female managers in various positions. It documents the status of women leaderssenior executives and managers-through a quantitative gender analysis of 2805 private and publicly listed companies in the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The study details the positions women hold within organizations and analyzes and compares these by country, business classification, company size, and ownership. The contribution to cross-cultural management is that these data on gender composition in the workforce highlight the low participation of women in business leadership as an issue. Furthermore, the study provides knowledge for crosscultural managers about cultural attitudes toward women's economic participation in this geographical area. The research offers helpful insights and important implications for government leaders in these countries as well as for educators, practitioners, and scholars who work to help prepare and advance women to leadership within this region.

She has published two scholarly books on the development of women leaders and has authored/co-authored nearly 60 peer-reviewed articles primarily in the areas of leadership, individual change, work-life integration, and academic servicelearning. Susan is currently continuing her research on the lifetime development of women leaders in the United Arab Emirates, China, and the U.S. She is also an independent leadership and change consultant and is the founder and chair of the ILA Women and Leadership Affinity Group (WLAG) and other state, national, and international groups related to developing women leaders.