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Gender-based Differences in Culture in the Indian IT Workplace
Abstract
Global outsourcing increases the complexity of managing IT projects. Gender adds another level of difficulty when managing IT projects. Understanding country and gender—level differences may improve chances for success. This paper provides opportunities to better understand underlying country and gender differences of Indian IT workers. We used Hofstede’s value surveys module to analyze gender differences and cultural preferences of 107 Indian IT workers. After correcting for problems with outliers, none of the mean differences between men and women were significant at the 95% level; at the 90% level, we found differences in uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation only. Our results suggest that women and men working in the IT industry may have more similarities in terms of national culture than differences by gender. To overcome possible differences in uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation, IT outsourcers to India should ensure adequate professional development opportunities, mentoring programs, and clearly explained career path opportunities. Further, a focus on policies and management strategies that capitalize on the national culture of India, including group work to take advantage of collectivist tendencies, and clearly defined hierarchical systems to take advantage of masculine orientation and high power distances, may allow foreign companies to attract and retain men and women, where in many cases, national culture trumps gender differences. Future research should collect more data from women and investigate the effect of regional differences on cultural perceptions.
... Interest in mentoring in the workplace continues to gain ever-growing attention in India (Arora & Rangnekar, 2014;Haynes & Ghosh, 2012;Ramaswami & Dreher, 2010;Seema & Sujatha, 2015;Woszczynski, Dembla & Zafar, 2016), as more practitioners embrace its potential for supporting career success. Recently, Arora and Rangnekar's (2014) empirical study found that psychosocial mentoring acts as a predictor of career resilience. ...
... Economic growth during this time has been unprecedented. The size of the middle class has quadrupled, and each year one percent of the poor has moved out of poverty (Chakrabarti & Cullenberg, 2003;Woszczynski et al., 2016). As a result of increasing globalization, shifting social norms, and economic reform, women are entering the job market at an accelerated pace. ...
... All of these demands in the familial sphere may have an impact on their ability and capacity to build mentoring relationships to support their careers. High levels of masculinity, which characterize Indian culture, may be a barrier to career pursuit for Indian women (Woszczynski et al., 2016). ...
A rapidly changing economy and an increasingly competitive and diverse business landscape represent two of many forces that have created both an opportunity and a need for the inclusion of professional Indian women in India's workforce (Haynes & Ghosh, 2012; Ravindran & Baral, 2014; Srinivasan, Murty, & Nakra, 2013). The issue of gender diversity in Indian firms has recently gained consideable attention, and it is in this context that the authors of this chapter explore the role that mentoring plays in helping women navigate their professional and domestic realms.
... Third, this study responded to the scholarly call (Tepper et al., 2017) for a deeper examination of the boundary conditions of authority orientation in the hospitality industry. Unlike previous studies (e.g., Erkutlu, 2015;Hofstede, 1980;Woszczynski et al., 2016) that investigate cultural values at the national level, this study adopts a nuanced approach to investigate hospitality employees' individual authority orientation and its interactions with organizational identification in shaping third-party observers' turnover intention. This study sheds light on the adaptive role of authority orientation within the hospitality sector. ...
... These cultural backgrounds shape individuals' value orientations, potentially explaining why hospitality employees from different cultural backgrounds perceive and react differently to similar supervisory behaviors (Peltokorpi & Ramaswami, 2021). While cultural values have traditionally been studied at a societal level (Erkutlu & Chafra, 2016;Hofstede, 1980;Woszczynski et al., 2016), increasing attention has been directed towards employees' individual differences in their perception of authority (Farh & Hackett, 2007). Scholars have started to explore employees' authority orientation, recognizing its significance in understanding how employees perceive themselves, their organizations, and their supervisors' roles, and how this perception affects the impact of abusive supervision (Hon & Lu, 2016;Hussain & Sia, 2017;Lian et al., 2012;Lin et al., 2013;Martinko et al., 2013). ...
... A possible ICT oriented program aimed to yield in several aspects that comprise the enhancement of trainees' prospects (Woszczynski, et al., 2016) to broaden their vocational skills and equate and amalgamate all the conflicting opinions and the units that compete to elevate their expertise in conventional disciplines akin to "Business Management1". ...
... Faculties of various departments (Ahmed, 2016) would not be well positioned to estimate or quantify the destinations that their students have embarked upon or are in the process to join their firm of choice. This study asserts that, possibly, if the choice of the student's destination is predetermined, a better delivery system could be designed and delivered if not tailor made (Woszczynski, et al., 2016) (Pandit, et al., 2016) in the trend of course credits and GPAs (Grade Point Average). In the days to come, if this methodology is not adopted, it could lead to a situation in which the student might find the degree or certificate that he or she has studied to secure would be of little value in terms of securing their coveted job (Prakash & Rajaraman, 2016). ...
Unemployment is a serious challenge that has been rising day by day. Skill development and creation of employment opportunities are key factors to address youth unemployment. This study emphasizes on the need for job-oriented education and to link education to employment. This study derives a mathematical model and tests the same using live university hiring data and attempts to integrate the three stakeholders, employers, education providers, and the young, each of whom have a unique approach, expectation, and understanding of the paradigm. Novel methodology inclusive of empirical evidence-based integration of objective fulfillment drafted into institutional pedagogy can help increase the success rate of education to employment from an Indian context especially Indian girls and women. The study outlines specific aspects of analytical intervention in this regard and focus-es on systematic training programs exclusively for vocational and skills amelioration executed to ad-dress this multidimensional challenge by adopting easily implementable software methodologies that are more easily implementable over a wide area network or an Internet-based application engine powered by information communication technology.
... Furthermore, the indirect relationship between gender and well-being highlights how gender-specific career barriers serve as a conduit through which gender disparities influence occupational well-being. In the male-dominated industry of the IT sector, women often face marginalisation not through overt gender discrimination but via systemic barriers that arise from a masculinised organisational culture (Larsson and Alvinius, 2020;Woszczynski et al., 2016). Indeed, the "old boys' network" side-lines women from participating in the mainstream Journal of Management Development in masculinised organisations (Allemand et al., 2022;Edling et al., 2012). ...
Purpose
Due to dynamic work contexts, mid-level managers struggle to advance their careers in contemporary organisations. Literature has consistently showcased that leadership style and gender significantly impact subordinates’ career and work-related outcomes. This study investigates the relationship between authentic leadership, gender, perceived career barriers and occupational well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
Using self-report questionnaires, we collected data from 198 mid-level managers employed in the information technology (IT) sector in Delhi-NCR. We tested two mediation models simultaneously, investigating the mediation of perceived career barriers on occupational well-being. Authentic leadership and gender were the predictors of the first and second models, respectively.
Findings
Authentic leadership was positively associated with occupational well-being but negatively with perceived career barriers. Perceived career barriers partially mediated the link between authentic leadership and occupational well-being. Gender had a significant impact on perceived career barriers. Finally, perceived career barriers fully mediated the association between gender and occupational well-being.
Research limitations/implications
The study showed that perceived career barriers were predicted by authentic leadership perception. In the face of career-related obstacles, managers with authentic leaders tend to have better well-being at the workplace. Further, perceived career barriers are essential in the relationship between gender and occupational well-being. However, the context of India’s IT sector is unique; therefore, caution must be practised when generalising.
Practical implications
Organisations must promote authentic leadership at the upper echelons. Such a leadership style helps reduce the hurdles for managers and improves their well-being. Furthermore, addressing gender-specific career barriers, such as lack of cultural fit, is the key to enhancing female managers’ well-being.
Originality/value
We turned towards positive psychology and utilised the construct of authentic leadership to address the issues of career barriers and diversity in IT organisations.
... However, the attrition rate is equally high among the entry-level employees, with a drop out within 3-5 years of their work experience in the industry. Studies quoted several reasons for the worsening state of employees in IT sector, for instance, high levels of harassment (D'Cruz et al., 2016;Rai and Agarwal, 2017b), lack of career development and growth opportunities (Sims and Hirudayaraj, 2016), glass-ceiling effect (Ramesh and Srivastava, 2016;Woszczynski et al., 2016), lack of adequate supervision (Jose and Mampilly, 2015) and a dearth of creativity or innovative work practices (Ghosh, 2015;Appu et al., 2015). Therefore, it inspires the selection of entry-level employees for the present study in order to gauge one of the harmful work practices or characteristics, namely workplace ostracism. ...
... IT professionals have varied career expectations, and they actively engage in managing their careers (Ahuja et al., 2007;Igbaria et al., 1991;Lim & Teo, 1999). Technology plays a significant role in influencing IT professionals' career prospects (Hsu et al., 2003;Moreno, Sanchez-Segura, Medina-Dominguez, & Carvajal, 2012;Woszczynski, Dembla, & Zafar, 2016). Long-term career consequence is defined as an outcome of working with a technology that pays off in the future (Chau, 1996). ...
Technology is central to the work-life of professionals in the information technology (IT) domain. However, inadequate attention has been paid to technology as an antecedent of IT professionals' work outcomes, such as turnover intention and work exhaustion. In the present work, we conducted a mixed-method study. In Study 1, we used an inductive qualitative approach to explore features of technology from the career perspective of IT professionals. We explain how perception about the features of technology influences IT professionals' work outcomes. Based on semi-structured interviews of 35 IT professionals, we found three features (long-term consequence, perceived challenge, and technology-related uncertainty) on which IT professionals assess and evaluate a given technology. Subsequently, in Study 2, we used the Expectation Disconfirmation Theory (EDT) as the framework to develop a model to measure the perceived misfit between 'expected' and 'experienced' features of technology and test its impact on IT professionals' turnover intention and work exhaustion. The study provides valuable insights for the management of IT professionals.
... However, the attrition rate is equally high among the entry-level employees, with a drop out within 3-5 years of their work experience in the industry. Studies quoted several reasons for the worsening state of employees in IT sector, for instance, high levels of harassment (D'Cruz et al., 2016;Rai and Agarwal, 2017b), lack of career development and growth opportunities (Sims and Hirudayaraj, 2016), glass-ceiling effect (Ramesh and Srivastava, 2016;Woszczynski et al., 2016), lack of adequate supervision (Jose and Mampilly, 2015) and a dearth of creativity or innovative work practices (Ghosh, 2015;Appu et al., 2015). Therefore, it inspires the selection of entry-level employees for the present study in order to gauge one of the harmful work practices or characteristics, namely workplace ostracism. ...
The present study examined the factorial structure, validity and reliability of the workplace ostracism scale (Ferris et al., 2008) across the Indian employees. It also elaborates on the differences in perception of ostracism at work concerning gender. A sample of 350 IT sector employees within India, recruited through convenience sampling technique, participated in an online survey. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in retaining the single factor structure of the workplace ostracism scale. However, the number of items retained in this study reduced to eight from the original 10-item scale. To establish the predictive validity of workplace ostracism, its relationship with perceived transformational leadership style among supervisors resulted in a negative association, in line with the literature around these constructs. Additionally, the results of independent samples t-test found that significant differences in the feeling of being ostracised exist across gender. The present study provides relevant implications and future research prospects.
... Though, the majority either came from German (22%) or Indian (23%) cultural background. Despite of the high amount of German participants, the sample is a fair representation of the global software industry, which is dominated by men (Weilemann and Brune 2015) and also is the Indian IT service industry possessing a high share of the world market (Woszczynski et al. 2016). ...
Agile development methodologies (ADM) have become a widely implemented project management approach in Information Systems (IS). Yet, along with its growing popularity, the amount of concerns raised in regard to human related challenges caused by applying ADM are rapidly increasing. Nevertheless, the extant scholarly literature has neglected to identify the primary origins and reasons of these challenges. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine if these human related challenges are related to a lack of Emotional Intelligence (EI) by means of a quantitative approach. From a sample of 194 agile practitioners, EI was found to be significantly correlated to human related challenges in agile teams in terms of anxiety, motivation, mutual trust and communication competence. Hence, these findings offer important new knowledge for IS-scholars, project managers and human resource practitioners, about the vital role of EI for staffing and training of agile managed IS-projects.
... Culture Rai et al., 2009;Woszczynski, Dembla, & Zafar, 2016). Research has shown that cultural differences between vendor and client can reduce the satisfaction of the client in global sourcing projects (Su, 2015). ...
... Different countries have also been considered such as for example Germany (e.g., Beham and Drobnič, 2010), India (e.g. Woszczynski, Dembla, & Zafar, 2016), Portugal (e.g. Vieira et al., 2012) and Spain (e.g. ...
This research paper aims at investigating the importance of work–family balance (WFB) on family businesses from Andalusia (Spain) and its impact on job satisfaction and employees’ commitment. The research objectives are twofold: (1) to classify companies based on the level of WFB implementation; (2) to investigate the differences between groups of companies in relation to job satisfaction, commitment, firm size and generation. In order to achieve these objectives an empirical study was conducted with a sample of 219 family businesses. The data collected using self-completion questionnaires were analyzed using cluster analysis and Manova. Main findings show a diffusion of WFB and broad implementation in this context. Thus, WFB has a positive impact on job satisfaction and on employees’ commitment. These findings contribute to the literature and practice highlighting the role of managers in the implementation of WFB and its subsequent positive return related to its impact on employees and society.
... It is buried in the complex labyrinth of India's social, cultural, and economic systems that could offer possible explanations for entrenched family roles in different strata of 3 Indian society. India is an extremely heterogeneous country deeply rooted in diverse cultures, multiple religions, traditional caste systems, varied languages, and vivid distribution of economic wealth (Woszczynski, Dembla, & Zafar, 2016) that directly or indirectly hinder or facilitate women leaders in India. This uneven distribution of resources has perpetuated the increasing chasm between rural and urban India. ...
The past decade has witnessed an increased number of women participating in the workforce in many spheres of India’s society. Yet, Indian women largely remain underrepresented in senior management and leadership positions. This can be attributed to existing patriarchal beliefs and other socio-cultural barriers that have led to struggles for Indian women to set themselves free from the challenges associated with gender stereotypic roles. Despite these obstacles, modern India is showcasing an expanding middle class and increased service sector jobs, gradually influencing the mindset of people. Due to the availability of higher paying information technology (IT) jobs for educated women employees, men are coming forward and the burden of handling household and childcare activities for Indian women is being reduced. Organizations are also making dedicated efforts to break the shackles of gendered family roles by implementing progressive human resource development (HRD) practices. India is slowly but steadily moving toward a gender-neutral culture and aspiring to strike the right chord between the personal and professional lives of Indian men and women.
... Different countries have also been considered such as for example Germany (e.g., Beham and Drobnič, 2010), India (e.g. Woszczynski, Dembla, & Zafar, 2016), Portugal (e.g. Vieira et al., 2012) and Spain (e.g. ...
... Different countries have also been considered such as for example Germany (e.g., Beham and Drobnič, 2010), India (e.g. Woszczynski, Dembla, & Zafar, 2016), Portugal (e.g. Vieira et al., 2012) and Spain (e.g. ...
This research paper aims at investigating the importance of work---family balance
(WFB) on family businesses from Andalusia (Spain) and its impact on job satisfaction and employees’
commitment. The research objectives are twofold: (1) to classify companies based on the
level of WFB implementation; (2) to investigate the differences between groups of companies
in relation to job satisfaction, commitment, firm size and generation. In order to achieve these
objectives an empirical study was conducted with a sample of 219 family businesses. The data
collected using self-completion questionnaires were analyzed using cluster analysis and Manova.
Main findings show a diffusion of WFB and broad implementation in this context. Thus, WFB has
a positive impact on job satisfaction and on employees’ commitment. These findings contribute
to the literature and practice highlighting the role of managers in the implementation of WFB
and its subsequent positive return related to its impact on employees and society.
India has a long history of high inequality, and despite rapid economic growth in the last two decades, stark inequalities persist. Women have remained disadvantaged as a result of unequal sharing of the benefits of progress. Even today women's are told to select the safe careers as it is difficult for them to conquer the hard core beliefs of society that women's should stay away from dangerous or challenging sectors. In today's time women are entering traditionally male-dominated intellectual and occupational fields. These shifts include the adoption of previously masculine qualities, as well as the performance of new forms of femininity and a distancing from normative variants. Yet, like previous forms of femininity, this new reinvented femininity is regulated. The study focuses upon the wicked issue of gender bias from Indian context. Introduction Women tend to face gender discrimination not only at the workplace but even at home. Women's at very young age are made to believe that they are inferior to the males, only the boys can go to school and get themselves educated. Women are made to sit at home and are told to the household work. The men are called as the bread winners of the family and the women are told to take care of their children, the family and the household. When a woman goes out to work, the society feels that she is going to work because she doesn't want to take care of her house. Women are said to play different roles like that of a wife, mother, daughter, and sister, etc and supposed to remain confined to their housework. Women face discriminations related to caste, religion, colour, class, etc. At the workplaces, women are not been given jobs that require hard core thinking, they are been given work that doesn't really need much of thinking to be done. In the education sector, the progress of a woman is constantly compared to that of a man. Women start facing discrimination right from the recruitment stage, to the selection stage, to the promotion stage in an organization. When the career graph of a woman starts going in the upward direction, the men in the organization envy her success and feel that, the growth in her career graph is not because of her hard work or her dedication towards her work or because of the efforts she has put in but because of her beauty, or that she must have got some of her boss' needs fulfilled. Women do not just face the obstacles and difficulties at the work front, but also at her personal level. Woman do not usually get enough support from her in-laws, husband and family members to go out and work, which leads to low morale of the women and she feels like quitting her job and sitting at home. The pay scale of a woman tends to be much lower than that of a man. The level of adjustments that a woman has to do at her workplace is quiet high, right from the clothes that she wears, her work timings, who she works with and the work that she has to do, everything needs to be adjusted by the woman at the workplace. The recognition and the importance that a woman gets at her workplace is too low, she doesn't have the right to give her opinion, nor is she allowed to voice out her difficulties
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine core self‐evaluations (CSEs), family support, co‐worker support, supervisor support, job characteristics, work‐life balance policies (WLBPs) and work‐family culture as the predictors of work‐to‐family enrichment (WFE) and family‐to‐work enrichment (FWE) and explore the moderating effect of CSEs.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through a questionnaire survey from 485 employees from six organizations in India representing manufacturing, telecommunications and information technology sectors and were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regressions.
Findings
Supervisor support, job characteristics, WLBPs and work‐family culture predicted WFE. CSEs, family support and job characteristics predicted FWE. Little moderating influence of CSEs was found. It moderated the relationship between supervisor support and WFE.
Research limitations/implications
The cross‐sectional design of the study constrains inferring conclusions regarding causality.
Practical implications
This study indicates that from an organizational perspective, involvement in family roles should not be viewed as a hindrance, since it can also benefit employees at work. Employee assistance programs may be introduced to help employees develop the necessary skills and adaptability to increase their work‐family enrichment experience.
Originality/value
The construct work‐family enrichment examined in this paper reflects an understanding of work‐family interface from a newer lens in a novel socio‐cultural context and demonstrates the moderating role of CSEs.
Contracting Global Virtual Teams as part of global IT outsourcing is currently en vogue. As might be expected when virtual team members are from different countries, cultural factors play an important role in the success of outsourcing. However, there have been very few studies that assess the effect of culture on IT outsourcing and virtual teams. This conceptual paper addresses this oversight by looking at the effect of cultural differences on IT outsourcing and virtual teams' performance. The applicable literature on outsourcing, virtual teams and culture is analyzed and a framework of offshore outsourcing success is developed. This framework includes the concept of psychic distance to better understand the phenomenon of virtual teams and outsourcing success. Adding this as a key research component provides a more realistic way of researching global virtual teams. Future directions for research based on the developed framework are also provided. By assessing the cultural differences of virtual teams in IT outsourcing, our research framework will help academics pursue this growing business phenomenon.
This article explores three issues limiting Indonesian women’s higher participation in the upper echelons of public accounting careers. The methods of unstructured interviews with women working in Indonesian public accounting practices and a literature review on the issue of cultural and historical influences on Javanese women are used to contextualise this study. This paper finds that social norms were repeatedly mentioned as barriers to full professional engagement by the women interviewed. Firstly, the (historically and culturally informed) issue of what constitutes “proper” female behaviour was an issue. Secondly, and linked to the first point, the competing burdens of Javanese women’s expected domestic role versus the requirements of her profession was also raised as a block to women with families being able to be as committed to their profession as most of their male contemporaries. From the literature review, a third barrier, the lack of appropriate role models, was also found. No generalisability is claimed for this study. In particular, the interviews used as a basis for this article took place in Java and Indonesia is acknowledged to be a culturally diverse nation. ©2015 Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal and Authors.
This paper suggests that avoiding the ecological fallacy is - under certain circumstances - possible. One problemin (cross-cultural) research is that there are often two levels of theorizing (individual and country) that needs tobe taken into account when data are being analyzed and conclusions are drawn. Typically, as is the case withHofstede's (1980) well-known research, cultural values are measured on country level. Consequently, researcherswho make causal inferences from such group data to individual behaviors are making the ecological fallacy, i.ethey (most often) wrongly assume that relationships observed for groups necessarily hold for individuals. If,however, a method could be found that could help determining how individuals behave from the study ofaggregated data, the usefulness of Hofstede's research (and research on aggregated data in general) from amanager's point of view would definitely increase.In this paper the problem of the ecological fallacy, as well as different methods of avoiding it is discussed, and aparticular solution of the problem is suggested.
Covering one hundred years, this paper recounts the life stories of three generations of middle-class women of the New Delhi-based Kapoor family. By taking the methodological view that individuals born approximately at the same time, within the same class segment, and at the same cultural place will be shaped by the same historical structures so that their lives to some extent are synchronized into a gendered, generational experience, these three life stories are viewed as voices that reflect their respective generational class segments. In view of this, the paper uses the three life stories to discuss changes in women's agency within the urban, educated, upper middle-class. Agency is here understood as control over resources, and it is argued that in order to understand changes in women's agency, one should take into account the impact of both social, economic structures and cultural ideologies. When analysing the three life stories, the overall finding is that the granddaughter has had more control over her own life than her mother and grandmother. However, by acknowledging that cultural ideologies and social economic structures are not always synchronized, a nuanced and many-dimensional picture of twists and turns in these middle-class women's degree and type of agency over time emerges.
Culture in information systems (IS) research has been an important area of study for over twenty-five years but has focused on two levels of analysis: national and organizational. However, research at the level of IT occupational culture has been minimal. Shared values are the core element of any cultural group and the IS literature has repeatedly called for measurable dimensions of IT culture. This study is an exploratory positivist investigation into scale creation and proposes a set of six value dimensions specific to the context of IT occupational culture based on a review of the relevant IS literature culture as well as interviews with IT professionals. These six dimensions are: Structure of Power, Control, Open Communication, Risk, Reverence for Knowledge, and Enjoyment (abbreviated as SCORRE). A preliminary instrument was prepared and tested with an empirical study. The instrument was found to have both high reliability and construct validity and is ready for further use in ongoing research. There was further evidence that SCORRE represents many core values that form the foundation of IT occupational culture.
The present paper is based on the key findings of an empirical study conducted on the BPO workforce over a period of one year in Karnataka and West Bengal in India. The objective of the study was to prepare a status report on the service conditions, benefits and hazards of working women in the BPO sector. It also attempted to draw a comparative picture of the situation in the two states vis-à-vis women employees. The study assumed significance in light of the gory incidents of rape, murder, and assault of women employees in states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and others. Women constitute a significant number of the workforce in BPO sector in the country. They are primarily in their mid-twenties and qualified with graduate or post graduate degrees. Employment opportunity and career prospects in BPOs come as an enviable choice for them. Most of the women earn a good package, especially in Bangalore where salary index is higher than Kolkata. After a brief tenure in contractual service, the employees are inducted into the permanent service of the company with diverse benefits ranging from gratuity, bonus, provident fund, allowances, insurance and others. However, it has been found that thin strains of discontentment creep in over time on issues such as inadequate salary packages, differential promotional prospects and increments, ambiguous service conditions, irregular and arduous work schedules and lack of facilities in workplace.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine core self‐evaluations (CSEs), family support, co‐worker support, supervisor support, job characteristics, work‐life balance policies (WLBPs) and work‐family culture as the predictors of work‐to‐family enrichment (WFE) and family‐to‐work enrichment (FWE) and explore the moderating effect of CSEs.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through a questionnaire survey from 485 employees from six organizations in India representing manufacturing, telecommunications and information technology sectors and were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regressions.
Findings
Supervisor support, job characteristics, WLBPs and work‐family culture predicted WFE. CSEs, family support and job characteristics predicted FWE. Little moderating influence of CSEs was found. It moderated the relationship between supervisor support and WFE.
Research limitations/implications
The cross‐sectional design of the study constrains inferring conclusions regarding causality.
Practical implications
This study indicates that from an organizational perspective, involvement in family roles should not be viewed as a hindrance, since it can also benefit employees at work. Employee assistance programs may be introduced to help employees develop the necessary skills and adaptability to increase their work‐family enrichment experience.
Originality/value
The construct work‐family enrichment examined in this paper reflects an understanding of work‐family interface from a newer lens in a novel socio‐cultural context and demonstrates the moderating role of CSEs.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop turnover reasons and assess their importance for various family role configurations. Specifically, the authors were interested in whether high levels of family financial obligation related to family‐related turnover reasons and whether low levels of family financial obligation related to job‐related turnover reasons.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used both qualitative and quantitative methods to develop and test the turnover reasons; this involved conducting interviews and pilot testing the turnover items, which were evaluated with factor analysis. The main study was analyzed using MANOVA.
Findings
The authors developed six turnover reasons that help explain why individuals were leaving their jobs. It was also found that employees with relatively low financial obligation were more likely to leave the organization because of lack of managerial support, job content and high levels of work‐related stress.
Research limitations/implications
The measures in this study were cross‐sectional, participants were employees in the information technology/business process outsourcing (IT/BPO) sector, and the study included a single‐country. Future studies can focus on multiple industries and countries and use objective variables in determining key relationships.
Practical implications
The study's results show the major reasons for turnover, both at an individual and organizational level, which include managerial support, job content and work‐related stress; each was particularly significant for those married without children in a dual‐earner situation.
Originality/value
The paper contributes by examining, for the first time, the relationships between family demographic profiles and turnover reasons for Indian IT/BPO workers.
This study of professional software women in urban India examines practices of respectable femininity and discourses of the
Indian family to understand the changing and abiding aspects of a seemingly new national culture. Colonial and nationalist
constructs of the Indian home, and the middle-class women who protected that home, continue to powerfully shape everyday articulations
of national belonging, even as they are transformed through individual negotiations and a global economy. Drawing from extensive
interviews and ethnographic work, this paper analyzes the interplay of gender, class, and nation in contemporary urban India
as individualized, gendered efforts to accumulate symbolic capital.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the unique effect of ethnicity on people's internet connectedness. Internet connectedness is a multi‐dimensional relationship that individuals form with the internet.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey findings from a study of four ethnic groups living in seven residential areas within ten miles from the Los Angeles Civic Center indicate that ethnicity has a significant unique effect not only on the rate of people's internet access, but also on the three dimensions of the internet connectedness index: context and history; scope and intensity; and centrality, after controlling for individual socio‐economic factors.
Findings
The results indicated that African‐Americans lagged behind other ethnic groups in all three dimensions of their internet connectedness. This suggests that the ways in which the internet is incorporated into people's everyday lives are likely to differ by geo‐ethnic areas.
Originality/value
Implications of these results are discussed from a “communication infrastructure framework,” which provides an ecological framework to interpret the ethnic differences in the multiple dimensions of internet connectedness.
An understanding of culture is important to the study of information technologies in that culture at various levels, including national, organizational, and group, can influence the successful implementation and use of information technology. Culture also plays a role in managerial processes that may directly, or indirectly, influence IT. Culture is a challenging variable to research, in part because of the multiple divergent definitions and measures of culture. Notwithstanding, a wide body of literature has emerged that sheds light on the relationship of IT and culture. This paper sets out to provide a review of this literature in order to lend insights into our understanding of the linkages between IT and culture. We begin by conceptualizing culture and laying the groundwork for a values-based approach to the examination of IT and culture. Using this approach, we then provide a comprehensive review of the organizational and cross-cultural IT literature that conceptually links these two traditionally separate streams of research. From our analysis, we develop six themes of IT culture research emphasizing culture’s impact on IT, IT’s impact on culture, and IT culture. Building upon these themes, we then develop a theory of IT, values, and conflict. Based upon the theory, we develop propositions concerning three types of cultural conflict and the results of these conflicts. Ultimately, the theory suggests that the reconciliation of these conflicts results in a reorientation of values. We conclude with the particular research challenges posed in this line of inquiry.
National culture is likely to play a role in Information Technology (IT) adoption. Data from a large scale study of national culture are used to predict the adoption of six information technologies -- PC, Telephone, Cell Phone, Fax, the Internet, and Pager — over a ten year period in thirty one nations. The results show that even after controlling for national economic and social differences, national cultural dimensions significantly predict most IT product adoptions.
Globalization trends, trade liberalization in developing countries, quantum improvements in worldwide telecommunications infrastructures, and cost-cutting pressures have together compelled many companies to examine global opportunities for sourcing some of their IT operations. Such global sourcing, whether it involves insourcing or outsourcing, requires IT project managers to deal with issues unique to operating in heterogeneous international environments. This article examines the influences of country-level and individual-level factors on the effective management of offshore IT sourcing relationships and offers a set of best practices that project managers should consider when entering into such global arrangements.
This article examines how demographics (gender) and cultural values (power distance) differentially moderate the relationship between mentoring (mentor presence) and career attainment (compensation and organizational position) among 390 managers and professionals in two contrasting cultures (Taiwan versus the USA). The four-way interaction of gender x mentor x power distance x country was significant for both dependent variables, supporting our hypotheses based on theories of power distance and gender egalitarianism. In hierarchical cultures such as Taiwan's, mentored women with high power distance reported higher career returns than did mentored women with low power distance. In contrast, in egalitarian cultures such as the USA's, mentored women with low power distance reported higher career returns than did mentored women with high power distance. Our findings demonstrate variation in mentoring outcomes, not just across, but also within, cultures for men and women. We discuss results along with implications for mentoring and cross-cultural theory, research, and practice.
We examined the interaction of gender and marital status on attaining mentors among 405 managers and professionals in contrasting Taiwanese and U.S. cultures. In line with social role and signaling theories and the cultural concepts of gender-egalitarianism and individualism/collectivism, married U.S. women had a lower likelihood of having a mentor compared to single women or men. Being married disfavored U.S. women but did not disfavor Taiwanese women. Further analyses using only the U.S. protégé sample also revealed that being married was positively related to psychosocial mentoring received only among male protégés. We discuss results from a cross-cultural perspective.
Purpose
A problem for many organisations today is what is referred to as the “knowing‐doing gap” or the difference between possessing the knowledge and the actual application of it. This paper aims to explore the perception that differences exist with regard to soft or tacit knowledge‐knowing and utilisation in the IT workplace, but at the level of gender and ethnic‐culture specifically. Through a statistical examination of electronic survey results from two ICT organisations in Australia, the study explores the validity of such claims.
Design/methodology/approach
Continuing from previous grounded theory research, a series of workplace scenarios testing for such knowledge utilisation were created. After trialling the initial scenarios on a pilot population, they were further refined and made part of an online survey questionnaire. Some 119 employees of two Australian ICT organisations rated how they would deal with soft knowledge situations both in principle and in practice. The sample was not selected along gender or cultural lines beforehand; however statistical analysis was conducted to determine if differences to situation‐handling existed.
Findings
The paper provides empirical insights into how genders and cultures deal with soft knowledge situations in different ways. The findings do tend to support certain stereotypes such as females generally appearing more passive, relationship and high context oriented and less individualistic. Whilst males appeared more achievement‐oriented and individualistic, Anglo‐males were closer to females for relationship and high context ideals.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the limited sample size the research results may lack generalisability. Furthermore criticism of Likert scales also exists, as does the use of language other than English as a representation of ethnic culture.
Originality/value
The study adopts a novel use of soft knowledge inventories when applied to the parameters of gender and culture.
Purpose ‐ The primary purpose of this research paper is to understand the role of national cultural dimensions on "best" HRM (human resource management) practices in India. India is considered a major emerging economy in the world today. US multinationals are significantly increasing their presence in India. An understanding of "best" local HRM practices will help global practitioners adopt better HRM strategies. Design/methodology/approach ‐ This qualitative paper uses a multiple-case design method of three "best" Indian companies. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed to understand the interview material clearly. The cases were analyzed independently followed by a cross-case synthesis of the results. Construct validity, internal reliability, and external validity were followed according to scholarly guidelines required for a quality case analysis. Findings ‐ This research identifies the role of national cultural dimensions of power distance, uncertainty-avoidance, in-group collectivism, and future-orientation on "best" HRM practices. It was observed that these three organizations have a strong focus on employee referrals (collectivist orientation), elaborate training and development (future orientation), developmental performance management (collectivist orientation), egalitarian practices (power-distance), and family friendly practices (collectivist orientation). The various HRM practices are elaborated in the results section. Practical implications ‐ This study provides preliminary guidelines for global practitioners who may be interested in doing business in India. The paper provides a model of "best" HRM practices adopted by these three companies and also a strategic model integrating the national cultural dimensions to understand the HRM practices better. Originality/value ‐ This qualitative research integrates national cultural dimensions and "best" practices to provide a better understanding of culture. Studies have not examined the role of national cultural dimensions and best practices per se. Traditionally most studies on culture adopt the national cultural dimensions of Hofstede's ‐ this study uses the scores of the GLOBE cultural study which is considered contemporary and distinguished in its research.
Purpose
This paper seeks to explore career centrality, belief in gender disadvantage, and career success definition as the determinants of career persistence among women software professionals in emerging economies like India. The control variables used are marital and parental status.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey questionnaire was administered to 190 software women professionals and statistical analyses were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Belief in gender disadvantage and objective success definition are differentiators for career persistence while career centrality is not. Marital status and parental status are relevant control variables.
Research limitations/implications
Further exploration is needed of the dimensions of career centrality constructs and control for demographic variables.
Practical implications
Organizations should consider investments in child care support and other flexible work options so that women continue to remain in their careers.
Originality/value
This is the first known study to explore career persistence among women with a focus on culture unique to Asian countries like India.
As we live in a culture where “everything can be commodified, measured and calculated and can be put in the competitive market for sale, detached from its roots and purpose,” there is need to redefine our humanness in terms of the changing nature of science, technology, and their deeper impact on human life. More than anything else, it is Information Technology that now has tremendous influence on all spheres of our life, and in a sense, IT has become the destiny of our life. And this is where the real trauma lies. On the one hand, our being in the cyberspace opens up new and exciting horizons before us; on the other hand, we ourselves are changed and transformed in the process. The virtual world transforms human users to a problem-solver technocrat. The speed at which Information Technology is changing the way that youth around the world are socializing, playing, and researching, it is the common practice now for a 15-year old to go home and update their MySpace page, followed by playing online games, or looking up the new trendy YouTube video. These forms of technology are often the topic of adolescent conversations as YouTube, blogs, e-magazines, Face book, MySpace, iPhones, and iPods dominate the commercial and social networking market. Some researchers refer to this phenomenon as ubiquitous technology drawing attention to the fact that ubiquitous technology acknowledges the speedy adoption of day-to-day use of technology as a global phenomenon. In this background, this article aims at revisiting the question, “What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?” From a feminist perspective, one can still redefine the boundaries between femininity and masculinity in the context of IT and its impact on our lifestyle and thought style. While examining the ways in which our definitions of “woman” and “man” are shifting in this new communication environment, Elizabeth Lane Lawley observes that we cannot fix a single center from which the experiences of women with computer and communication systems can be viewed and that such fixity would only serve to deepen inequities rather than exposing and removing them. She finally submits, “It is possible to use new theoretical perspectives on the shifting boundaries of gender definitions to rethink a previously deterministic view of the effect of new technologies on society, and particularly the effect of those technologies on women. While the gradual absence of the subject from the field of Artificial Intelligence leads to the invisibility of feminine care along with social and relational nature of man, some feminists dismiss the biological sex distinction on such issues and encourage females to ‘imitate man’ and to become more aggressive, assertive and dominating” (Lawley 1993). What are the possible impacts of this new technology on the so-called feminine traits of our human nature? How far our definitions of “woman” and “man” are shifting in this new communication environment? This is what this article seeks to explore.
A set of biographies reveals the trials and triumphs of India's women researchers, says Asha Gopinathan.
Women do not access and use the Internet to the extent or in ways that men do. In this small survey in South India, this generalisation was reinforced. Women are marginalised by their own anxieties, roles and beliefs rooted in traditional norms as well as by illiteracy and economic circumstances. The media too are responsible for skewing women’s self-perceptions which hinder their use of the Internet.
The status of women in India has long been paradoxical. They have had access to professions such as medicine, teaching and politics and have the right to own property. Among some social classes, women are extremely powerful. Yet, there is a long history of women being oppressed by men – delegated to playing subordinate roles. India’s workforce is changing. Social values and mores, and the increased global focus on women’s issues have changed the woman’s role impacting the career progression of women. This paper examines the impact of social, organisational and personal biases on the progression of professional women in India. Women managers in India have been generally successful in rising to the executive suite in Indian organisations, despite a culture that might suggest otherwise. These women were successful because of the interplay of organisational and familial support, coupled with the individual drive for success each woman demonstrated.
Organisational stress originates in organisational demands that are experienced by the individual. Stress is built up in the concept of role which is conceived as the position a person occupies in a system. This paper investigates the intensity of organisational role stress among women informational technology professionals in the Indian private sector. Organisational role stress scale is used on a sample of 264 to explore the level of role stress. Resource inadequacy has emerged as the most potent role stressor, followed by role overload and personal inadequacy. The research finds differences in the level of stress between married and unmarried employees on several role stressors. However, level of education does not emerge as a significant differentiator of stressors.
Purpose
The study aims to establish the effect of personal resourcefulness and marital adjustment on job satisfaction and life satisfaction of working women in India.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 300 women are studied – 100 each in the working women, home‐based working women, and homemakers categories – using the following scales: socio economic status scale, general health questionnaire, self‐esteem inventory, life satisfaction scale, perceived stress scale, marital adjustment scale, the self‐control schedule, and job satisfaction questionnaire.
Findings
It is found that the home‐based working women are the least stressed, most well adjusted, and the most satisfied with their careers among the groups studied. Their ways of perceiving and handling stress are found to be more effective than those used by women in the other two groups.
Practical implications
The study implicates women friendly work policies – like flexible job hours and home office – as well as a cooperative home environment and assistance for housework. Stress relief programmes, yoga and an overall change of attitude towards housework, female employees and sex roles are needed.
Originality/value
The study shows that a positive attitude towards their work in the family and adoption of practical family‐friendly policies by organizations is likely to enhance productivity for the female workforce. Various need‐based interventions are suggested.
India is unique for the magnitude of her diversities in terms of languages and regions, religions and sects, castes and sub-castes, rural and urban, food and style of dress, which are also reflected by her diasporic communities. There are diasporic communities formed on the basis of linguistic or regional identities such as Punjabis, Gujaratis, Sindhis, Tamils, Malayalees and Telugus. Global organizations such as Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), World Telugu Federation (WTF), and World Punjabi Organization (WPO), have recently emerged to preserve and promote the identities and cultures of Indians, uniting transnationally India and the global Indian diaspora. The past decade has witnessed a phenomenal dynamism among the diasporic communities, made possible by the recent advancement in technologies of travel, transport, and communications. Not only did these developments bring the diasporic communities and their motherland closer but they also facilitated in bringing together the members of their community dispersed around the world. The present article examines this emerging trend with the illustration of one of the important regional Indian diasporic communities, the Gujarati Diaspora. Gujaratis, the people from the central western parts of India, are one of the early Indian communities who have ventured out to different parts of the world for multiple reasons. Today, as one of the prominent Indian diasporic communities in the world, Gujaratis are successful not only in business, which is their first love, but also in professional fields such as technology, science, medicine, and business management.
To supplement the extant mentoring literature that has taken a predominantly Western/U.S. perspective, the present study examined the nature of mentoring relationships in a highly power-distant and collectivistic culture such as India. Twenty-nine Indian masters of business administration (MBA) students participated in a qualitative study (using in-depth interviews) regarding Indian conceptualizations of mentors, the dynamics of mentoring relationships, their mentoring experiences in India, and the practice of mentoring as a career management tool. Content analysis revealed that while some aspects of mentoring seem culturally invariant, other aspects might be influenced by careers and socio-cultural contexts. The findings are discussed from relational and cultural perspectives with theoretical and practical implications for cross-cultural management and human resource practice. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Organizations have cultures, but parts of organizations may have distinct subcultures. The question of what is the proper level for a cultural analysis of an organization is generally handled intuitively. The organizational culture of a large Danish insurance company (3,400 employees) was measured, based on employees’ answers to 18 key questions about work practices. Subsequently, scores were determined separately for 131 work groups, and these were subjected to a hierarchical cluster analysis, which produced a dendrogram. The dendrogram showed that within the company there were three distinct subcultures: a professional subculture, an administrative subculture, and a customer interface subculture. These fit a theoretical prediction by Jones (1983); the cultural rifts between the subcultures could be readily recognized in the company’s practice, and had tangible consequences.
Would the outcome of a Global multinational organization's decision be the same if the same decision were to be made in different countries throughout the world? Within the same organization, we propose that national cultural differences can influence decision making in different countries and cultural clusters. While much work has been done on organizational cultural influences, this study examines the influence that national culture has on organizational decision making in respect to the evolution/redevelopment decision that organizations may face at a point in time. Building on findings from the GLOBE research program, we show by empirical testing of a theoretical model that national cultural dimensions are significantly associated with a) the outcome of the decision to enhance or re-develop a system, and b) the organizational level at which such decisions are made. This research is significant as a means to improve management decision making, particularly with regard to the enhancement versus redevelopment decision. The research suggests that a relatively uniform sub-culture exists across the global IS project level but that national cultural dimensions play a more important role in determining the organizational management level at which decisions are made. Our analysis also suggests that technical factors (Upper case tools and platform) carry more influence in the outcome of the decision at the project level (i.e., development or enhancement). However, human factors (national cultural dimensions) were seen to be more important at the management level (i.e., where the decision was made).
As women in India enter the rapidly expanding Information Technology (IT) workforce, it could be predicted that their active participation in this sector will change their socio-economic status within the employing organization and the communities in which they reside. It is often expected that women's participation in the professional realm will contribute to a breakdown of traditional gender roles. And indeed, the data illustrate that women are working in the IT sector in India in increasing numbers. However, data collected in 1992 and again in 2002 by the Indian Institute of Technology suggest that not only does women's participation fail to occur at the same speed as IT expansion, but that their participation is based on a continuation of traditional gender roles, which places women on the periphery of an employing organization. Questioning the paradigm of technological determinism, this paper examines how technology and its development can adapt to the existing social structure. The persistence of such gender divides perpetuate the notion of gender segregation and do not enhance women's socio-economic and political status, nor provide equal participation in the information economy. (c) 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The paper seeks to contrast the roles that have been claimed on behalf of accounting with the ways in which accounting functions in practice. It starts by examining the context in which rationales for practice are articulated and the adequacy of such claims. Thereafter consideration is given to how accounting is implicated in both organizational and social practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for accounting research.