Women in international careers : at the crossroads of barriers, challenges and opportunities

• Autor(a) principal: Casaca, Sara Falcão
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Nunes, Ana Rita
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/14419
• topic: Women; Expatriates; International Careers; Barriers; Challenges; Opportunities

This article seeks to expand the knowledge available on the motivations, constraints, opportunities and experiences of women occupying international managerial positions, either as expatriates or in autonomous professional projects. A qualitative methodology was adopted. A total of 20 in-depth interviews were conducted with women in international careers. Family-related factors are the most common barriers to women taking advantage of opportunities and experiences abroad. Inspired by an earlier article (Mathur-Helm, 2002), women’s international managerial experiences are represented here as standing at a crossroads, at the point of intersection of different, challenges and opportunities. The decision to move abroad and the mobility process are experienced as a complex and ambivalent path: a crossroads where both positive and negative paths intersect with each other and a labyrinth where pleasures derived from work, self-fulfilment, work-family conflicts and personal pain are closely intertwined in their experiences.