Sylvia Ann Hewlett argued for the empowerment of women in the August 2011 One+ profile of her  book, Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women are the Solution.

In a subsequent interview with strategy+business, Hewlett and co-author Ripa Rashid discuss their origins of interest in the subject and get into more details of their research.

S+B: What first piqued your interest in women in emerging markets?
HEWLETT: We felt two powerful lures. One, obviously, was that these are the growth markets, and there are talent constraints in these countries. But, second, we felt that almost everyone had missed the boat in terms of seeing the extraordinary potential of women. There are books on the “China miracle” or the “India miracle” in which women aren’t even mentioned. Or worse, the narrative about women focuses on poverty and oppression and illiteracy. The general thinking in the West is that the most these poor, exploited women can hope for is a little bit of microfinance. I’m not trying to say that isn’t half the reality. It is. But there is this other story of tremendous vitality and aspiration.

Image (C) Ron Rinaldi

Over on the HBR blogs, Alfredo Behrens posted an intriguing piece about the challenges and tricks to building successful teams in emerging markets.

Most South Americans derive their identity from the group to which they belong. They stick to neighborhoods where they build loyalty-bound networks, and they distrust those who are outsiders. South Americans work best with people they already know. These are traits South Americans share with many workers in BRIC countries, where much of the world's future growth is expected.

Because South Americans perform best in teams made up of people they already know, they would take too long to become a high-performing team made up of Venezuelans and Uruguayans. When left to work on their own, the Uruguayans recovered their original teamwork spirit and performed highly enough to pique the Venezuelans to improve their own ratings. South American are competitive, but not individually. They compete better in teams.

I wonder if Behrens' analysis here applies generally to workers in emerging meeting and event industry markets, too. I suspect there will be some crossover, but considering how meetings have such a global/border-agnostic view of business at times, I suspect our lil old industry might be an exception...perhaps teams in emerging markets initially work best with people they know and cultures in which they've grown up, but to expand into the international world of business those in the meeting and event industry must be able to transcend this.

Or am I just thinking "cray" on a Friday?

Image: (CC) michaelcardus