Research supports the idea that women who are going to work abroad should have training that addresses women-related issues. Dr Anne Copeland of the Interchange Institute explains.

Back when cross-cultural training for expatriate managers was first being developed, the huge majority of trainees were men, mostly senior-level executives. The training models and content were, naturally, built to extend their skills and address their needs.

Now, a new generation of expatriates that includes more and more women is coming along. Women’s skills and needs are different in many ways from their predecessors, yet many training workshops fail to adapt and adjust to this new demographic shift.

Unless cross-cultural trainers think through the ways women’s overseas experience is different from men’s, they cannot hope to provide a strong basis for a successful international assignment. Research strongly supports the necessity of understanding gender issues and international moves:

• Psychological research shows that women tend to be especially good at communication non-verbally, understanding subtle power hierarchies and developing consensus in groups. These skills are not always explicitly valued in the US, so women may not be aware of the goldmine they carry with them. In navigating any new culture, however, these skills are critical to success.

  Bringing them to the surface prepares women to put them to their advantage.

• Research also shows that women are likely to be the "relationship tend-ers" in their families and workplaces. They know who in the family is doing well and who isn't. They worry about what this one said to that one. And they take action to smooth, support, and re-direct feelings. On international assignment, there's often lots to smooth, support and redirect within the family. And relationships with extended family continue to require their tending, now from a powerful distance.
   
  Highlighting common family reactions, role changes, and relationship tensions before they happen can prepare women to foresee and deal with them effectively.

• Another research study on relocating women has pointed out a number of losses in reaction to moving that could be considered especially feminine —losses in sense of home, in one's physical identity, in connections with family and in social role identity.

  Women who prepare for these changes will feel them less as losses and more as opportunities.

• Finally, research on women expatriate managers shows that they tend to be quite successful, despite dire predictions that gender discrimination will interfere with their ability to work effectively in a new country.

  It seems that in some cultures, one's nationality and job status trump one's gender. For example, when I was working in the UK for my university, the fact that I was the visiting, ranking American academic voice seemed to counterbalance the fact that I was a [very pregnant] woman. Still, the role of women in the workplace in a new culture is something that all expatriates benefit from understanding.

  Preparing for how gender discrimination might - and might not - be a problem can get women transferees off on the right foot.

Like men, women need the full course of country-specific information, training in culture and communication, and preparation for adjustment issues.

But attention to these other, unique features will make training for women fit like a glove.

June 2002

Dr Anne Copeland is founder and director of The Interchange Institute, a US-based nonprofit organization that studies and supports families and individuals who have moved from one country to another. Through the Institute, Dr. Copeland directs several research studies on intercultural transition. She is an adjunct associate professor of psychology at Boston University. For 19 years, she was a full time faculty member there, where she taught and did research on families, women, children, and intercultural transition. From 1988-89, she was the academic advisor and Acting Director for Boston University’s British Programmes, during which time she lived with her family in London.