"Attitudes towards women's career advancement in Latin America: The moderating impact of perceived company international proactiveness"

Abstract

"While companies operating in Latin America have witnessed increased female leadership participation, the region remains characterized by traditional gender role attitudes. This juxtaposition of traditional machismo attitudes towards women along with progress inwomen's leadershipparticipationmake this setting ideal for examininga topic of continuedworldwide debate:women's career advancement. This study examines attitudes towards the career advancement ofwomen-a historically marginalized group in Latin America. Building on the extant literature,we test the negative association between traditional gender role orientations and attitudes towardswomen's career advancement, both directly and via amediated relationshipthrough acceptance ofwomen in the workplace. We then theoretically and empirically extend this literature by examining an important context-related moderator-a company's international proactiveness-whichwe contend serves as amechanismfor keeping traditionalmachismo attitudes from manifesting. We examine these relationshipswithin a sample of 973 respondents within the Latin American countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela. Our findings support our hypotheses and provide practical insight into the important, yet generally not considered effects of a company's internationalization efforts on attitudes towards the career advancement of women. © 2016 Academy of International Business All rights reserved 0047-2506/16."