Crescent Petroleum
Crescent Petroleum, an oil refining corporation based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has issued a request for proposals for constructing an intranet that will link its headquarters with its three facilities in the United States and Europe. McNeil Informatics, a networking consulting company, is considering responding with a proposal. Most of the work will be preformed at the company headquarters in Riyadh.
Crescent Petroleum was established 40 years ago by family members who are related by marriage to the Saudi royal family. At the company headquarters, the support staff and clerical staff include women, most of whom are related to the owners of the company. The professional, managerial, and executive staff is all male, which is traditional in Saudi corporations. Crescent is a large company, with revenues in the billions of dollars.
McNeil is a small firm-12 employees- established two years ago by Denise McNeil, a 29-year-old computer scientist with a master’s degree in computer engineering. She is working on her MBA while getting her company off the ground. Her employees include both males and females at all levels. The chief financial officer is female, as are several of the professional staff, and the technical writer is male.
Denise McNeil traveled to New York from her headquarters in Pittsburgh to attend a briefing by Crescent. All the representatives from Crescent were middle-aged Saudi men; Denise was the only female among the representatives of the seven companies that attended the briefing. When Denise shook hands with Mr. Fayed, the team leader, he smiled slightly as he mentioned that he did not realize that the McNeil informatics was run by a woman. Denise did not know what to make of his comment, but she got a strong impression that the Crescent representatives felt uncomfortable in her presence. During the break, they drifted off to speak with the men from the other six vendors, leaving Denise to stand awkwardly by herself.
On her flight back to Pittsburgh, Denise McNeil thought about the possibility of gender discrimination but decided to bid for the project anyway, because she believed her company could write a persuasive proposal. McNeil Informatics had done several projects of this type successfully in the last year.
Back at the office, she met with Josh Lipton, the technical writer, to fill him in.
“When you put in the boiler plate about the company, I’d like you to delete the stuff about me founding the company. Don’t say that a woman is the president, okay? And when you assemble the résumé of the project team, I’d like you to just use the first initials, not the first names.”
“I don’t understand, Denise. What’s going on?” Josh asked.
“Well, Crescent looks like an all-male club, very traditional. I’m not sure they would want to hire us if they knew we’ve got a lot of women at the top,” Denise replied.
“You know, Denise, there’s another problem.”
“Which is?”
“I’m thinking of the lead engineer we used in the other networking projects this year…”
“Adam Goldstein,” she said, sighing. “What do you think we ought to do?”
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “I guess we could use another person. Or kind of change his name on the résumé.”
“Let me think about this a little bit. I’ll get back to you later.”
What should Denise do about the fact that the person she wishes to designate as the lead engineer has an ethnic last name that might elicit a prejudiced reaction from Crescent officials? Is Denise’s decision to disguise the sex of her employees- and cover up her own role in founding her company- justified by common sense, or is it giving in to what she perceives as prejudice? Should she assign someone other than Adam Goldstein to run the project? Should she tailor his name to disguise his ethnicity? Present your response in a memorandum format.
Crescent Petroleum was established 40 years ago by family members who are related by marriage to the Saudi royal family. At the company headquarters, the support staff and clerical staff include women, most of whom are related to the owners of the company. The professional, managerial, and executive staff is all male, which is traditional in Saudi corporations. Crescent is a large company, with revenues in the billions of dollars.
McNeil is a small firm-12 employees- established two years ago by Denise McNeil, a 29-year-old computer scientist with a master’s degree in computer engineering. She is working on her MBA while getting her company off the ground. Her employees include both males and females at all levels. The chief financial officer is female, as are several of the professional staff, and the technical writer is male.
Denise McNeil traveled to New York from her headquarters in Pittsburgh to attend a briefing by Crescent. All the representatives from Crescent were middle-aged Saudi men; Denise was the only female among the representatives of the seven companies that attended the briefing. When Denise shook hands with Mr. Fayed, the team leader, he smiled slightly as he mentioned that he did not realize that the McNeil informatics was run by a woman. Denise did not know what to make of his comment, but she got a strong impression that the Crescent representatives felt uncomfortable in her presence. During the break, they drifted off to speak with the men from the other six vendors, leaving Denise to stand awkwardly by herself.
On her flight back to Pittsburgh, Denise McNeil thought about the possibility of gender discrimination but decided to bid for the project anyway, because she believed her company could write a persuasive proposal. McNeil Informatics had done several projects of this type successfully in the last year.
Back at the office, she met with Josh Lipton, the technical writer, to fill him in.
“When you put in the boiler plate about the company, I’d like you to delete the stuff about me founding the company. Don’t say that a woman is the president, okay? And when you assemble the résumé of the project team, I’d like you to just use the first initials, not the first names.”
“I don’t understand, Denise. What’s going on?” Josh asked.
“Well, Crescent looks like an all-male club, very traditional. I’m not sure they would want to hire us if they knew we’ve got a lot of women at the top,” Denise replied.
“You know, Denise, there’s another problem.”
“Which is?”
“I’m thinking of the lead engineer we used in the other networking projects this year…”
“Adam Goldstein,” she said, sighing. “What do you think we ought to do?”
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “I guess we could use another person. Or kind of change his name on the résumé.”
“Let me think about this a little bit. I’ll get back to you later.”
What should Denise do about the fact that the person she wishes to designate as the lead engineer has an ethnic last name that might elicit a prejudiced reaction from Crescent officials? Is Denise’s decision to disguise the sex of her employees- and cover up her own role in founding her company- justified by common sense, or is it giving in to what she perceives as prejudice? Should she assign someone other than Adam Goldstein to run the project? Should she tailor his name to disguise his ethnicity? Present your response in a memorandum format.
Comments
Yeah.