I recently saw an advertisement that proclaimed that half the human resources in the world were underutilized or abused. It went on to suggest that this resource was "women". They suffer "glass ceilings" in the advanced countries, dismissive and patronizing approaches in emerging and developing markets, and abuse in many places across the board and throughout the world.
How does a firm, headquartered in one country, address this issue of underutilized resource while still maintaining sensitivity to the local culture that might not be empathetic to it?