‘Expatriates’: Gender, Race and Class Distinctions in International Management

Citation:

Berry, Daphne P., and Myrtle P. Bell. 2012. “‘Expatriates’: Gender, Race and Class Distinctions in International Management.” Gender, Work and Organization 19 (1): 10–28.

Authors: Daphne P. Berry, Myrtle P. Bell

Abstract:

In the international management (IM) literature, 'expatriate' is used as a verb in reference to the transnational movement of employees by multinational corporations (MNCs) and as a noun in reference to the people who are so moved across borders to work. IM's resulting expatriate analyses apply only to a specific minority of relatively privileged people. However, as is clear in other bodies of literature, many others ('migrants') in less privileged class positions move themselves across national boundaries for work. In this majority are often women and men—people of diverse races, ethnicities, economic and social means—who have less education and who work in lower level jobs, also often in or for MNCs. Their invisibility in the IM literature sustains and reinforces gender, race and class-based disparities in globalization processes and work to the detriment of poor women of colour around the world. We call for gendering change that would make visible the invisible in IM scholarship related to expatriation.

Keywords: expatriates, migrants, class, international management, Gender

Topics: Economies, Economic Inequality, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Globalization, Multi-National Corporations, Political Economies, Race

Year: 2012