Conscious of the challenges and changes that we are facing, this chapter aims to describe the characteristics of a work experience abroad from the point of view of a woman. In an organizational context, the value resulting from international assignments is getting more decisive. Overseas tasks represent a great occasion for workers to improve their professional path, but it also has positive outcomes on their personal life. Its growing importance is due also to the increased number of people accepting job in a foreign country. Among others, there will be highlighted the reasons why women should consider going and what they can gain from it as well as the obstacles that prevent them from accepting an international assignment or the difficulties that they could eventually find.
Top1. Women Abroad
An international experience has a strategic importance for those who want to improve their skills, acquire new ones, know more about the context in which their company operates. As shown from a BCG study (Abouzahr, Hoteit, Krentz, and Tracey, 2017) “Women on the Move: Shaping Leaders Through Overseas Postings”, women are increasingly interested in living an experience abroad and it seems to be considered a priority in their careers.
International assignments have a critical importance for both the organizations and those who will experience it. People, who are taking advantage of overseas job opportunities, are taking a chance to prove themselves in a different work context. This gives them the possibility to acquire cross-cultural skills that will differentiate them from their colleagues and provide them a significant added value. On the other side, having employees abroad helps the organizations to maintain international negotiations, acknowledge and experiment new technologies, organizational and productive systems. It also contributes and allow that the organization have a better knowledge and understanding of the multicultural environment in which it is involved, offering, in this way, more innovative and creative products and services, at the same time that it is possible to obtain and develop new markets.
As we can imagine, it is a difficult path, from the selection that organizations conduct, to the experience itself for those who decide to live it. It is necessary that people, who find themselves in a foreign country, learn to work cross-culturally, facing more challenges than the ones they would normally have. These difficulties are more evident when the employee in question is a woman. For example, one of the most common and encountered obstacle is “being female in cultures where women are treated differently” (The Telegraph, 2011).