Arab Bankers Association of North America. The private sector runs on meritocracy. In fact, banking in the Muslim world is populated by a growing number of women, even in the historically all-male executive suite. Sahar El-Sallab is second in command at Commercial International Bank, one of Egypt s largest private banks. Indeed, four out of ten Commercial International Bank employees and 70 percent of its management staff are women. Similarly, Maha Al-Ghunaim, Chairman of Kuwait s Global Investment House, has steadily grown the investment bank she founded into more than US $ 7 billion in assets. It recently won permission to operate in Qatar and next wants to establish a presence in Saudi Arabia.businesswomen also sit in the top ranks of mega-conglomerates. Imreruns one of Turkey s largest multinationals, Dogan Holding, which recently went through a shift in operational focus from finance to media and energy. Lubna Olayan helps oversee the Olayan Group of Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest multinationals in the Middle East with investments in more than forty companies. And the top ranks of the conglomerate run by the Khamis family of Egypt include several women. Originally from India, Vidya Chhabria is chairman of the United Arab Emirates Jumbo Group, a US $ 2 billion multinational that operates in fifty countries, with interests in durables, chemicals, and machinery products. It also owns Jumbo Electronics, one of the Middle East s largest Sony distributors of consumer electronics, as well as worldwide brands in information technology and telecom products. Thus, while Muslim women may still have a long way to go to reach equality in the business world, progress can be seen. For a lucky and determined few, opportunities do exist. Just being a woman in our part of the world is quite difficult, says El-Sallab of Egypt s Commercial International Bank. But if you have the proper education, credibility, and integrity in the way you handle your job, intelligent men will always give you your due. example of Nahed Taher and these other women managers raises an old dilemma. Even though cultural differences have been acknowledged across nation-states and regions for centuries, there is no consensus regarding the role of cultural differences in global business. Do cultural constraints really matter if people operating in a global arena are able to overcome them? When dealing with this question, most people fall into one of two groups: believers and non-believers. Believers argue that, based on available research evidence and practical experience, culture does matter because what works in London will likely not work Guangzhou, Bangalore, or Moscow. They point out that people who have worked abroad are well aware how different things can be in places around the world, and that much of this difference can only be explained by cultural characteristics. Non-believers, in turn, argue that people are different in general, and that no two Indians (or Chinese or Russians or Saudis) behave in exactly the same way. They argue further that organizations in one country can - and often must - operate very differently from those in another country. Finally, they argue that from the standpoint of research, the variance explained by culture is often small, and numerous other factors may be equally (or perhaps more) important in explaining behavioral differences across borders, including legal, political, economic differences, and available ...
