“Female Expatriates: The Model Global Manager?” - Rosalie L. Tung

Who are the authors of the text? What are they specialists of?

Rosalie L. Tung is a Canadian academic specialised in cross-culture management.

What is the source of the text? Briefly describe its characteristics (type of publication, how often is it published, subjects, etc.).

This article was published in Organizational Dynamics, which is an international journal focusing on organisational behaviour destined to professionals working in management, as well as students and teachers of that subject. It is a quarterly publication.

3. What is the date of publication? What are the relevant elements that can be found in the text about the context?

This issue was published in August 2004. In the early 2000s, researchers had been studying the consequences of globalisation for companies for two decades, and the concept of global manager remained controversial. The number of women sent on international assignments, and consequently, in leadership positions, was slowly rising, but was respectively much smaller than their male counterparts.

. What is the title of the text? What can you guess from it about the authors’ thesis?

This article is entitled “Female Expatriates: The Model Global Manager?”. It can thus be inferred that the author takes for granted that the concept of global manager is a relevant one to analyse the situation of expatriates. She tackles the subject of gender differences among expatriates and wonders if supposedly feminine traits and characteristics could make female managers particularly suited for international assignments, as suggested by the question mark in the title.

What is the authors’ point of view? Do they seem to be in agreement with other specialists?

Tung agrees with most specialists of the subject that global managers need to develop a global mindset to succeed in their task. But although this skill is not gender-specific, she stresses that female managers are prevented from developing it because they are rarely selected to go on international assignments, despite the fact that research had concluded that this discrepancy was due to misconceptions on female managers’ motivation and competencies. Tung therefore agrees with these studies and seeks to debunk the commonly-held assumptions that female managers are unwilling and less able to work abroad.

What type of methodology is used in the article?

Tung relies on previous studies like the one carried out for her article “American Expatriates Abroad From Neophytes to Cosmopolitans” (1998), which was based on data coming from 80 pairs of female and male American expatriates with similar profiles (p.244, p.252). The statistical analysis of the data collected led her to draw a series of conclusions.

In this case, the approach is more quantitative since it relies on surveys analysed statistically in order to generalise the findings

What are their main arguments? Use the connectors to identify the logic in their demonstration.

• Tung starts with the observation that women are still under-represented in leadership and decisionmaking roles in general, along with the most senior levels of management and international assignments.
  

• Thanks to the data provided in her 1998 study, along with others, she asserts that female managers are not more unwilling than males to undertake international assignments, and highlights that women are even more likely to accept in spite of their family’s reluctance (p.246).
  

• She also maintains that female global managers perform as well as their male counterparts, even though they are more likely to encounter obstacles. Their experience as members of a “minority” group in their professional environment at home is found to enable them to cope better with isolation, while their supposedly feminine traits are shown to be particularly helpful to overcome cross-cultural barriers. Thus, Tung claims that female managers are on the contrary particularly suited for international assignments precisely because of the characteristics associated with their gender.

What is the goal of the article? What are the authors trying to achieve?

The goal of the article is mainly descriptive. Tung mainly analyses how gender impacts motivation and performance in international assignments. In her conclusions, she nonetheless suggests that sending more female managers to work abroad would not only benefit women themselves by contributing to break the glass ceiling, but also benefit companies since she argues that women are particularly well-suited to be global managers.

 Expatriates / inpatriates (p.244)

Expatriates : transferred from the home country of the company (where its headquarters are located) to a country inwhich it has a subsidiary

Inpatriates : transferred from the country of a subsidiary to the home country of the company

The “halo” effect (p.246)

A cognitive bias that occurs when one single characteristic distorts the general impression of a person and leads to a very positive opinion (or something else like a brand, a product, a place, etc.). Ex: an attractive individual being perceived as being clever

The psychic distance paradox (p.247)

A misjudgement of cultural differences linked to geographic proximity (or perceived cultural similarities) between countries. Ex: underestimating cultural differences between France and Spain because they are neighbouring countries, or between Anglo-saxon countries (former colonial ties)

“genderlect” (p.249)

A socio-linguistic concept referring to the way men and women communicate differently (choice of words, ways to address others, etc.

Modes of Acculturation (Berry and Kalin, p.248-9)

A particular model created by Berry and Kalin to show how expatriates fit in, or struggle to do so, in their host countries.

Integration => adapting to the host culture while keeping their home culture / Assimilation => losing their home culture to adapt to the host culture / Separation =>failing to adapt to the host culture but preserving their home culture / Marginalization => rejecting both the home and host cultures

High VS low contexts (p.250)

A dichotomy coined by anthropologist Edward T. Hall to distinguish between countries where communication is more indirect and non-verbal (high-context, ex: India, Japan, China, etc.), and countries where it is more direct, explicit and verbal (low-context, ex: US, Germany, France, UK, etc.)