American female expatriates and the civil rights act of 1991 : Balancing legal and business interests

Women and international assignments: Taking stock—a 25‐year review

“…By this time, the literature began to question the efficacy of legislative interventions. To note, the U.S. Congress outlawed discrimination on grounds of sex in 1964, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991 legally protected American women's rights to seek positions in host countries where women were not typically accepted in management (Feltes, Robinson, & Fink, 1993). Affirmative action programs appeared to have moderate success in enhancing women's participation in management (Powell & Butterfield, 1994).…”

A model for the influence of social interaction and social support on female expatriates' cross-cultural adjustment

“…Given that even the best location will not guarantee social interaction, organizations can also select expatriates who possess the much-needed af liating personality characteristics and language skills. Once on an assignment, an organization can assign mentors to their female expatriates (Adler, 1984b;Feltes et al, 1993) to support them in their new roles (Caligiuri and Cascio, 1998). To address a female expatriate's informational and instrumental support directly, organizations can work with professional relocation companies specializing in destination services for the host-national community.…”

Dual-career couples during international relocation: The trailing spouse

“…There is some indication that MNCs are reducing their expatriate staff, but this may be a recurring phenomenon related to the cost of expatriate managers (Lester, 1993;Edstrom and Galbraith, 1994;Mueller-Maerki, 1995;Selmer, 1996). In addition, some experts would argue that international opportunities for female expatriates appear to be increasing as they are given more access to upper management positions (Adler, 1993a(Adler, , 1993b(Adler, , 1994Adler and Izaeli, 1994;Feltes et al, 1993;Westwood and Leung, 1994). However, the increase in female expatriates would exacerbate the dual-career dilemma facing MNCs today and underscore the recent headline in the Wall Street Journal which proclaimed 'Employers Ignore Expatriate Spouses at Their Own Peril' (Pascoe, 1992).…”

“…Male expatriate managers were selected as the target group of respondents because the preponderance of overseas expatriate assignments in the past decade involved male managers. As has been forecasted, in the next decade this trend begins to reverse itself with approximately 20 per cent of expatriates from the United States being female (Adler, 1993a(Adler, , 1993b(Adler, , 1994Adler and Izaeli, 1994;Feltes et al, 1993).…”