One of the challenges that the companies may face when they enter the new markets is the attitude towards female employees. The companies have to compete for the talented staff and usually look for the qualified candidates in the universities. The majority of the graduates in Brazil, Russia, China, UAE are women, but due to the conservative traditions women and men are still treated differently in many developing countries (Hewlett & Rashid, 2010, p.102). So the companies have to learn a lot about the foreign culture in order to respond to the gender-biased behavior (Solomon & Schell, 2009, p. 309).
The societies of the emerging countries remain conservative, but the companies should hire young women, because the statistics shows that they are very educated, ambitious and committed to work (Hewlett & Rashid, 2010, p.102). What the companies should consider is the family-related problems that constrain the women from active professional development. For example, women have to care about their parents and spend up to 20% of their incomes on elderly care. Moreover, women do not travel as much as the men (Hewlett & Rashid, 2010, p.102). In order to provide more opportunities for women, the companies should help them build their professional networks that would strengthen relationship, commitment and visibility. One more necessary step would be to provide international exposure, in particular send employees for a short period of time to another country or city and support their families while they are away.
Female employees – expatriates or native citizens – also need to earn credibility and authority at their workplace (Solomon & Shell, 2009, p. 302). They can achieve these goals only through hard work and building strong relationships with the colleagues. In terms of India, women and men have equal rights, and in the largest cities with the highest economic activity women are involved in the business sector. Though there are many gender related problems at the level of the unskilled workers (India Culture Guide, n.d.). Therefore, working in India should not be a challenge for the women.
References
Solomon, C., Schell, M. (2009). Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing
Business with a Global Mindset. McGraw-Hill. Print.
Hewlett, S., Rashid, R. (May 2010). The Battle for Female Talent in Emerging Markets.
Harvard Business Review. Print.
India Culture Guide. (n.d.) Web. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/a/global.t-
bird.edu/india-culture-guide/doing-business-in-india/women-and-business
