Celebrating Success: Dr Benjamin Bader

Congratulations to Dr Benjamin Bader whose research was recently featured in the ScandAsia Magazine.

The ScandAsia Magazine is a monthly magazine specifically for Scandinavian expatriates living in Asia, particularly China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. It is read by thousands of expatriates and addresses topics and issues around living and working as an international assignee in Asia. In this regard, it is a great medium to address industry leaders and managers. While it mainly covers news, articles and practitioner interviews, it occasionally features university research as well.

In the January 2020 issue, Benjamin’s research on institutional discrimination against female expatriates was covered in an article about gender and international assignments. In this research, Benjamin and his collaborators investigated the impact of the institutional environment on the individual experience of both male and female expatriates. They found that gender discrimination is still quite prevalent and a result of deeply ingrained institutional prejudices. This can lead to workplace harassment of female expatriates. Looking at the interplay between institutional and individual level across 25 host countries, they developed a theoretical model on the basis of a strong link between gender and the status value in certain societies. Not surprisingly, the study also found that gender harassment leads to a drop-in levels of job satisfaction among women. This effect was much bigger than the effect of general job-related stress. The study itself was published in the Journal of Global Mobility and awarded with the prestigious 2019 Emerald Literati Outstanding Paper Award.

The digital version available here.