Managers with Trolleys See Their Careers Take Off

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRAVELERS IS ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING MANAGERS WHO FREQUENTLY HAVE TO TRAVEL ABROAD FOR THEIR WORK. BEING READY TO TRAVEL ON THE JOB OFFERS SEVERAL CAREER ADVANTAGES, BUT IN ITALY WOMEN FACE OBSTACLES BECAUSE OF THE COUNTRY'S CULTURE ABOUT THEIR PRESUMED FAMILY OBLIGATIONS

by Francesca Prandstraller, Dept. of Management and Technology, Bocconi
Translated by Alex Foti


In the context of international mobility, so-called IBTs (International Business Travelers) are increasingly in demand. These are managers whose job description contemplates frequent international trips and short and medium stays abroad. These forms of experience offer a way to integrate the international experience into women’s careers, usually more difficult than men’s. What are the advantages and problems of this kind of career and what differentiates Italian female managers from those from other countries? A qualitative study on 20 career women using in-depth interviews gives some answers.

What emerges is that Italian women managers value the experience of international business traveler for personal self-fulfillment and professional growth, because they are exposed to different cultures and perspectives. The advantages cited also refer to the possibility of creating international knowledge networks, by meeting stimulating people across various cultures. On the other hand, the family interviewees underlined how these international experiences have a negative impact on family relations and produce physical and psychological stress, because they influence the stability of the social relationships of private life.

A peculiarity found in this Italian sample compared to other international studies is the increase in stress in the phase before the trip, when the IBT mothers must plan the management of the household and the care of children for the duration of the trip: this difference is likely to be due to the fact that Italian women shoulder almost all of the burden for taking care of the kids, unlike women managers working in other countries (see Fischlmayr and Puchmüller, 2016; Kollinger-Santer and Fischlmayr, 2013). In fact, Italians feel the social pressure about their role and live their role of managers abroad with frustration and guilt. Sources of this pressure are acquaintances, friends, and also other mothers, who stigmatize business trips as time taken away from the care of the children. These results, which only Austria replicates, can be interpreted in the light of the Italian predicament about gender equality: Italy is ranked only 50^th in the world according to the global gender gap index (Austria gets the 52^nd position) and is a country were the family comes first in terms of the values Italians believe in (Censis, 2012), so that IBT women and dual-career families are not yet fully accepted.
 
Moreover, it emerges that assistance in the care of children almost exclusively comes from husbands and grandparents, with very little help coming from friends and neighborhood networks, as it conversely happens abroad. Finally, the study highlights the importance of position in the corporate hierarchy, as well as the type of interlocutors, in determining the degree of flexibility granted by the company to the IBT to use teleconferencing instead of traveling. No cross-cultural training or stress management service is offered by companies to prepare women for these tasks. Companies that want to promote and retain female talent in these positions should therefore offer women, regardless of their corporate role and company seniority, support in child care (e.g. company nurseries or baby-sitter vouchers), guarantee flexibility in the organization of business trips, give recovery periods regardless of their role or seniority in the company, provide smart work alternatives in the days after returning from a trip, and offer preparatory courses in the case of destination countries having a very different culture.

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