Gender and Work in a Global World
Regardless of the reasons, men and women certainly are different, and if those differences are made clear within a particular culture, those same differences become ever more striking between cultures. The different ways that different cultures handle the two genders makes working across cultures a challenge to members of either gender, but especially so for women, who, in many cultures, are traditionally ascribed a subordinate position in the workplace. These challenges have grown dramatically as organizations have increased their global operations over the last two decades, and have been acutely felt by male and female managers and the organizations they work for. Individual women managers have had to struggle to find ways to be effective in cultures where their authority and credibility are not automatic, and organizations have had to cope with developing strategies and policies to handle these challenges effectively and fairly. Predictably, individual behaviors and organizational policies have both helped to change but also reinforce some of the difficulties. Let's look at some of the current issues:
It's Getting More Global Everyday:
Working with people in different cultures is simply not as unique a situation as it was ten or twenty years ago. While the degree to which cultures adapt to one another's differences is an argument that anthropologists and historians debate, there is no doubt that in the global business environment there simply is more familiarity with "others" today than there was even just a few years ago. This means that the female American manager working in, say Japan, today, will have a very different experience from the female American manager who went to Japan twenty years ago. This is NOT a statement on whether or not Japanese or American values, belief systems, etc. have changed (that remains questionable), but rather that in the unique environment of global business, familiarity has bred, in addition to contempt, a set of behaviors that at least acknowledges differences. For gender issues, this means foreign businesswomen are distinguished (more or less so, depending upon the degree to which a culture has been involved in the process of globalization) FIRST as businesspeople, SECOND as representatives of their culture, and THIRD as women. This is very different from patterns at the beginning of globalization, where businesswomen were seen first as representatives of their gender, second as representatives of their culture, and only last (if at all), as businesspeople.
Two Sides of the Coin:
As cultures become more involved in the globalization process, gender differences increasingly become advantages, not disadvantages. American businesswomen, for example, increasingly report that being female gives them an advantage because male business colleagues in cultures that have experienced significant globalization, understanding that in America women can have authority in business, give them special consideration, and can enjoy working under an excitingly different set of rules. While the culture might not permit these same men to extend the same considerations to native female managers, both men and women are "free" to break traditional gender barriers in the global business environment. Doors to foreign businesswomen open more often than they close in many cultures simply because a foreign businesswoman, being outside of and exempt from the traditional norms, provides local businessmen with new opportunities without challenging the norms.
"Masculine" and "Feminine" Skills:
There are many reasons why men and women behave differently, and the research is still coming in on this issue. Whether genetic, conditioned, or some combination of both, the fact is women and men often employ different behaviors to similar situations. Curiously, the behavioral skill sets that are effective in many cultures abroad match closely with what have been traditionally referred to as "feminine" behaviors, with traditional "masculine" behaviors being less effective in these same cultures. For example, in the US (and other cultures as well) the ability to communicate relational and interpersonal understanding, for whatever the reason, seems to be a skill more easily employed by women than men, yet this is a prime requirement for successful business in many cultures. Nancy Adler's research in this field has indicated that American women often have great success abroad precisely because of their ability to develop the all-important interpersonal relationship, a skill that many American businessmen either cannot master or mistakenly overlook in their singular emphasis on "the deal". The curiosity here is that it is precisely those cultures which emphasize the importance of the interpersonal relationship that also traditionally have excluded women from business (Latin America, the Arab world, etc), and as such cultures become more influenced by globalization, women increasingly have greater rates of success in business.
"Trailing Spouse" or Shining Star?:
As organizations globalize, relocating employees, and their families, to different cultures, has been a critical human resource concern. In the past, (and to a great degree, still) the traditional assignment abroad had the following profile: three years on site, established male employee, accompanied by non-working wife, perhaps with one or two children. Today, the assignment may only be for a year (there is an increased trend toward short-term assignments), the assignee may more often be young (and single); but if there is a partner, in most cases that still means a female unemployed spouse. However, the demands on the "trailing spouse" are significantly greater today, and sadly, there are fewer successful solutions. Twenty years ago, for example, the trailing spouse may have been a non-working housewife; today, the accompanying spouse (of either gender: there is a slight increase in the number of non-employee male partners) more often than not has a career of their own, and is forced to alter their own work in order to accompany their employee partner abroad. Additionally, these career partners contribute significantly to family income, and the loss of such (in most cases, laws prohibit them from working abroad) is a strong disincentive to accept an international assignment (or requires increased -- often cash -- incentives from the company to the family to recoup the financial loss). While there has been a small increase in the number of relocations where the female partner is the employee (and this does pose some special problems for the non-employed accompanying male partner which are, for the most part, overlooked), and where nontraditional couples have been relocated, both these trends, have been fairly insignificant. Given the degree to which our society, more or less successfully promotes women to positions of authority (or at least espouses such), and the degree to which other cultures in the more globalized world of today are providing opportunities for success to businesswomen, the question must be asked why are there not more relocation assignments abroad where the woman is the employee? Recent studies have indicated that female employees abroad, if relocated with their families, in addition to succeeding a global businesspeople, are additionally required to fulfill the role of housemaker and family nurturer (a dual role male assignees have rarely had to fill), and organizations simply have not provided adequate resources to enable relocated women employees with families to adapt under these pressures.
The questions raised by these trends in global work and gender are many; the answers, to date, while developing, are also few, and in many cases, inadequate. Just as differences can either provide us with unexpected opportunities, more options, new perspectives, they also challenge us to the uncomfortable and difficult task of changing, growing and adapting. If we have made the decision to work across cultures, to make the most out of the differences that the world provides to us, then we can also make the decision to work across genders, and make the most out of the differences that both men and women bring to our global organizations. As with managing cultural differences, this means understanding the differences, valuing them, and providing the resources to enable them to succeed, to the benefit of both the individuals involved and the organizations that employ them.
© 2000 Dean Foster Associates