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Educating Women for Global
Management Project (EWGM)
Module 4: Economic Globalisation and
Women
Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Department of Marketing / Strathclyde
International Business Unit
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Objectives
• To explain the globalization concept and
identify its key drivers.
• To discuss the favorable and nonfavorable effects of globalization on
women’s economic and social lives,
using examples from different countries.
• To provide a brief overview of the
international picture on women
entrepreneurship and management.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Explaining Globalisation
• It is a term generally applied to the
most evolved form of
internationalization.
• It is marked by world-wide integration
and co-ordination of organisational
resources and value chain activities
(inputs’ sourcing, production, human
resource management, and marketing)
behind global objectives.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Corporate Globalisation
The transition to a globalised organisation
generally involves major shifts in:
•
•
Corporate mindset
Location of activities –
–
–
–
–
•
•
Input sourcing arrangements
Manufacturing/service centres
R&D facilities
Marketing/distribution centres,
Human resource policies and practices
Management structures
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Features of Global Organisations
They typically undertake major shifts in
all value chain activities, e.g.
manufacturing and marketing policies
would tend to be conceived on a
regional if not a world scale, to
amortise investment in world scale
plants and R&D programmes, and, in
some product areas, take advantage of
the growing standardization of tastes.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Drivers
Technological/
Information/
Knowledge
Competition
Regulatory
Environment
Cost/
Efficiency
Demand/
Market
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Key Globalisation Drivers: Cost
Factors
• Continuing push for economics of scale
• Heightened need to amortise investment in
world scale plants and R&D programmes
• Increasing cost of product development
relative to market life
• Emergence of newly industrializing countries
with productive capability and low labour costs
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Key Globalisation Drivers:
Competitive Factors
• Increasing ownership of corporations by
foreign acquirers
• More countries becoming key competitive
battlegrounds
• Rise of new competitors intent upon
becoming global players
• Growth of global networks making countries
interdependent in particular industries
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Key Globalisation Drivers:
Technological Factors
• Accelerating pace of technological
change
• Advancements in information,
communication, and transportation
technologies
• Easier information diffusion and access
• Shortening product lifecycles
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Key Globalisation Drivers:
Demand Factors
• Growing standardization of tastes in some
product areas.
• Increasing convergence in consumer
demand
• Rising consumer disposable income
across the world.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Drivers:
Regulatory Environment
• The spread of the liberalizing
agenda of the Bretton Woods
institutions – World Bank/IMF – as
well as the World Trade
Organization.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences
IMF/World Bank’s structural adjustment
programmes have led to:
•
•
•
•
reduction of public sector employment
setting up of Free Economic zones
privatisation of state-based infrastructure
closure of hospitals, schools, refuges,
and other social services
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences
• Economic policies crafted in international
arenas are leading to the whittling away of
state-based infrastructure - the closure and
privatisation of hospitals, schools, refuges, and
other social services; the consequences are
being felt and lived at the local level,
particularly by women and children (Rai, 2001).
• The ‘race to the bottom’ on which the
expansion of global capital is being built means
that, typically, this work entails long hours at
low wages and makes caring for children very
difficult (Horgan, 2001).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women’s jobs, health & education
• Economic adjustment policies following
globalisation have hindered women’s
access to healthcare, education and
property credit, and housing (Haq,
2003).
• Women’s Environment and Development
Organisation (WEDO) found that macroeconomic policy changes affected
women’s employment and female
education in 45% and 28%, respectively,
of the 88 countries surveyed (Haq,
2003).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women & proletarianisation of work”
• Women have become disproportionately
concentrated in low end jobs produced through
globalisation, notably in export processing zones,
which demand cheap and docile labour that can
be used in low skill, repetitive jobs in unsafe and
insecure conditions without minimum guarantees
(WEDO survey - see Haq, 2003; Dominguez,
2000).
• The globalisation of the economy has had
enormous impact on women work. A large
proportion of women who work in the MNCs’
manufacturing or services often have very long
work days with few breaks (Ingemar, 2002).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women & proletarianisation of work”
• Across the world, women have displaced men in
service sector jobs, like banking, computing, call
centre operations, which have now become deskilled, demoted, lower paid, and proleterianised
(broken down into discrete tasks, each with precise
instructions on how it’s to be done) (Horgan, 2001).
• New technology has allowed banks to recruit young
women, who could be paid considerably less than
traditional bank workers, to carry out simple repetitive
tasks. Women largely staff the call centres that are at
the heart of 24-hour banking (Horgan, 2001).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women’s working conditions
• Technological advancements have also made
working conditions for all workers, especially women,
more stressful and demanding, with computers
recording the fastest times of the best workers!
(Horgan, 2001)
• Women tend to earn less than men, sometimes less
than men who are doing exactly the same work. In
less industrialised countries, women earn as little as
half their male counterparts’ wages. In every
industrialised country, the poorest women tend to
earn two thirds, while professional women earn about
three-quarters of men’s wages (Horgan, 2001;
Dominguez, 2000).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women’s working conditions
As corporations extend production to networks of
subcontractors and as IMF/World Bank’s
structural adjustment programmes require
governments to reduce public sector
employment, women have been forced into such
sectors as the maquiladora industries
(Dominguez, 2000), sex industry, domestic labour
in a bid to support themselves and their families
(Ingemar, 2002).
• Women in poor countries have been forced to
move abroad to take jobs in the maquiladora
industries (Dominguez, 2000) and other peoples’
homes, leaving families behind (Ingemar, 2002).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women’s working conditions
• The IMF/World Bank’s policy recommendations,
including the setting up of Free Economic zones,
have resulted in huge increase women migrants.
The displacement is also resulting in increased
vulnerabilities for women. Sexual violence as well
as economic exploitation are increasing in many
liberalising countries (Rai, 2001)
• Global companies seem to profit off the back of
overseas migrant workers, who suffer gross
violations of their human rights ranging from
inhuman working conditions, physical violence,
rape & even murder (WEDO survey, Haq, 2003).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women’s working environment
• Regardless of where the EPZs are located, the
workers’ stories have a certain mesmerising
sameness: the work day is long. The vast majority
of workers are women, always young, always
working for contractors or subcontractors…The
management is military-style, the supervisors are
always abusive, the wages below subsistence and
the work low-skill and tedious. The governments are
afraid of losing their foreign factories; the factories
are afraid of losing their brand name buyers; and
the workers are afraid of losing their unstable jobs
(Naomi Klein’s “No Logo”).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women in developing economies
• Throughout the developing world,
approximately 100 million women are employed
in industries, from clothing manufacturing to
food processing (UNIDO, 1995a, 1995b). These
women face unique work-related challenges
based not only on their gender, but also the
quality of their nations' resources (Seymour,
2004.
• NGOs in Malaysia, South Korea, the
Phillippines, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and
Mexico, all complained about the effects of the
global economy in diminishing women’s
livelihood (WEDO survey -see Haq, 2003).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences: Women
in Eastern Europe & Central Asia
• Free market policies have resulted in
cuts in public childcare and dramatic job
losses for women (often the first to be
targeted for “efficiencies” by privatising
companies) in transitional economies of
Eastern Europe and Central Asia
(WEDO survey -see Haq, 2003).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences: Women
in Latin America vs. Asia
• The working conditions of women in Latin America
and Asia are similar, but their lives are quite
different.Unlike most women workers in Asia FTZs
who are single, many of their counterparts in Central
America are single parents who have several
children, so they are both family heads and
breadwinners. Unlike many workers in Asia,
especially in China where they live in dormitories,
maquila workers go home everyday to take care of
children. Working in the maquilas is comparatively
well paid, especially in countries where
unemployment can be as high as 60 percent!
Communique from an exchange programme hosted by Asia
Monitor Resource Centre
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation Consequences:
Women in advanced economies
• Even in industrialised countries like
Canada, women’s programmes
have been slashed; Canada is
second only to Japan among
industrialised countries in providing
low-wage employment to women
(WEDO survey -see Haq, 2003).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
“Globalisation is a man”!!!
• Women suffer disproportionately from IMF
and World Bank policies as public services
are cut and they forced to care for the sick,
disabled and older relatives as well as earn
a living (Horgan, 2001).
• Globalisation has had such negative
consequences for women and children that
some commentators argue that
‘globalisation is a man’ (Horgan, 2001).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation and women
empowerment
• There’s also a sense in which globalisation
could equally be viewed as a woman! Global
expansion of capitalism has enabled a massive
influx of tens of millions of women into the
workforce, who had largely been dependent on
husbands and male relatives (Horgan, 2001).
• Globalisation has brought great freedom to
women, especially those living in traditionally
conservative countries like Indonesia, Ireland
and Thailand, where women are able for the
first time to be economically independent of
men and to have at least some choice in their
personal lives (Horgan, 2001).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Women workers as the engine
of globalisation
• The percentage of all Mexican women
over 12 years of age working outside
their home rose from 19.6% in 1990 to
33 % in 1993. By 1995 the annual rate of
increase of the women labour force was
twice as large as that of the men's
(1990-95: 4.8 percent, the men's: 2.8
percent) (Dominguez, 2001)
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Women workers as the engine
of globalisation
Table 1: Increase in the number of Female
workers 1980-1999 (‘000)
1980
1985
1990
1995
1997
1999
Indonesia
16,934
22,506
29,422
31,729
33,079
N/a
Ireland
346
332
371
482
539
643
Thailand
10,657
10,749
14,386
14,795
15,041
14,365
Korea
5,222
5,833
7,376
8,256
8,686
8,303
Philippines 6,070
7,569
8,185
9,505
19,451
11,709
Source: Horgan (2001)
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation and women
empowerment
• For some women, joining the global workforce
threatens the right to ever have children. For others,
it means neglecting the children they are working to
feed. But everywhere, when asked, the
overwhelming majority of women going out to work
say that they would not dream of going back to the
home. Ultimately, by bringing women to the
workforce, globalisation has given women a
power they lacked in the past (Horgan, 2003).
• Young women with medium/high educational level
and with no family obligations tend to regard their
jobs at the maquiladoras as emancipating and
even to a certain extent self-fulfilling (Dominguez,
2001).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation as a force for
good in women’s lives
• The mass production of labour saving
devices has transformed women’s lives in
countries where they are easily afforded
(Horgan, 2001).
• Increasing number of women in developed
countries are earning enough to be able to
have many of the tasks involved in cooking
done for them, and reduce the labour they
expend inside the home (Horgan, 2001).
• .
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation as a force for good in
women workers’ rights
• The level of organisation among FTZ workers’ would
seem to be increasing, with successful industrial
actions in countries, including South Korea, Sri
Lanka (Horgan, 2001), Mexico (Dominguez, 2000).
• Mexico’s maquiladora women workers’ organisations
now have transnational contacts, and lots of support,
from sister organisations in the US and Canada
(Dominguez, 2000).
By bringing women into the workforce in such huge
numbers, global capitalism would seem to be
inadvertently strengthening its own gravedigger!!!
(Horgan, 2001).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation as a force for good in
women entrepreneurship
• The explosion of women-owned
businesses, and the growth of
international trade, are among the most
significant developments of the 21st
century (Delaney, 2002) .
• The time has never been better for
businesswomen to get out of their own
backyards and undertake the transition
from local, regional, and niche-market
players into global players (Jalbert,
2000; Delaney, 2002)
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation as a force for good in
women entrepreneurship
• Women are starting businesses twice at the
rate of men and becoming major forces in both
the traditional and the new global marketplace
(Cheskin Research, 2000, see Delaney, 2002).
• There are 9.1m women-owned American
businesses alone employing 27.5m and
contributing nearly 4 trillion in sales annually
(Smilor, 2001 – in Delaney, 2002). These
businesses are increasing at a rate that is
nearly twice that of the US average (Centre for
Women’s Business Research, 2001 – in
Delaney, 2002).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation and women’s
international entrepreneurship
•
Between one quarter and a third of world’s businesses are
owned by women, and 13-15% of women-owned businesses
are involved in the global market-place (see Delaney, 2002).
•
Women account for 30% of US businesses that export more
than half of their products (Centre for Women’s Business
Research, 2001 – in Delaney, 2002)
•
Most Canadian women entrepreneurs start to enter foreign
markets soon after start-up. Nearly 55% take the first active
step toward exporting within two years of start-up (Rayman,
1999 - in Delaney, 2002).
•
Women-owned firms participating in the global marketplace
grow more rapidly than women-owned businesses that are
primarily domestic (see Delaney, 2002)
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation, women’s
entrepreneurship, & development
• Countries with high levels of economic
activity and the highest start-up business
rates are those where women are well
engaged in entrepreneurial activity
market-place (see Delaney, 2002).
• In the past decade, several entities, from
microlending banks to United Nations
taskforces, have intervened to help
enable women in developing nations
become successful entrepreneurs and
providers (Seymour, 2004).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation and Women
Management
• Previous research suggests that women in different
managerial positions in western countries are likely to
face problems and experiences which are directly related
to gender (see Ramgutty-Wong, 2000).
• Women managers are often confronted with greater
stresses and career obstacles because of paternalistic
organisational cultures, preconceived notions regarding
women's managerial skills, inadequate training, homework conflict, poor mentoring and career counselling,
compensation inequities, sexual harassment, and other
factors (see Ramgutty-Wong, 2000).
• Limited research findings from developing countries also
indicate that comparable problems exist in such countries
(Amos-Wilson, 1995; Moser, 1994; Turner and O'Connor,
1994; Nwaka, 1995)
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation and Women
Management
A survey of Mauritian organizations and their managers found that:
Women occupy only 26% of managerial positions, with only 5%
in senior managerial positions in the private sector.
Most Mauritian women managers work for companies
employing only up to 25 people
Politically correct women-manager-friendly responses in
corporate Mauritius, but few measures for the deliberate
inclusion or advancement of women into management.
Mauritius still reflects the worldwide trend for the relative underrepresentation of women in management, even though small
economies such as Mauritius comprise mostly SMEs, known to
be somewhat more "friendly“ to the inclusion of women in
managerial ranks (Ramgutty-Wong, 2000)
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Globalisation and women in
international management
• The lucrative and wide-open world of
international marketing seems to be the
businesswoman’s natural habitat. Women’s
softer and gentler qualities could be powerful
assets for transforming the way the world does
business (Delaney, 2002).
• Women who go global, or run the world, are
creative, intuitive, playful, and affectionate.
Women have traditionally possessed the
qualities - ‘caretaking’, attentive, patience,
supportive etc. - that are critical to success in
intercultural negotiations and international,
management (Delaney, 2002).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Women in Global Management:
I2 “musts” for Success
• Must be comfortable with change
• Must welcome new experiences and
even crises
• Must be adaptable, take risks and
innovate
• Must be willing to learn as much as
possible about the ‘other’ culture/s
• Must have enormous reserves of energy
along with patience and ability to stick
with it
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Women in Global Management:
I2 “musts” for Success contd.
• Must be comfortable with self, and
convey most effective impression in
the international arena
• Must have passion, enthusiasm,
and curiosity
• Must ‘enjoy’ international travelling
• Must value the relationship more
than the deal
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Women in Global Management:
I2 “musts” for Success contd.
• Must have the capacity to see the
bigger picture
• Must be an inspired and inspiring
team builder and leader
• Must have the courage to back their
convictions
• (adapted from Delaney, 2002).
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Relevant Websites
Haq, F. (2003), “Development: Globalisation Hits Women
Worst”
http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/mar98/women.html
Ingemar, K. (2002), “Globalisation compels women to work
under hard conditions”, Newsletter No. 2
http://www.arbetslivsinstitutet.se/workinglife/02-2/02.asp
Rai, S.M. (2001), “Gender and Globalisation and Women’s
Activism: Critical Perspectives”, Law, Social Justice and
Global Development, Vol. 1
http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/global/issue/2001-1/rai.html
Horgan, G (2001), “How does globalisation affect women?”,
International Socialism Journal, Issue 92
http://www.swp.ie/resources/How%20does%20globalisati
on%20affect%20women.htm
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Relevant Websites
http://www.toda.org/conferences/sydney/papers/ray.html
http://www.developmentinpractice.org/abstracts/vol09/v9n
5a07.htm (abstract only)
http://www.sdnp.undp.org/ww/womenmedia/msg00151.html
http://www.daga.org/ds/dsp00/dl3m-c.htm
http://www.hum.gu.se/ibero/forskning/edmeforskning/haina2ht.pd
f
http://www.uek.cas.cz/GlobDem/A-Nasurudeen.htm
http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp?CRID=women_in_business&O
FFID=se1
http://www.ssn.flinders.edu.au/commerce/researchpapers/007main.htm
http://salami.alternatives.ca/html_fr/Factsheeteng.htm
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/437/437iwdp1.htm
http://aibworld.net/aibinfo/net/aib-l.htm
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Other Relevant References
Delaney, Laurel, 2002, “The New Globetrotters: Watch the
Women entrepreneurs in the 21st Century, GlobeTrade.com
Dominguez. E. R. (2000), “Globalisation and Women labour:
The case of two export industries in Mexico”.
Ramgutty-Wong, A. (2000), “CEO attitudes toward women
managers in corporate Mauritius”, Women in Management
Review.
Pereira, Charmaine: 2002, ‘Configuring “global,” “national,”
and “local” in governance agendas and women’s struggles
in Nigeria’, Social Research (Volume 69, Issue 3) (Fall), pp.
781-804.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Other Relevant References
Bergeron, Suzanne: 2001, ‘Political economy discourses of
globalization and feminist politics’, Signs (Volume 26,
Issue 4) (Summer), pp. 983-1006.
Nagar, Richa and Victor Lawson and Linda McDowell and
Susan Hanson: 2002, ‘Locating globalization:
Feminist (re)readings of the subjects and spaces of
globalization’, Economic Geography (Volume 78, Issue
3) (July), pp. 257-284.
Nevins, Joseph: 2001, ‘Searching for security: Boundary
and immigration enforcement in an age of intensifying
globalization’, Social Justice (Volume 28, Issue 2)
(Summer), pp. 132-148.
Fernandez-Kelly, Patricia and Diane Wolf: 2002, ‘A dialogue
on globalization’, Signs (Volume 26, Issue 4), pp. 12431249.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Other Relevant References
Salazar Parrenas, Rhacel: 2001, ‘Transgressing the nationstate: The partial citizenship and “imagined (global)
community” of migrant Filipina domestic workers’, Signs
(Volume 26, Issue 4) (Summer), pp. 1129-1154.
Mellor, Mary: 2002, ‘Ecofeminist economics’, Women &
Environments International Magazine (Issue 54/55)
(Spring), pp. 7-10.
Freeman, Carla: 2001, ‘Is local: Global as Feminine:
Masculine? Rethinking the gender of globalization’,
Signs (Volume 26, Issue 4) (Summer), pp. 1007-1037.
Moallem, Minoo: 2001, ‘Middle Eastern studies, feminism,
and globalization’, Signs (Volume 26, Issue 4) (Summer),
pp. 1265-1268.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh
Other Relevant References
Staudt, Kathleen and Shirin M. Rai and Jane L. Parpart:
2001, ‘Protesting world trade rules: Can we talk about
empowerment?’, Signs (Volume 26, Issue 4) (Summer),
pp. 1251-1257.
Hapke, Holly M: 2001, ‘Petty traders, gender, and
development in a south Indian fishery’, Economic
Geography (Volume 77, Issue 3) (July), pp. 225-249.
Hyndman, Jennifer: 2001, ‘Towards a feminist geopolitics:
The inaugural Suzanne Mackenzie memorial lecture’,
Canadian Geographer (Volume 45, Issue 2) (July), pp.
210-222.
Salazar, Debra J and John Hewitt Jr.: 2001, ‘Think globally,
secure the borders’, Organization & Environment
(Volume 14, Issue 3) (September), pp. 290-310.
Jaggar, Alison M: 2001, ‘Is globalization good for women?’,
Comparative Literature (Volume 53, Issue 4), pp. 298314.
Presenter: Dr. Kevin Ibeh