Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia
Abstract
Businesses are increasingly operating within an international environment, where the human and financial costs of failure are more serious than the domestic arena, and expatriate failure is reported to be a persistent and recurring problem for multinational corporations (Scullion, 1994). The successful implementation of global strategies depends heavily upon the existence of an adequate pool of nationally and internationally experienced managers with a diversity of talent. Adler ( 1993a, p55) has argued that the option of limiting international management to one gender is an arm-chair \u27luxury\u27 that no company can afford . Given the need to develop global teams with a variety of different perspectives and leadership competencies (Limerick & Cunnington, 1993; Dunphy & Stace, 1992), barriers to the appointment of women expatriates have become a critical issue for consideration by management practitioners and academics..