Foreign assignment challenges and management strategies

¶ … Sarah Strong finds herself in every female executive's least favorite position. Sarah has grown up in an America with a newly fostered sense of equality for men and women, of consciousness raising groups and a sense of liberty and fairness. How quickly this sense of justice evaporates, one might reflect, when the business Sarah works for perceives itself as apt to lose revenue because of homeland customs regarding female authority that are not nearly so amicable to its financial success. Even in an organization that apparently deploys equal attitudes towards men and women at home, the attitude does not carry over when a member of the bank is patronized and treated with indifference because of her female status abroad.

In this instance, the bank should reflect -- would it react with similar indifference if its male staff members in Mexico kept the customs of that nation by leaving the office at three in the afternoon, were that the accepted hour of departure in that land? Would executives in France accept late meetings, tardy employees or three-hour lunches, and other violations of company policy, if they affected productivity in a negative way and was in violation of the corporate policy and work ethic? Although flexibility must be maintained between local climate, customs, and the customs of the bank's home country, clearly no organization can stand if it does not have a core sense of its own values, of which diversity and acceptance of gender differences should be amongst its mission statement and creed. A business must be flexible to local customs in its product, but still uphold its core ethical values as an organization to its management and employees. (Dawson & Holmes, 2001)

Thus the bank has clear obligations to its employees to honor their commitment to the organization by ensuring they are not harmed by having their chances for advancement limited by the social customs of a host country -- a Jewish employee should not tolerate anti-Semitism in an Saudi Arabian branch of the bank, nor an Arab employee tolerate anti-Arab sentiment in a branch in France, nor should a woman have to tolerate debilitating gender prejudice in Mexico. The international moral code of human rights was clearly violated by the bank's willingness to stand by and do nothing, and it may have unwittingly impacted its authority and financial duties to its employees and shareholders by doing so, in efforts to 'do as the Romans/Mexicans do' towards women.

While clearly the bank did not make correct decision by opting to follow the norms of the host country, it must take proactive steps to avoid situations similar to this in the future. Diversity training is one way of doing so. Although often only used within the company, by engaging in diversity training with a specific focus on certain country customs, when employees are going to be working abroad, such employees can be better prepared for the kinds of racial, ethnic, sexual, and culture and lifestyle prejudices they may encounter. Although this may not have helped Ms. Strong, awareness can occasionally facilitate communication and avert potential conflict.