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Being a female and an expatriate: an examination of female

expatriates’ successfulness from HCNs’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

This study examines the effect of a series of factors that are likely to predict female expatriates’

successfulness on global assignments from host country nationals’ (HCNs’) perspectives using

Henri Tajfel and Turner (1979)’s Self-Identity Theory (SIT) and Eagly’s Gender Role Congruity

Theory (2002). Namely, we propose two contradictory arguments concerning HCN’s attitudes

toward female expatriates and the effects on their successfulness using SIT. We also suggest that

female expatriates’ self-perceived feminine gender roles will conflict with their situational roles as

expatriates, and consequently reduce their likelihood of success on global assignments. In addition,

their levels of foreignness and the support that they receive from HCNs will interact with their

self-perceived gender role to influence their successfulness on the international assignments.

Keywords: female expatriates, self-perceived gender role, foreignness, gender-occupational role

conflict, social identity theory, gender role congruity theory, HCNs

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INTRODUCTION

As the global market becomes increasingly connected, transnational companies become more

prevalent than before, and expatriates evolve into the new “normal” workforce (Welsh & Kersten,

2014). Expatriates are defined as employees who are employed by a business organization and are

sent to the subordinate business units in another country on a temporary basis (typically 1 to 5

years) to complete time-based tasks or to help the local subordinate to accomplish organizational

goals (Harrison, Shaffer, & Bhaskar-Shrinivas, 2004). In addition to the traditional use of

controlling and knowledge transferring, expatriates nowadays could assist firms to enter into new

markets and develop international management competencies as well (Shaffer, Harrison, & Gilley,

1999). As it was pointed out on the World Economic Forum (2016), the shortages of certain skills

may result in increasing reliance on expatriate talents. By the year of 2030, U.S. alone would

expect an increase of 25 million more expat talents, and 24 million more by 2020 in Europe. China,

as one of the fastest growing economic entity globally, was expected to double the current

expatriate talent base to sustain its projected growth. Under the pressure of increasing demands of

expatriate talents, transnational firms cannot afford the opportunity costs of prejudicing in the

selection of expatriates just because of their gender. However, females are still severely

underrepresented among the global workforce. According to the 2016 Global Mobility Trends

Report (BGRS), female expatriates took about merely 25% of the total population of international

assignees, which was about only 12% more than in 1995. Also, among these people, 32% were

single, while 68% are married/ parented. The number was 18% higher than in 1995. Though the

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number has grown a little within two decades, women, compared to men, are still the absolute

minority within the expatriate population. Why are they so few?

To answer this question, Adler (1984) proposed three myths regarding female expatriates

disadvantage in selection. First, female expatriates are less willing to be sent abroad. This

misunderstanding was overturned by numerous scholars, including Adler herself. It turned out that

female respondents are no less willing than male to accept international assignments, as long as

they are not prohibited from performing activities and functions they typically engage in at home

(Adler, 1984, 1987; Olsen & Martins, 2009; Tung, 2004). The second myth, in which organizations

are assumed to be reluctant to select female as expatriates, was validated, however (Adler, 1994;

Fischlmayr, 2002; Harris, 1995; Tung, 2004). Organizations are claimed to be influenced by the

gender-based stereotypical thoughts about women and tend to evaluate female candidate less

favorably than her male counterparts during the selection process, such that the less information

they know about the task or her profile, the more stereotypes play a role in selection. It is also

possible that male supervisors, who typically play the critical role in the selection of international

assignees, tend to be influenced by the ‘similar to me effect’ (Rand & Wexley, 1975) and hence

are more willing to look for candidates who share the same attributes with them. This logic could

also explain the reason why the expatriate talent pool has long been male-dominated. In addition,

the current percentage of females in the expatriate workforce would also impact the selection

tendencies of parent companies (Fischlmayr, 2002).

The third myth has received some controversy in the extant literature. It claims that the reason

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why organizations are unwilling to send women abroad is that they assume women would

encounter prejudice or unpleasant treatment in other countries. This argument was validated by

Frontczak and Cateora (1988), who found that the prejudice against women does exist, but its

presence and influences vary from country to country. Izraeli, Banai, and Zeira (1980) and Stone

(1991) agreed with their statement and claimed that foreign women might experience

discrimination while overseas, though it may not result in failure of the assignments. P. M.

Caligiuri and Cascio (1998) also discussed the possibility of perceiving prejudice from male

expatriates. Tung (2004) also indicated in her study that female inpatriates faced gender-based

discrimination in the U.S. However, another stream of research claimed that female expatriates

could avoid the gender inequality treatment by magnifying their foreignness. The most cited

finding is shown in Adler (1987) study concerning women expatriate in Japan. Namely, female

expatriate respondents expressed that they feel they were treated differently from local women in

Japan since they were presumed to be very competent and the HCNs did not restrict them in the

“professional limiting roles” that restrict local women. P. M. Caligiuri and Cascio (1998) endorsed

her finding by suggesting that HCNs would go through a cognitive process of stereotyping

subtypes, so that female expatriates are separated from the ‘professionally limiting roles as local

women’ in host cultures, and are presumed as exceptionally competent (Adler, 1987, 1994; Jelinek

& Adler, 1988). That is, women assignees tend to be treated at least equally as the male expatriates

in terms of expectations of their behaviors and capacities, and will receive a similar level of social

interaction support from HCNs. In fact, some of the female respondents even reported perceived

benefits of being female and expatriates at the same time, which increased their likelihood of

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success on international assignments (Adler, 1994).

In this paper, we are particularly interested in the contradictory findings of the third myth.

Namely, we want to know whether the interaction of women assignees’ femininity and foreignness

benefits the international assignments. We believe that self-perceived gender roles would be more

appropriate than the objective definition of gender (male and female) when reflecting women

expatriates’ degree of femininity. Namely, we follow Bem’s (1981) suggestion and define self-

perceived gender roles as the extent to which the individuals perceive their behavioral norms

associated with the socially desirable masculine or feminine gender role characteristics of males

and females. Since more women and men are violating the traditional stereotyped gender role

expectations as they take on nontraditional occupational roles nowadays (in our case, female

expatriates), their self-perceived gender role orientations (masculine and feminine), as predicted

by social role theory, would deviate from their conventional socially desired gender role ideologies

and become more closely linked to the occupational roles (L. A. Harrison & Lynch, 2005). Hence,

compared to the widely-used dichotomous measure of sex, self-perceived gender role would

evaluate women expatriates’ femininity in a more accurate way.

Also, we adopt the concept of cultural distance as a proxy for foreignness, in that we believe

that the degree of foreignness can be best measured through gauging the distance between cultures

of host and home countries. It is frequently suggested that the acceptance of home and host country

women employees partially depend upon cultural-related factors (Fischlmayr, 2002). For instance,

P. M. Caligiuri and Tung (1999) stated that women expatriates’ cross-cultural adjustments are

negatively related to the level of masculinity and power distance in the host culture. It was also

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suggested that cultural distance moderates the predicting effect of expatriates’ cross-cultural

motivations, the effectiveness of the cross-cultural training that they received, and their problem-

focused coping strategies, and their cross-cultural adjustment, such that the relationship is stronger

when the cultural distance is shorter (Brewster, Suutari, Waxin, & Panaccio, 2005; Chen, Kirkman,

Kim, Farh, & Tangirala, 2010; Stahl & Caligiuri, 2005). Cultural distances can also influence the

level of cross-cultural adjustment in a direct manner so that expatriates establish tighter

interpersonal links with HCNs and thus adjust better when the cultural distance is at a lower, rather

than higher level (Froese & Peltokorpi, 2011; Manev & Stevenson, 2001). In this study, we are

particularly interested in the mechanism of how do female expatriates’ self-perceived gender roles

and the cultural distances between their parent countries and host countries act interactively to

influence the successfulness of the global assignment.

We answer Au and Fukuda (2003) call of studying the social ties between international

assignees and their HCN colleagues by investigating the effect of HCNs’ attitudes toward female

expatriates on their likelihood of success on the assignments using Henri Tajfel and Turner

(1979)’s Social Identity Theory. Previous studies declared that the perceived support from HCNs

is a key factor that affects their levels of cross-cultural adjustment (Black, Mendenhall, & Oddou,

1991). Namely, the existing findings indicate that expatriates who successfully established and

maintained interpersonal ties with HCNs are suggested to have higher possibility to succeed on

global assignments, due to the emotional, informational and instrumental support that they receive

on the job (Aryee & Stone, 1996; P. Caligiuri & Lazarova, 2002; Shaffer et al., 1999; Toh & Denisi,

2003), as well as support from local residents while they are off the job (Johnson, Kristof-Brown,

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Van Vianen, De Pater, & Rigsby, 2003; Wang & Kanungo, 2004). However, only few studies

examined expatriates’ success from HCNs’ perspectives (Froese & Peltokorpi, 2011; Olsen &

Martins, 2009; Toh & Denisi, 2003; Varma, Toh, & Budhwar, 2006). The scanty studies that

examined HCNs’ influence on expatriates’ successfulness pointed out that HCNs tend to use

expatriates’ gender and the cultural distances between their country of origin and the host country

as social identities and categorize these international assignees into in- and out-groups of them,

and provide different amount of support based on the groups they belong. We adopt the logic above

to explain the way that foreignness and perceived femininity act interactively to influence female

expatriates’ successfulness on global assignments.

We also propose that the conflict between female expatriates’ self-perceived gender role

(femininity, androgyny or masculinity) and their occupational role (expatriates, in our case), if any,

would play a mediating role in the relationship between female assignees’ self-perceived gender

role and their successfulness on global assignments. The previous study conducted a significant

amount of research concerning expatriates’ role conflict (Aryee, Luk, Leung, & Lo, 1999; Fu &

Shaffer, 2001; M. Harvey, 1997; Wiersma, 1994; Yousef, 2002). However, the conflict between

self-perceived gender roles and professional roles has not yet been investigated. Rather, all the

existing studies that tested the effect of role conflict on expatriates’ cross-cultural adjustment, job

performance, cognitive outcomes and turnover focused on the conflict between expatriates’ family

roles and work roles. Therefore, we are the first study to bring the concept of conflict between self-

perceived gender role and occupational role into expatriate research, and we propose that this kind

of gender-occupational role conflict would be positively related to perceived femininity, but

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negatively related to female expatriates’ likelihood of success on international assignments.

We break the routine of the constant usage of dichotomous measure of gender in expatriate

studies by incorporating self-perceived gender roles as a more accurate alternative indicator of

female expatriates’ gender role expectations. Though the concept of self-perceived gender role is

not new (L. A. Harrison & Lynch, 2005; Jurma & Powell, 1994; Mensinger, Bonifazi, & LaRosa,

2007), it has not been applied to expatriate research yet, to our knowledge. We also address the

gap of lacking research concerning the successfulness of expatriation from HCNs’ perspectives by

investigating the moderating effect of foreignness and HCN’s support on the relationship between

self-perceived gender roles and successfulness of international assignments using Social Identity

Theory. Finally, we shed light on expatriates literature by introducing the concept of gender-

occupational role conflict and examine its mediating effect in the direct relationship for the first

time.

THEORY BACKGROUND

Self-perceived gender role vs. occupational role of female expatriates

Building on Eagly’s Social Role Theory of Gender Difference (Eagly & Steffen, 1984), the

society typically holds distinct gender-based stereotypical thoughts about women and men. To be

specific, females are generally considered possessing communal traits (playing feminine roles):

they typically hold lower status and authority, and receive lower pay than their male counterparts.

Also, they are known as homemakers and caregivers, and these roles render the image of

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selflessness, concern for others, relation-oriented, kind, helpful, understanding, warm, nurturing,

and being able to devote self to others. On the contrary, males are suggested to present agentic

traits (playing masculine roles). Specifically, they are known for being the “breadwinner”. They

are usually self-asserted, self-expanded, and with the urge to master. They are also independent,

aggressive, active, dominant, competitive, persistent, confident and often make the decision easily.

Per the idea of gender-role spillover, in addition to the professional role, people also tend to

conceptualize expectations about the person in that position based on their gender (Gutek &

Morasch, 1982). Hence, women are frequently associated with lower-status and are given less

power than their male counterparts, and those who are selected or self-selected for managerial

roles have to be more competent than their male competitors (Eagly, 1992). Building on role

congruity theory of prejudice (Eagly & Karau, 2002), when the traits being expected in one’s

gender role fail to match that of the situational role, the latter would be perceived as non-

prototypical for that person, and lead to more visibility and higher potential for social disapproval.

For example, several studies validated the preference of male leaders over female leaders: female

leaders are generally less liked by the society, and sometimes even conceived as not suitable in

leadership roles (Bass & Stogdill, 1990; Butler & Geis, 1990; Carpenter, 2001; Eagly, 1992;

Heilman, Block, Martell, & Simon, 1989; Ragins & Sundstrom, 1989; Rudman, 1998). Eagly,

Karau, and Makhijani (1995) also concluded that females would be perceived as less effective than

males in leader roles that are defined in masculine terms.

Expatriate, being known as male-dominated occupation and with higher status and

compensation levels, are typically considered more masculine than feminine based on the rule of

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gender-labeling for occupations (Izraeli et al., 1980). If female assignees meet the traditional

gender role expectations by conforming with the communal attributes, then it would be less likely

for them to respond to the demands of their occupational roles, therefore lead to the “gender-

specific double bind” (Elsesser & Lever, 2011). Hence, we suggest that female expatriate would

be trapped in a double-bind dilemma due to the stereotypes identified by the Social Role Theory

of Gender Difference, hence meeting the demands of being an expatriate and being a woman

simultaneously would be burdensome.

We further propose that the gender-specific double bind would reflect on individuals in the

way of role conflict. We build on Sieber (1974)’s conceptualization of role conflict and define it

as the discrepancy between expectations of two distinct roles, between which individuals must

choose one since compliance with the expectations of one role will violate the expectations of the

other (Merton, 1996). Expatriates, on the one hand, is the occupational role that is defined in the

masculine term, while female assignees, on the contrary, are not definitely restricted to the

feminine gender role. Rather, according to Eagly et al.’s (2000) social role theory, female

expatriates’ self-perceived gender role orientations might depart from the preset direction and

become more closely related to that of their occupational roles (L. A. Harrison & Lynch, 2005). In

fact, female assignees might adjust their association with the two opposing roles by implicitly

associate themselves less with the one with lower-status, so that their self-judgements would be

more aligned with the higher-status role (Hogg & Abrams, 1988; H. E. Tajfel, 1978). Here we

propose that masculine occupational role of expatriates is considered with higher status, compared

to the feminine gender role, since women are constantly considered less competent and with less

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power than their male counterparts in workplaces based on social norms in various culture, and

the stereotype is especially salient in male-dominant occupations and patriarchy contexts.

Therefore, female expatriates who internalize the feminine gender role expectations to a greater

level would experience more conflict with their situational role of expatriates, compared with those

who dissociated from the traditional feminine gender role.

Proposition 1: The level of psychological salience of the perceived feminine gender role of

female expatriates is positively related to their level of gender-occupational role conflict.

Gender-occupational role conflict vs. female expatriate success

We also expect to see a direct relationship between female expatriates gender-occupational

role conflict and their successfulness on global assignments. To evaluate successfulness of

expatriation, we adopt Caligiuri and Tung’s (1999) three criteria of global assignment: cross-

cultural adjustment, desire to terminate the assignment, and supervisor-rated performance. As

suggested by D. A. Harrison, Shaffer, and Bhaskar-Shrinivas (2004), we follow Campbell (1981)

definition and define cross-cultural adjustment as a psychological state that reflects expatriates’

conception of their circumstances in terms of a global state of dissatisfaction or feeling of

unhappiness (Munton & West, 1995). It could further be divided into three interrelated dimensions:

general, interaction and work adjustment (Aycan, 1997; Black & Stephens, 1989; Shaffer et al.,

1999). Namely, general adjustment refers to the degree to which assignees feel comfortable with

nonwork aspects of the overseas environment (transportation, environment, health care services,

education, consumption levels, and so forth). Interaction adjustment involves interpersonal

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communication with HCNs both on- and off-the-job. It is considered the most fundamental among

the three dimensions since both work and general adjustment depend on restoration of interaction

modes in the new environment. Finally, work adjustment is the degree of conformity associated

with expatriates’ capacities to the requirements of the new position. Both general and interaction

adjustment could influence the level of work adjustment, and the three aspects of cross-cultural

adjustments are suggested to relate to expatriates’ job commitment, performance and turnover

intentions interactively (Haar & Roche, 2010; Mills, Matthews, Henning, & Woo, 2014; Sullivan

& Bhagat, 1992; Thompson, Beauvais, & Lyness, 1999).

Regarding the desire to terminate the international assignments, some previous research

suggested that expatriates’ maladjustment in the host country is one direct predictor of their

intention to quit the assignments (Tung, 1981). However, as P. M. Caligiuri and Tung (1999)

suggested, expatriates do not necessarily generate the idea of quitting after encountering challenges

or difficulties during the assignments. Rather, some of them would still ‘do the time’ due to the

monetary and career developmental incentives (Benson, 1978; Tung, 1981). Hence, expatriates’

intention to quit the international assignments need to be considered independent from the cross-

cultural adjustment. Further, the actual job performance is also a vital sign for expatriates’

successfulness of assignments, since successfully finishing the task being assigned and

accomplishing the specified organizational goals are the whole purpose that parent companies send

them to the international subordinates. Hence, expatriates’ successfulness of international

assignments is suggested to be reached only when they achieved satisfying on-the-job performance,

have no desire to terminate the assignment prematurely, and adjust well to the host culture.

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Prior studies concerning female in managerial roles also state that people generally expect the

behavior of leaders to be more aligned with traits of traditional masculine roles than that with

feminine roles, and women managers whose behavior and norms highly conform with the

communal fashion would experience more discrepancy strains, which would lead to higher level

of stress, and ultimately lower performance and satisfaction, and reduced willingness to

communicate with others (Heilman et al., 1989; Pleck, 1995; Rizzo, House, & Lirtzman, 1970).

We suggest the similar mechanism applies to female expatriates as well, now that both

expatriates and managers are male-dominated occupations that are defined using masculine terms.

To be specific, we propose that the stress that female expatriates gain from the contradictory

demands of feminine gender roles and that of the masculine occupational roles of expatriates

would lead to the similar outcome. Namely, stress that comes from gender-occupational role

conflict would result in reduced willingness and frequency of communication with HCNs, and

hence impair female expatriates’ interaction adjustment (Heene, Buysse, & Van Oost, 2007;

Peterson et al., 1995; Rizzo et al., 1970). As the most fundamental one among the three dimensions

of adjustment, interaction adjustment would negatively influence the level of work and general

adjustment as well (Aycan, 1997; D. A. Harrison et al., 2004), since expatriates’ adjustment to the

new work roles and environment is built on a socialization process (Black & Mendenhall, 1991;

Takeuchi et al., 2002), in which individuals acquire job-related knowledge, social norms, and

behaviors that are considered standard for the work group, and the socialization process would

evolve into frequent interaction with HCNs consequently. However, if the expatriate sensed stress

and frustrations when communicating with local employees, they would also develop a negative

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attitude toward his/ her assignment, such that the maladjustment in interaction domain would spill

over to work and cultural domains (Selmer & Fenner Jr, 2009). Also, we build on role theory and

propose that when the behaviors expected of multiple roles of an individual are inconsistent, he/

she would experience increased stress, job dissatisfaction, and therefore reduced effectiveness of

work performance and higher turnover intention (Charters, 1952; Gross, Mason, & McEachern,

1958; Netemeyer, Brashear-Alejandro, & Boles, 2004; Rizzo et al., 1970).

Proposition 2: Gender-occupational role conflict would mediate the relationship between

female expatriate’s perceived feminine gender role and successfulness of international assignment,

such that the more she associates herself with the traditional feminine gender role, the more

gender-occupational role conflict she suffers, and the less likely that she would succeed on the

international assignment.

Social Identity Theory

Social Identity Theory (SIT) claims that people define their social identities based on their

memberships in different social groups, including gender, nationality, educational background, and

so forth. People categorize others into different in-group and out-group members out of the demand

for safety and self-esteem (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008; Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam,

2004; Hogg & Terry, 2000; Henri Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Self-Categorization Theory (SCT), as an

extension of SIT, states that the social categorization progress being mentioned above serves as

the foundation of the cognitive procedure, through which certain social groups become salient and

act as the prototype for self-conceptualization (Hogg & Terry, 2000; Turner, 1985; van der Kamp,

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Tjemkes, & Jehn, 2015). To be specific, individuals are suggested to classify themselves with

others based on perceived similarities and identify with these people as their in-group members,

therefore forming subgroups with similar others (Hogg & Terry, 2000).

In regards to female expatriates, gender and nationality are the two demographic

characteristics that prominently distinguish them from the group prototypicality (male HCN

employees, in our case), hence are considered two common social categorization criteria that often

lead to their memberships of out-groups of the male employees (Toh & Denisi, 2003). Namely,

from HCNs’ perspectives, expatriates are likely to be assigned to the ‘foreigner out-group’ (Olsen

& Martins, 2009) due to their distinctive nationality. This characteristic becomes salient when

expatriates are placed in another country, hence would become one subgroup identity while they

are abroad. Further, the categorization process is even more likely to be triggered by the

characteristics that are unique in certain context. In the case of the gendered occupation of

expatriates, being female is especially uncommon. Hence the feminine gender characteristics

would be treated as the attribute that is even more salient than nationality. We use self-perceived

gender role, instead of the prevalent dichotomous measure of sex, to indicate women expatriates’

femininity. Therefore, we propose that the more similar the characteristics of female expatriates’

self-perceived gender role are to those of the stereotypical feminine gender role, the more salient

the gender difference becomes, and the more likely the female expatriates would be categorized

into out-groups of HCNs. Similarly, the larger the cultural distance between female expatriates’

home country and the host country, the more likely they are going to be categorized into out-groups

of HCNs.

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The self-conceptualizing process based on gender and nationality could influence the

cognitive process of the group to which female expatriates belong in three ways (Williams &

O’Reilly III, 1998). First, individuals sometimes classify each other in an effort to define their

identities and protect their self-esteem. Therefore those who are labelled as members in their out-

groups are considered less trustworthy and capable (Brewer, 1979; Li & Hambrick, 2005; Henri

Tajfel, 1982; H Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Second, according to the similar-attraction paradigm

(Berscheid & Walster, 1969), individuals tend to like, trust and interact more with those who are

perceived to be similar to, rather than different from them. Third, individuals take the “surface-

level diversity” (the heterogeneity in social categories such as gender, nationality, functional

background, social status, and so on) (Phillips & Loyd, 2006) as a proxy or direct implication for

the diversity of deep-level (multiplicity in terms of attitudes, opinions, information, and values

about certain tasks) (Jackson, 1992; Jehn, 1995; Phillips & Loyd, 2006; Tsui & Gutek, 1999) and

expect those who share the surface-level similarities with them to agree with them more than those

who are dissimilar on surface level (V. L. Allen & Wilder, 1975, 1979). In sum, members of the

focal group tend to show preferences toward their in-group members, while holding a negative

bias against the out-group members.

In the context of expatriation, the favoritism toward in-group members may include

cooperative and supportive behaviors of HCNs, and their increased frequency of and interests in

social interactions with assignees (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). To be specific, the social interaction

support from HCNs can be divided into three categories: emotional support, informational support,

and instrumental support (P. Caligiuri & Lazarova, 2002). Emotional support is suggested to

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mitigate the negative psychological effects of stress and isolation, and to boost expatriates’ self-

esteem and confidence through proving them with the feeling of belonging, self-worth and

psychological security (T. D. Allen, McManus, & Russell, 1999; Geller & Hobfoll, 1993; Shinn,

Lehmann, & Wong, 1984; Shumaker & Brownell, 1984). Caligiuri & Lazarova (2002) also implied

that it might help female expatriates overcome the anxiety and the feelings of powerlessness by

providing referent groups (other female expatriates have been through or are in the same situation,

mentors, and host-national functionaries) and release the stress (Adelman, 1988; Briody &

Chrisman, 1991; P. Caligiuri & Lazarova, 2002; Church, 1982; Fontaine, 1986; Joseph & Newman,

2010). Informational support, on the other hand, provides any information that could reduce

expatriates’ uncertainty and confusion about their roles and tasks by clarifying the situation and

providing feedback concerning the appropriate behaviors and nonverbal emotional cues in the host

culture (P. Caligiuri & Lazarova, 2002; McClure, 2000). Finally, instrumental support is regarding

providing female expatriates with all necessary resources and relieving the stressful situations by

filling their special needs through certain policies and practices. It prepares female expatriates with

a more practical form of support, but its influence goes beyond satisfying specific needs and is

substantial to the other two types of supports (P. Caligiuri & Lazarova, 2002). We suggest that

social interaction support from HCNs buffer the stress of gender-occupational role conflict through

reducing uncertainty and the sense of insecure about the new environment. Namely, when female

expatriates find themselves in the dilemma of making decisions between gender and occupatioanl

roles, necessary environmental and experiencial information from mentors or peers in internatioanl

subsidiaries could help them locate themselves and adjust to the new situation better. Also, building

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on empirical evidences, we expect to see HCN’s support facilitate female expatriates’ cross-

cultural adjustment (Toh & Denisi, 2003), improve their on-the-job performance during

expatriation (Kraimer et al., 2001; Parker & McEvoy, 1993), reduce the rate of prematurely

turnover (Haar & Roche, 2010; Sullivan & Bhagat, 1992), and consequently contribute to higher

likelihood of succeed on global assignments.

Proposition 3: HCN’s social interaction support moderate the direct relationship between

perceived feminine gender role and gender-occupational role conflict, and the indirect relationship

between perceived feminine gender role and successfulness of international assignments, such that

the more support that female expatriates get from HCNs, the weaker the positive relationship

between perceived feminine gender role and role conflict, as well as the indirect relationship

between perceived feminine gender role and successfulness of international assignments.

We suggest that HCNs tend to categorize female expatriates as out-group members based on

the degree to which their behaviors and characteristics comply with that of the traditional feminine

gender role, as well as the cultural distance between their home country and the country to which

they are assigned. However, the degree of out-group membership is not definite as long as HCNs

do not see foreignness and gender characteristics as unchangeable demographic attributes. To be

specific, from the perspective of Faultline literature, in which Faultline is defined as the

hypothetical divisions between team members that are based on their dissimilarities in one or more

demographic characteristics, and would not necessarily lead to team conflict (Lau & Murnighan,

1998; Thatcher, Jehn, & Zanutto, 2003; van der Kamp et al., 2015), we suggest that the gender role

characteristics and foreignness are the two Faultlines that may or may not be necessarily perceived

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by team members. Namely, on the one hand, these two Faultlines may be activated by the discovery

of perceived interpersonal incompatibilities or discrepancy in views and approaches to perform

the tasks or distribute resources (Jehn, 1997; Jehn & Bendersky, 2003). On the other hand, they

may be neglected or deactivated by a series of events or behaviors, through which team members’

attention are shifted away from the demographic dissimilarities, and the reduced salience of these

attributes would diminish their impacts on the successfulness of expatriation as a result (Jehn &

Bezrukova, 2010; van der Kamp et al., 2015). For instance, the organization may reduce the

complexity and uncertainty of teams and tasks through defining the structural characteristics,

boundary conditions and purposes, therefore the incompatibility in demographic attributes would

less likely be reflected in task perspectives (Bresman & Zellmer-Bruhn, 2013; Mathieu, Heffner,

Goodwin, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2000; L. E. Stevens & Fiske, 1995). The organization could

also reduce the perception of subgroups through promoting the attitude and culture of pro-diversity

and strengthen the shared values and norms of the whole team (Randolph-Seng, De Calvo,

Zacchilli, & Cottle, 2010).

When it comes to female expatriates, they might attempt to blur the gender Faultline through

dissociating themselves from the lower-status feminine gender role intentionally and associate

with the higher-status situational role more closely, so that they could be viewed more compatible

with the masculine occupational role of expatriates. By adopting this strategy, the prominence of

their gender difference should be reduced, and they would less likely be placed in the female out-

group and receive biased treatment. Similarly, foreignness can also be a subjective indicator of

demographic dissimilarity. We use cultural distance as a proxy for foreignness, and define it on the

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basis of Hofstede (1984)’s four cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism/ collectivism,

masculinity/ femininity, uncertainty avoidance), with the more different the home and host

countries score on Hofstede’s (1984) four dimensions of culture, the greater the cultural distance

and foreignness. However, if the two cultures are rated similar in some or all the cultural

dimensions, the cultural distance between the two cultures as well as the level of foreignness would

be reduced. The salience of foreignness could also be influenced by multiple factors including

language skills, previous international experiences, knowledge about the host country, and so forth.

For instance, the more fluent the assignees speak host country language, the easier for them to

have on- and off-the-job conversations with and gain information from HCNs, so that the less

observed dissimilarities between the two groups of people (P. M. Caligiuri & Cascio, 1998; Dvir,

Eden, & Banjo, 1995; Fischlmayr, 2002; D. A. Harrison et al., 2004; M. Mendenhall & Oddou,

1985). Hence, we suggest that foreignness and perceived femininity, as two key Faultlines to which

HCNs refer during the social categorization process, could vary in the level of salience, and

influence female expatriates’ degree of out-group membership. Agreeing with the conclusions in

Olsen & Martins’s (2009) studies, we suggest that when perceived femininity and foreignness

coexist on expatriates, they tend to act interactively to influence their cross-cultural adjustment

and career outcomes, such that the salience of one attributes tends to vary with the other.

Namely, when the female is the non-dominant sex in the host country, feminine characteristics

are especially salient when foreignness is also at high level. To be specific, first of all, foreignness

is one key personal attribute that shapes the communication and interactions among employees in

MNEs. People who are perceived less foreign to HCNs are viewed more similar in personal

20
background and hence are expected to share similar perspectives and values about the same task

(DiMaggio, 1992). Because individuals are more willing to establish strong social ties with people

who share similar attributes and perspectives (Manev & Stevenson, 2001; Marsden, 1988;

McPherson & Smith-Lovin, 1987), HCNs tend to form stronger interpersonal relationship between

expatriates who are perceived less foreign to them, and would be more willing to provide social

interaction support for and exchange knowledge and information with these assignees (Ibarra,

1992; Manev & Stevenson, 2001; Tsui & Gutek, 1999), which would eventually benefit expatriates’

cross-cultural adjustment and on-the-job performance, while reduce their likelihood of

prematurely terminating the global assignments. On the contrary, larger cultural distance or greater

extent of foreignness would lessen the strength of ties between HCNs and expatriates, and lead to

reduced frequency of interaction and knowledge sharing, and eventually decreased the likelihood

of success on global assignments.

When the expatriates are women, the situation might be worse: since foreignness is already a

salient personal attribute that leads to reduced interaction and cooperative behaviors between

assignees and HCNs, presenting feminine characteristics would strengthen the perceived

demographic dissimilarity and further reduce HCNs’ willingness to establish strong ties between

the two groups, and the knowledge sharing behaviors and communication would be diminished to

a lower level thusly. Also, since female are rarely selected for expatriate assignments, the

femininity that they exhibit would be especially salient in this situation, and HCNs would be even

more likely to hold biased assessment about them due to the lack of knowledge and experiences

about dealing with the women representatives from other countries (Fischlmayr, 2002).

21
Consequently, these female expatriates would be more vulnerable to the discrimination and

inaccurate stereotypes from HCNs due to the lack of interaction and information exchange, and

will receive less social interaction support from HCNs. Following our logic above, without the

emotional, informational and instrumental support from HCNs that could serve as stress buffer,

the gender-occupational role conflict for female expatriates would be hard to mitigate and

eventually reduce their likelihood of success on international assignments. However, when

foreignness is at a lower level, female expatriates are liable to be treated similar to local female

employees, the communication barriers would hence become mediocre, compared with when

foreignness is high. Ergo, the femininity of women expatriates is less salient when the cultural

distances between their home and host countries are small, rather than large, and HCNs would

possess less stereotypical beliefs about them and be more willing to provide support, which would

eventually mitigate the adverse effect of their demographic dissimilarities on gender-occupatioanl

role conflict, and consequently successfulness of global assignments. Hence, we propose that when

female expatriates score high on foreignness, their perceived femininity would be more salient

than when they are less foreign to HCNs. HCNs hence would view them more stereotypically and

be less willing to interact with and provide support for them. As a result, without the emotional,

informational and instrumental support from HCNs, female assignees would find it hard to relieve

the stress that come from gender-occupational conflict, their cross-cultural adjustment and career

outcomes would suffer, and their likelihood of success on global assignments would be reduced

eventually.

Proposition 4: foreignness would serve as another moderator in the direct relationship

22
between perceived feminine gender role and gender-occupational role conflict, as well as the

indirect relationship between perceived feminine gender role and successfulness of international

assignments, such that the higher level of foreignness, the stronger the direct relationship between

perceived feminine gender role and role conflict, as well as the indirect relationship between

perceived feminine gender role and successfulness of international assignments.

However, foreignness is not necessarily detrimental to female expatriates’ successfulness of

assignments. Another stream of research proposed an alternative direction of the moderating effect.

In fact, several studies regarding female expatriates pointed out that the seemingly demographic

disadvantage, namely, the non-dominant sex in the host country, may not lead to social inferiority.

For instance, in Adler’s (1994) study about female expatriates in Japan, the Western women

expatriates are treated no different than their men counterparts. The phenomenon is named as the

“GAIJIN” Syndrome, which refers to the situation in which foreign women are not expected to

assume the cultural roles that are traditionally assigned to host country women. Namely, as

representatives from the parent organization, they are usually presumed to be at least equally

competent at their jobs as their male counterparts, which will result in more respect and support

from HCNs, and reduce the stereotypical condemning thoughts about local women employees

(Adler, 1987, 1994; P. M. Caligiuri & Tung, 1999; Jelinek & Adler, 1988; Tharenou & Caulfield,

2010; Westwood & Leung, 1994). Thus, women expatriates are seen as ‘foreigners who happen to

be women’, rather than ‘women who happen to be foreigners’ (Adler, 1994, 2002; Olsen & Martins,

2009). Building on the findings above, we propose that female expatriates’ femininity would

become less salient when their level of foreignness is high, rather than low, since HCNs would

23
expect enormous differences in behaviors, norms and task perspectives between them and

expatriates as a whole and would pay less attention to the gender differences (Phillips & Loyd,

2006). Olsen & Martins (2009) also proposed that the Western women expatriates are categorized

into the ‘foreigner out-groups’ of HCNs due to their different nationalities but not female out-

groups due to their femininity, since the salience of their gender characteristics would be weakened

in racially or ethnically diverse host countries. Therefore, even in the most patriarchy context (i.e.,

Japan), female expatriates may not be classified into the feminine out-group and be treated

discriminately because of their gender (Adler 1994). In this way, female expatriates should

experience less gender-occupational conflict, and be more likely to succeed on global assignments

when their foreignness are perceived at a higher, rather than lower level.

In fact, if female assignees were not restricted by the cultural roles that are projected on local

women due to their membership in foreigner out-groups, they could turn the apparent limitation

into advantages in several ways. For instance, visibility – as it was suggested by Adler (1994),

women expatriates are more visible than their men counterparts due to the numerical inferiority.

Local people would find it easier to remember them than their male counterparts. Also, for those

who associate themselves more with the feminine gender ideologies, the communal traits that they

demonstrate (relational-oriented, caring, cooperating and communicating in an indirect fashion,

and so forth) are considered especially appropriate for international assignments, which require

frequent interaction and a significant amount of cooperation with HCNs both on- and off-work.

The ability to communicate indirectly is also particularly suitable for high-context culture, where

non-verbal elements are valued more than the actual words that are expressed. Further, novelty –

24
as Tung (2004) claimed, women are treated specially due to their uniqueness. In some highly

patriarchal countries where women are extremely rare in higher level management positions,

female expatriate managers are particularly valued and receiving more press than their

counterparts in other locations. The novelty renders them some privileges as well, such as the

opportunity of having conversations with senior managements directly. Last but not the least, the

‘halo’ effect. Due to the common stereotypical thoughts of women being less competent than their

men counterparts at work, HCNs generally assume that women expatriates are the best candidate

possible for the position, and are sent to their companies to provide technical and managerial

assistance and guidance. Hence, compared with male expatriates, women assignees tend to gain at

least equal amount of respect and support from HCNs, if not more, as long as their professionalism

are shown.

Therefore, we propose an alternative explanation of the moderating effect of foreignness.

Namely, we suggest that female expatriates can avoid the restriction and the role selection pressure

that result from stereotypical thoughts about women in host culture by referring to their foreigner

identities. When they score high on the level of foreignness, their foreigner identities would be

more salient than their femininity and would contribute to their membership in foreigner out-

groups, but not necessarily in female out-groups. Due to HCNs’ presumption about expatriates’

competency and exceptional attitudes about gender difference, they would be more willing to

provide support for women expatriates than for local female coworkers, who are restricted by the

traditional gender role expectations and are constantly considered socially inferior and

incompetent due to their femininity. In this way, when foreignness is at a higher level, female

25
expatriates should experience less challenge in communication and cooperation with HCNs than

when it is low, and would find it easier for them to deal with the stress of gender-occupational role

conflict. The unique advantages of being foreign women professionals might even bring them more

support and respect than for local women employees, and hence would contribute to their cross-

cultural adjustment and job performance, while reducing their intention to leave.

Proposition 4– Alternative: foreignness would serve as another moderator in the direct

relationship between perceived feminine gender role and role conflict, as well as the indirect

relationship between perceived feminine gender role and successfulness of international

assignments, such that the higher level of foreignness, the weaker the direct relationship between

perceived feminine gender role and role conflict, as well as the indirect relationship between

perceived feminine gender role and successfulness of international assignments.

------------------------------------

Insert Figure 1 about here

------------------------------------

DISCUSSION

Previous studies provided varies answers to the question of what causes female expatriates’

underrepresentation in expatriate workforce, including personal, organizational and situational

factors, the misjudgment about female employees’ willingness of being sent abroad, the reluctance

in selection, and the controversial finding about HCNs’ attitudes and beliefs about female

expatriates while on global assignments. We focus on the controversial part of this study. Namely,

we build our study on the existing findings and claim that female expatriates should be considered

26
separate from their male counterparts, in that their gender differences may interact with their

foreignness and either strengthen or weaken their gender-occupational role conflict, and eventually

benefit or harm their likelihood of success in global assignments. We introduce two contradicting

mechanisms of interaction based on Tajfel’s (1979) Social Identity Theory and Faultline literature.

Namely, we claim that both femininity and foreignness are demographic characteristics that lead

to the formation of subgroups and biased treatments toward groups members. When the two

attributes coexist on an individual, they will interact with each other, such that the salience of one

will vary with another. For instance, femininity may become more salient when foreignness is at

higher, rather than lower level, since the uniqueness of female in the expatriate workforce would

strengthen the extraneous of women assignees, and reduce HCNs’ willingness to establish strong

social ties with and provide support for them. This is particularly the case in countries where

females are non-dominant sex and are frequently associated with the homemaker roles, or

organizations in which HCNs have little experience and knowledge about dealing with female

expatriates. The lack of support would strengthen female assignees’ gender-occupational role

conflict, and eventually lead to reduced likelihood of success on global assignments.

An alternative explanation would be that women expatriates’ femininity would become less

salient when they score high on foreignness. The underlying mechanism is that expatriates are

expected to be different in norms, behaviors and task perspectives, compared with HCNs, hence

would be viewed exceptionally. When the expatriate is a woman, HCN would not expect her to be

restricted by the traditional social code for local women and conform to the stereotypes. Further,

if women expatriates realized their “privilege” by referring to their “foreigner experts” identities,

27
not only would they gain more support than local women employees, but also receive more benefits

than their male counterparts. The reduced salience of femininity would lead to a lesser level of

gender-occupational role conflict and consequently boost their likelihood of success on

assignments.

We use self-perceived gender role as an independent variable, which may be influenced by the

extent to which female associate with their occupational roles. Nowadays an increasing number of

females are in the occupations that are traditionally defined in masculine terms, their self-perceived

gender roles have deviated from the traditional feminine roles as well (Twenge, 1997). Hence, we

believe the use of self-perceived gender role would be more accurate in the context of expatriates.

We further propose that female assignee might find themselves in a dilemma of role selection,

since the perceive feminine gender role and the masculine occupational role as expatriates would

conflict in expectations and demands. Failing to deal with the stress and anxiety that come from

gender-occupational role conflict may lead to maladjustment, reduced job performance, and

intention to terminate the assignments. However, support from HCNs could help them ease the

problem. Namely, HCNs could provide emotional, informational and instrumental support to help

female expatriates get adjust to the new environment, get used to the local culture and living

conditions, and get familiar with works.

CONCLUSION

In this study, we address the research gap of lacking examinations about expatriates’

adjustment from the HCN’s perspective by incorporating HCNs’ support as a moderator of the

relationship between self-perceived gender role and successfulness of global assignments, and

28
analyzing the moderating effect of foreignness on the relationship from the perspective of Tajfel’s

(1979) Social Identity Theory. Also, we contribute to the extant research concerning female

expatriates by adopting the concept of self-perceived gender role, which refers to the extent to

which respondents’ behaviors conform to the socially desired level of men and women, rather than

the commonly used impersonal behavioral measures of male and female. We also introduce the

concept of gender-occupational role conflict into expatriate literature for the first time and examine

its mediating effect on the direct relationship between self-perceived gender role and gender-

occupational role conflict and the indirect relationship between self-perceived gender role and

successfulness of global assignments. Lastly, we propose two contradicting propositions about the

effect of female assignees’ foreignness on their gender-occupational role conflict and the

likelihood of success on international assignment. To be specific, foreignness may or may not

benefit expatriates’ successfulness on global assignments, since when foreignness is rated at a

higher level, their perceived femininity would be either more or less salient, which would lead to

differences in HCNs’ perceptions and behaviors, and female expatriates’ level of gender-

occupational role conflict would vary and eventually influence the likelihood of success on

assignments.

29
FIGURE 1

CONCEPTUAL MODEL

successfulness on global assignments


foreignness • Cross-cultural adjustment
gender- (work adjustment,
occupational interaction adjustment,
Self-perceived
Role conflict general adjustment)
gender role
• TI
• Supervisor-rated
HCNs support performance

30
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