Women in international business : a systematic review of trends, themes, and future directions

Sironić, Margareta (author), Dabić, Marina (author)

The ever-increasing presence of women in diverse international business (IB) spheres has prompted research about their position across industries, management levels, geographic regions, and organizational types. This research is signaling a transformative shift towards inclusiveness and an acknowledgement of diverse perspectives as critical drivers of organizational success. Nonetheless, a methodical, holistic, and nuanced understanding of the role and position of businesswomen in IB remains unresearched. As such, this article investigates the factors shaping their professional advancement through a systematic literature review, drawing on bibliometric and content analysis methods. The Web of Science database has selected 129 publications published from 1997 to 2024 for analysis. The findings reveal several distinct thematic clusters addressing key themes: yellow—entrepreneurial identity and environment, red—gender inequality and career development, blue—work-life balance and leadership diversity, green—social, cultural, and international aspects, and purple—leadership style, ethics, and CSR. Further detailed content analysis explores these studies across five dimensions, from theoretical frameworks to methodological approaches. The study concludes by presenting trends in scholarly paradigms across different categories during the selected period. It also proposes future research directions aligned with the identified clusters, offering a roadmap for advancing the discourse on gender diversity in IB.

• Language: English
• Keywords: international business, management, women's question, gender, bibliometric analysis, women, systematic literature review, bibliometric co-occurrence
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: In print
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179561
• UDC: 005.3
• ISSN on article: 1863-6683
• DOI: 10.1007/s11846-025-00932-8
• COBISS.SI-ID: 248685827
• Publication date in RUL: 17.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Review of managerial science
• Shortened title: Rev. manag. sci.
• Publisher: Springer
• ISSN: 1863-6683
• COBISS.SI-ID: 514963737

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: mednarodno poslovanje, management, žensko vprašanje, spol, bibliometrična analiza

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0441-2023
• Name: Regeneracija ekonomije in posla