Article
Impact of Gender and Expatriation Choice on Career Paths in
Supply Chain Management: Evidence from Master of
Science Graduates
Salomée Ruel
1
and Anicia Jaegler
2,
*
Citation: Ruel, S.; Jaegler, A. Impact
of Gender and Expatriation Choice on
Career Paths in Supply Chain
Management: Evidence from Master
of Science Graduates. Sustainability
2021, 13, 6907. https://doi.org/
10.3390/su13126907
Academic Editors: João Carlos de
Oliveira Matias and Paolo Renna
Received: 7 May 2021
Accepted: 16 June 2021
Published: 18 June 2021
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1
MOSI-Sustainability Excellence Center, KEDGE Business School, 13009 Marseille, France;
salomee.ruel@gmail.com
2
MOSI-Sustainability Excellence Center, KEDGE Business School, 75012 Paris, France
* Correspondence: anicia.jaegler@kedgebs.com
Abstract:
Zinn et al. (2018) and Esper et al. (2020) call for more research on gender diversity in
Supply Chain Management, and our study responds to that call. We analyze the career path of 1081
international graduates from a higher degree program in Supply Chain Management from 2000 to
2017 to assess the impact of gender and expatriation choice on hierarchical progression. We explore
two variables that may affect graduates’ career paths, namely, their gender and their expatriation
choices, and compare their relative importance. Our analysis shows that there were, on average,
33.5% women recruited in the MSc and that this has not significantly changed over the years. It
also shows that gender significantly influences the number of years spent at each level in the career
hierarchy and the level reached. Regarding expatriation choice, this variable has some significant
impacts on career progression. Finally, statistics indicate that gender has a far greater influence on
career progression than expatriation choice. Overall, this study proves the difficulties for women in
enjoying the same career progression as men in the field of Supply Chain Management.
Keywords: gender diversity; expatriation; supply chain management; career paths
1. Introduction
McKinsey & Company (Paris, France) has worked since 2007 on a program entitled
Women Matter, and this has generated several reports. The 2010 report [
1
] addresses the
proportion of women in decision-making bodies and boards of managers worldwide. In
the manufacturing industry, women made up 6% of the boards of directors and 10% of
decision-making bodies, while in the transport sector, they made up 9% in both categories.
Over ten years later, the global situation is not very different. If we look at the Supply
Chain Management (SCM) function, particularly in the production and transport sectors,
recent data still show the need to include more women. In fact, the SCM function is known
by professionals as one of the least feminized company management functions.
Many recent reports from consulting firms highlight this gender gap. For example, the
World Economic Forum [
2
] highlights that in retail most shop floor workers are women—a
situation that cannot be observed at the upper levels of the hierarchy. McKinsey & Company
also points out this gender gap. In 2010, the consulting firm highlighted the necessity of
actively supporting women’s inclusion in Supply Chain (SC) opportunities: “The more
skilled women there are, the more quality employees a company has to choose from, and
the more entrepreneurs there are to participate in a company’s value or supply chain” [
1
]
(p. 15). In a 2018 report, the company [
3
] notes the importance of empowering women
wherever they live, since diversity has a positive relationship with a company’s financial
outperformance. A report by Deloitte [
4
] focuses on the talent gap in the Operations field
and treats diversity as a way to engage new talents.
In the same line, the World Economic Forum [
5
] (p. 38) recently stated that “some
professions are constrained by the availability of relevant talent, while others could effec-
Sustainability 2021, 13, 6907. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126907 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
