What seals the deal? How compensation and benefits affect women’s decisions to accept expatriation in the oil and gas industry
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-11-2016-0294 |
| Pages | 765-783 |
| Date | 03 April 2018 |
| Published date | 03 April 2018 |
| Author | Susan Shortland |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
What seals the deal? How
compensation and benefits affect
women’s decisions to accept
expatriation in the oil and
gas industry
Susan Shortland
Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, London, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine how decisions to undertake organisationally assigned
expatriation are influenced by employers’international assignment (IA) compensation and benefits policies,
seen through the lens of female expatriate breadwinners working in the male-dominated oil and gas
exploration and production industry.
Design/methodology/approach –A triangulated qualitative research approach draws upon: policy
analysis in two oil and gas firms; interviews with two IAs Managers in Human Resources; and in-depth
interviews with 26 female expatriates with experience of a variety of assignment types.
Findings –The paper identifies premiums that uplift salary, housing quality, access to healthcare, travel and
leave arrangements, dual careers and children’s education as women’s main deal makers.
Research limitations/implications –Longitudinal studies and comparisons of men’s and women’s views
on policy aspects that support assignment acceptance and cause assignment rejection are needed across a
range of industries.
Practical implications –Housing quality is a key factor in women’s assignment acceptance. Good
communication prior to expatriation can help build confidence in healthcare provision. Employers should
consider how travel and leave policy can be implemented flexibly. Assistance with seeking work visas for
partners and coordinating dual career couples’assignments can facilitate female expatriation.
Originality/value –This paper provides new knowledge on how the content of organisations’international
compensation and benefits policies influences female expatriate breadwinners’assignment acceptance set
within the theoretical framework of compensating differentials. It proposes a model to depict financial and
non-financial deal makers to women’s assignment acceptance.
Keywords Gender, Qualitative, International assignment, Expatriates, Compensation and benefits
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Literature takingus back through three decades indicatesthat women have been and still are
under-represented in expatriation(Adler, 1984; Altman and Shortland, 2008; Brookfield,2016).
It is notable that industries such as engineering, mining and oil exploration which use the
largest expatriate volumes remainmale-dominated (ORC Worldwide, 2007; Powell et al., 2004;
Richardson et al., 2014). Today, women holda 25 per cent expatriate share (Brookfield, 2016);
but in oil and gas, despite high expatriate volumes (Air Inc., 2016), their percentage
representation is at best, only around half of this (Shortland, 2014a). Kanter (1977) suggests
that with an averageall-industry participationof no more than 25 per cent, women nowform
part of a “skewed”population, there being a large preponderance of one type (namely men)
over the other (women). But in industriessuch as oil and gas women expatriatesstand out as
“token”breadwinners; with around a 10 per cent representation, they remain as
non-traditional assignees in a male-dominated expatriate environment. Personnel Review
Vol. 47 No. 3, 2018
pp. 765-783
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-11-2016-0294
Received 4 November 2016
Revised 4 November 2016
Accepted 28 October 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
The author would like to thank Laura Baker for her assistance in the presentation of the model.
765
Expatriation in
the oil and gas
industry
Under the breadwinner model, homemakers (women) engage primarily in domestic
labour while breadwinners (men) assume responsibility for primary wage earning,
reinforcing patriarchal relations (Crompton, 1999). Although there are some signs of male
breadwinner decline, women’s entry into male expatriate labour markets such as oil and
gas expatriation, remains limited. For example, in Scandinavia –an area of interest for
oil and gas given North Sea reserves –where the male breadwinner model is weak
(Daly, 2000; Millar, 1999), gender inequality is nonetheless in evidence. Higher status
occupations such as engineering remain strongly male-dominated while those of lower
status (such as laboratory technicians) feminise (Melkas and Anker, 2001). This is of
significance to women’s expatriation given the oil and gas sector’s focus on expatriating
engineers (Gordon, 2006).
The literature reports assignment lengths becoming shorter (Morley et al., 2006; Scullion
and Brewster, 2001) and organisations making increasing use of “flexpatriation”including
unaccompanied short-term placements, international commuting, rotation and frequent
flying (Demel and Mayrhofer, 2010; Mayerhofer et al., 2004; Welch et al., 2007). While
available data provide us with women’s percentage of total expatriation; we do not know
women’s share of traditional long-term vs non-traditional alternative assignments. But why
do issues concerning women’s paucity as expatriate breadwinners or the types of
assignments they undertake matter? Given that international experience is a prerequisite to
promotions and leadership (Caligiuri and Colakoglu, 2007; Dickmann and Baruch, 2011)
this is, in effect, bad news for women’s careers.
The expatriate gender diversity gulf is also of serious concern to employers. They face
rising demand for international mobility, talent shortages, the need to deploy personnel who
add value to their organisations and to produce high return from expatriate investment
(Brookfield, 2014; Doherty and Dickmann, 2012; Festing et al., 2013; McNulty et al., 2013).
These are outcomes that women expatriates are widely reported to achieve across the world
and throughout the decades (Cole and McNulty, 2011; Harrison and Michailova, 2012; Tung,
2004). To understand this tension between women’s apparent success as expatriates and
their exclusion from international assignments (IAs) (self- or externally imposed) the extant
literature has focussed on various reasons why women remain under-represented
(Shortland, 2014b). It has examined, for example, their willingness and ability to go, host
country reception when they are deployed and organisational support available throughout
the expatriate cycle including selection, support in post and repatriation. A wide range of
issues are identified as contributing and combining to reduce women’s likelihood to gain
access to expatriate roles (Shortland and Altman, 2011).
Although satisfaction with the compensation package offered on expatriation would be
expected to influence assignment acceptance, we have only limited information on the
financial elements considered critical such that without them assignees would not go. These
are identified as salary, housing allowances, home travel costs, and payments linked to
location and for children’s education (Warneke and Schneider, 2011). With respect to female
assignees, similar financial payments are identified as critical to long-term assignment
acceptance: housing, cost of living and children’s education allowances, as well as foreign
service premiums (FSPs) (Shortland and Perkins, 2016). However to widen our
understanding, we also need to know the role that expatriate compensation plays in
women’s decisions to accept flexpatriate assignments. Knowledge of how non-financial
aspects of the IA package affect women breadwinners’decisions to undertake long-term
expatriation and flexpatriation is also acutely important to our understanding of how
expatriate gender diversity can be widened, particularly in masculine industries.
To address these shortcomings, this paper specifically examines the views of current
female expatriates on the importance that they place on assignment compensation and
benefits elements in affirming their decision to go on the assignments offered to them, set
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