Read the following discussion and give your response:

Should company managers in Saudi Arabia abide by Saudi norms governing the treatment of women? Should they accept the culture’s refusal to recognize human rights or should they try to initiate reform? Why or why not?

Specifically speaking to the treatment of women from the point of view as an employer, the company managers should abide by Saudi norm. The company is a guest in the host country and should not violate widespread social norms in reference to employment practices. But with that said that is only in reference to a passive point of view, in that the company does not directly harm the women, as opposed to actively imposing social norms of harm towards women. Employment is not the appropriate place to rectify or replace social norms, and I f the company finds the practice of not hiring women inexcusable, that value needs to be considered before entering the country for business.

Furthermore if the practice of hiring women directly defies the standard of the country, the business would be an inappropriate forum for social reform and could in fact put the women at risk for physical harm and to be socially ostracized. If the company is concerned about human rights and wishes to instigate reform in the host country, it would best to do so through socially acceptable means of change and not incite aggression through business practices. An example would be to support organizations that exist for social reform and for the purpose of furthering human rights. Of course, if the practice is too objectionable, the company would need to decide if the benefits of doing business in that company are worth it.

2. Should company managers raise objections to those practices that appeared highly immoral to them or should they quietly go along with these practices?

It appears that with few exceptions, such as Burma, global business does and will exist within countries that appear to be immoral or violate human rights on some level whether it be internationally recognized or based on the company’s home country standards. So, it would be unrealistic to object to practicing business in any country that defies human rights and morals on some level. So then the questions become to what extent are particular “immoral” practices tolerated and to what extent does the business practices pertain to the “immoral” practice in question.

Each manager needs to decide for themselves the level and the context of immoral practice that they can tolerate. It would seem acceptable for company manager’s to raise concerns and potential objections, but ultimately it is their responsibility to make employment decisions that adhere to their own moral and ethical code. It would seem reasonable that a company may not align their views with the employees and make reasonable accommodations for the employee’s view, such as not transferring the employee to the location, but in an employment-at-will situation, that may not be accommodated.

Businesses are responsible for their actions, but so are individual employees, and if practices are occurring that the employee cannot “live with” they have a responsibility to not violate their own code of standards. Although their lose, such as job termination, is the crux of their decisions, then they are no different than the company that starts or continues business in a country with questionable human rights practices for the sake of economic advancement.

3. Does the case support ethical relativism or does it suggest that there are certain things that are wrong no matter what or neither of these possibilities.

The case supports ethical relativism but in the context of business. It is assumed that the company, in this case, would hire women in the company’s home country, and in this sense the company is basing its employment practices in Saudi Arabia on the standards of the host country, not the standards of the home country. One could argue that the tradeoff of oil essential to the United States is not a justification of adherence to local practices, but in this case the women are not made worse off by the presence of the company in Saudi Arabia, and given appropriate action, their plight may be eased through company influence and presence.

It would be inappropriate for the company to take a hard-line stance against wide-spread social standards that are ingrained in an entire country within the context of business practices as the social and religious perception would not be the same and could not be applied without consequences that may in fact harm the women. Instead of violating national standards or inciting conflict through the active reform of such standards, the company should be held to the standard to treat the employees, men, they employ with a human rights standard of work environment acceptable to the company from a absolutism point of view, as they would in the home country, within the context of the host country’s ability to accommodate such standards and address social issues pertaining to the treatment of women in a non-business context, if desired.

Realistically speaking, at this point, globalization cannot occur if all business needed to have perfect reconciliation of standards between the home and host countries. At this time, companies have to must navigate the discrepancies in standards and must decide an ethical course of action based on the existing international laws, their home country’s legal restraints, and the ethics and moral as applicable to their particular business strategy and practices.