Jeremy Prepscius, Vice President Of Business Social Responsibility: Case Study

4.3 Less government intervention.
Over the course of the trip, many participants stated that the government is responsible as much as the organisations to bring in rules like the quota system that is being implemented. Whereas some had a different view towards their intervention. Jeremy Prepscius, Vice President of Business Social Responsibility had a different take when it came to government intervention. He believes that the government intervention might be needed but from the standpoint of business, there should be a level playing field. He states that it can be achieved if there is both paternity leave and maternity leave. Furthermore, he says, "If employees leave, say for 6 months or so, it's hurting for the companies because there's an
The issue of imbalance has more to do with Asian countries than the west due to the masculine culture the society lives in. Sandeep Gandra (2016), Founder and CEO (TingTing), provided an overall view when it came to diversity in Asia. He states that Asia is known for visualizing male at the highest level of corporate position. He believes this is because of the Asian culture and traditions which are so closely interlinked with each other. He cites India as an example where in IT industry, the participation of women is abysmal. His opinions and views were similar to Karen Farzam who mentioned about the low rate of women in the tech industry. According to Sandeep, sometimes it's in the mind where the employers feel a man can do a better job in technology related projects than women. Jeremy Prepscius (2016) stated that another reason for such an imbalance in Hong Kong could be the attitude towards women in terms of "not having a child" clause for a set period of time as also 10 weeks of maternity leave as against 14 weeks ordered by the central government. Jeremy believes though he hasn't seen such clauses and issues in Hong Kong but there are such cases prevalent in the global supply chain. This is one of the reasons for the number of women going off work and not returning back with the worry of managing motherhood and work and thereby increasing the gap in diversity.
This is being done with a view to bring about balance in diversity. Angelica, part of a start-up team at RISE Summit, was supportive of the fact that the number of women in business has increased. She states that the RISE summit in Hong Kong was a great example of how women have walked miles more than before and are dealing in big numbers with their clients. According to her, “Women in Tech attendees at the RISE Summit include a lot of female from China and Hong Kong and also many start-ups in Hong Kong are being co-founded by women. The scenario is slowly changing." (Angelica, 2016). One of the expats named Peter, who is working in the banking sector in Hong Kong, during the conversation mentioned that though his organisation doesn't have women staff at the highest level, but all efforts are being made to make sure that women do take up positions where they can be a part of the decision making process. He also stated that there might not be a complete balance in the diversity anywhere in the world but organisations in Hong Kong are visibly taking steps towards it. Angelica believes that, "many of the literatures and articles doesn't focus on the larger picture but they tend to carry the burden of the past." (Angelica, 2016). She is of the opinion that many of the information in the public domain are taken from