Track: Business Management

Abstract

Due to the rising growth of international collaboration, organizations have a higher need to employ expatriates. Both scholars and practitioners have acknowledged that skill development plays a crucial role in here to mitigate failures in the competitive international business environment. Within this paradigm, studies have highlighted that skill development is somewhat connected to how satisfied an expatriate feels in their job. Interestingly, there seems to be an interplay between the international experiences of males and females taking gender differences into consideration. Within this context, we aim to examine how job satisfaction is linked to skill development among expatriates working in Taiwan and do a gender-wise comparison. Data was collected from 133 expatriates working in Taiwan using an online questionnaire. Results show that both men and women expatriates on average are rated quite differently in terms of both job satisfaction and skill development. The results for moderation analysis show that even if female expatriates felt very satisfied with their opportunities for acquiring new skills, they were not able to take full advantage of the opportunities around for developing new skills and knowledge. This study calls for more action to be taken from the Human Resources department at both the expatriate’s home as well as the host country to create better opportunities for women to participate in more international assignments

Keywords
Expatriates, Gender differences, Skill development, Satisfaction, Taiwan.