I am bad to debate. Please me have your side. If you had entered into
a joint venture with a foreign company. but knew that they treated
women unfaily in that culture, would you consider sending a female
expatriate to handle the set up? Why or why not.  I'll take the what
ever side you don't want.

Dear Bren, 

Going to debate is not that hard as it seems, and when you learn the
other side's points and what they may say, you can win.

The issue of the integration of women managers becomes more and more
relevant in the international business arena, where many businesses
act in more than one country and in more than one culture.

We have here a question regarding business ethics, but one that also
happens in politics and in general in our society: dealing with those
with different values than ours.

Let's divide your question into several arguments (and
counter-arguments): -

When dealing with another culture, one should respect that culture. If
some people are offended by a certain element in our culture, we
should be tolerant regarding this element: for example, we wouldn't
serve ham to Muslims or Jews; and we wouldn't serve beef to Hindus. In
other words: If the culture is hostile towards the idea of women in
workplace and management, we should respect this culture.

A counter argument against this one could be, that as much as we ought
to respect their culture, they ought to respect ours - that is, they
ought to respect our cultural preference to place the best - male or
female - in management position.

Answering to this counter-argument, one can claim that we are the ones
that stem out of power position, and those who are powerful should
respect the culture of those weaker, who have their concerns to be
culturally "squashed" by the dominant culture.

Moreover, when one stems out of power position, it may be patronising
to enforce our cultural values on our hosts.

On the other hand, avoiding the positioning of women in management in
these countries is an acceptance of a stereotype against another weak
group - women, especially women in those countries, where their rights
are repressed.

The previous arguments regarded business and cultural ethics. Another
one should regard practical considerations in business. If we put a
woman in management, in a country where people are hostile towards
women in such posts, she might just fail because of the population's
cultural perceptions on the place of women.

A counter argument could claim, that instead of "demonstrating" that
women could be as good in management as men, we favour "defeat",
assuming that the reaction to the female manager's function would be
so hostile, it would hinder her option to implement policies.

An answer to this counter argument could be that even a very good
manager cannot work if he is constantly confronted with hostility
towards an element he or she cannot change (in this case, gender). If
her authority is not respected, she'd have problems to implement
policy.

However, the reaction might be, women could be specially trained to
deal with this hostility. For example, see Meridian Global's
<www.meridianglobal.com/t1.html > special courses for women on
cross-cultural exchange. In addition, the local workers could be also
similarly trained to work with women and accept their authority.


Further Sources 
=============== 
Culture Wise <http://www.culturewise.net/introduction.htm> 

Sarah Eaton, "The Basics of Cross-Cultural Awareness", Rising
Women.com, <http://www.risingwomen.com/arcsaraheaton1.htm>.

Manusov, Valerie; Winchatz, Michaela R.; Manning, Laura M. Acting Out
Our Minds: Incorporating Behavior into Models of Stereotype-Based
Expectancies for Cross Cultural Interactions Communication-Monographs,
1997, 64, 2, 119-139.

Tracy Wilen, "Women in International Business"
<http://globalisation.org/gmsc-2000/Agenda/Abstracts/body_abstracts.html>
(paper presented in a conference on globalisation (""Globalisation
Management Strategies").

MegaLearning.com "Women in International Business"
<http://www.megalearning.com/tmcorp/rbase/women.asp>

Sheida Hodge, "Success Strategies for Women in International Business"
<http://www.speaking.com/articles_html/SheidaHodge,MBA_724.html>.


Search strategy 
=============== 
Using Google.com, I searched for terms such as "cultural interactions"
and "intercultural" in addition to relevant search terms such as
"business ethics", "women", "international business".

I hope that answers your question. Please contact me if you need any
clarifications on the answer.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by bren-ga on 09 Oct 2002 07:03 PDT

I would like to take the question and go a little furher.  I would
like to discuss the following.  lET'S PLAY A ROLE If you were a CEO of
a big compay and you you going to go global what approach to global
competition would you take.  On an international level, as a
nultinational, global or transnational and Why on each.

I will up the price. OK.

I I feel that in the business world today everything from a small
company to a major on must be about to deal with global changes.  We
are dealing with SPEED today. Everything is Speed and the newest
Techology.

---

Clarification of Answer by politicalguru-ga on 09 Oct 2002 12:23 PDT

Dear Bren,  
 
Thank you for your kind words. I agree with you, that companies today
have to learn to eract quickly to changes in global business (and
political/social) atmosphere.

If I were a CEO - I'd consider all levels, from the very local to the
global; not only the transnational level in which most multi-national
corporations act today.

Good luck with your assignment.

You are a good debate thanks