Term paper of MPOB

Role of female employees in

organization culture
 Role of Female Employees in Organizational Culture

We the industrialist of India is also living in the same world of dynamic business
environment. That consists of economic, political, social, cultural and demographic
environment etc. but here with this paper I want to throw some light on the very special
segment in socio-cultural environment that too is not away from the latest trends and
changes in the global business environment. Today we talk about empowerment especially
for the women of India. This paper basically deals with the existing nature and content of
this issue within Indian organizations.

The initial reluctance of employers to give jobs to women seems to be a thing of the past.
Today they handle both "hard" and "soft" jobs now in areas such as accounting, hospitality,
banking, insurance, airways etc at the same time they are also being preferred for these
jobs.

As far as the culture of any business organization is concerned it plays a very pivot role in
the development of the overall organization in itself and in the eyes of customers and
different stakeholders. Culture could be defined as a way of living that consists of set of
values, beliefs and attitude. To govern these things accordingly in the organization they
have different set of rules to be followed. This could be possible with help of developing
different policies, say discipline, recruitment, or other. Here it is necessary to highlight that
most important is to respect the constitution of our country. So moving forward to this
every organization is continuously collecting the idea and the success of different tools for
the same. The latest or more important one here is to highlight the recruitment of female
employees in the organization. This mantra was not so supported in the earlier time but as
the research conveys it is now adopted by most of the organization in India itself. Female
employees today constitute a major share of the workforce. In India alone, over 400 million
are employed in various streams due to combination of factors like:

Women emancipation, growing economic needs greater equality of sexes, increased literacy
rate etc. But still there are still some conservative problems in rural areas for not supporting
the education to women in India. Here we are confident enough that we can very well
overcome by this problem in the nearby years. In some organization the ratio of male and
female employees is around 60:40. They are now that much not interested to keep the old
male employees rather moving for the selection of female candidates. And here our
country's system of empowering women is becoming very helpful.

Major effect of this issue is in the area of discipline among the employees within the office
premises. We can very well understand that having only male employees in the organization
lead to unsocial discussion and abusive language. But with the recruitment of female
employees may help in this area and the people keep themselves in more mannered and
polished behavior.
Illuminating the glass ceiling: the role of
organizational culture preferences.

The proportion of women participating in the labour force has increased dramatically in recent decades, which has
resulted in a rapid increase in the number of women in management positions. Nevertheless, women are still
underrepresented in management positions all over the world, and this is especially so for senior management
positions (see Powell, 1999; United Nations Development Report, 1997). This phenomenon of women's careers
being stuck at middle management levels is well documented and has been referred to as the `glass ceiling' effect.
The `glass ceiling' effect has attracted considerable attention from social scientists, feminists, and currently also
from managers, who consider this skewed balance in senior positions as an undesirable state of affairs. In the
literature on the glass ceiling, many explanations have been offered and various possible determinants have been
investigated, including institutional barriers, male managers' stereotypical expectations and attitudes, women's lack
of self-confidence, or the effects of family responsibilities.

Recent research and theorizing has drawn attention to the masculine organizational culture as a likely explanation
for the persistence of the glass ceiling phenomenon. Although a male-dominated culture has for a long time been
referred to in the discourse on institutional barriers for women's careers, it is only recently that the characteristics
and consequences of organizational culture have been systematically described and investigated (see Maier, 1999,
for an excellent overview). The central conclusion drawn from this literature is that organizations are based on
norms and beliefs, which are more frequently adhered to by men than by women. Thus, masculine cultures, or
masculine substructures, consist of hidden assumptions, tacit norms and organizational practices that promote
forms of communication, views of self, approaches to conflict, images of leadership, organizational values,
definitions of success and of good management, which are stereotypically masculine (Maier, 1999; Marshall,
1984, 1993; Powell, 1999; Sheppard, 1989).

In a large number of studies, the contents of the masculine and feminine characteristics of cultures have been
explored (see Hofstede, 1998). This masculinity/femininity dimension has been shown to be similar to other
dimensions that have been described by various authors in the area of organizational psychology, such as power-
oriented cultures versus people-oriented cultures (Williams, Dobson, & Walters, 1989), power and achievement
cultures versus support and role cultures (Schein, 1997), or rational goal cultures versus human relations cultures
(Quinn, 1988). The masculine dimension can be summarized as the promotion of independence, autonomy,
hierarchical relations, competition, task-orientation, and the establishment of status and authority; whereas
femininity is described as the promotion of a relational self, maintaining balance in life activities, participation,
and collaboration within the organization (see Maier, 1999). Because the large majority of senior managers and
directors are male, and because men are assumed to adhere more to masculine values than to feminine values, it
has often been argued that management (sub)cultures are still likely to be dominated by masculine norms and
values. These masculine cultures would form one of the core elements of the glass ceiling.

To date, most research on the glass ceiling has focused on mechanisms of exclusion and selection as the dynamics
through which organizational culture forms a barrier for women's careers. It has been argued that women are
silenced and banned from the dominant male culture by selection processes that are biased against women. Indeed,
there is considerable empirical evidence that exclusion mechanisms such as gender schemes, gender stereotypes,
or prejudiced attitudes all play an important role and influence judgments and evaluations of women unfavourably.
However, women are not mere victims of the dominant culture. They are not only actively opposed and
discriminated against, but they are also agents of their own careers. They have their own motives, desires and
preferences to work in a particular culture, and they therefore feel more or less attracted towards specific
organizational cultures.

Self-selection, in terms of motives, preferences, or self-views that influence career decisions, may affect women's
careers as much as the selection by others. Several authors have emphasized the importance of self-selection.
Schneider (1987), for example, has argued that employees find work environments differently attractive as a
function of the congruence between the characteristics of that environment and their own characteristics. A large
body of research supports this idea by showing that people feel attracted to those organizations and jobs that are
congruent with their own preferences. A recent study by Kulik (2000), for instance, showed that women were
more likely to reject masculine-typed jobs. Moreover, person-organization fit research has shown that a sufficient
match between people's preferences and supplies offered by the job and the organizational environment is
important for job satisfaction, commitment and well-being. Similarly, research on self-stereotyping has shown that
individuals tend to perceive other groups as homogeneous, based on societal stereotypes and their own
experiences with members of the other group. Moreover, they are likely to perceive themselves as prototypical of
their own group (self-stereotyping). Thus, women may differentiate their own characteristics (i.e. the
characteristics of women) from those that they attribute to the group of managers (dominated by men), and
therefore assume a mismatch between themselves and members of the management level. This self-stereotyping
may affect women's `possible selves', that is, women's ideas about what they might become, which in turn may
guide their career choices. In sum, self-selection processes are likely to play a role in career development and may
explain women's relative absence in higher management functions.

The basic question that guides the present research is what men and women find attractive or off-putting in an
organizational culture and how these culture preferences affect managerial ambitions. First of all, we investigated
women's and men's own culture preferences with regard to their work environment. Culture preferences are partly
based on earlier experiences and personality characteristics. People who consider themselves very ambitious, for
example, will probably favour a competitive environment; in contrast with people who see themselves as less
ambitious. Because men and women are socialized in different roles, and as a consequence develop different
gendered identities, we assume that men and women will differ in their organizational culture preferences. It
seems likely that men will adhere more strongly to a competitive and achievement-oriented culture than women
will.

However, culture preferences are also rooted in one's specific role in the organization, and the culture preferences
that are associated with specific role requirements may override these gender differences. For example, there is
strong empirical evidence that the manager's role is more associated with masculine-typed than with feminine-
typed values and characteristics: Managers are assumed to be rational, decisive, and ambitious, independent of
their biological sex. This hypothesis is supported by various studies showing that male managers in the
organization very much resemble female managers. In their meta-analysis of gender differences in leadership
styles, for example, Eagly and Johnson (1990) found that there are only small differences between the
management styles of male and female managers. These differences had even decreased to the extent that these
cultures were more male-dominated, with women showing less concern about interpersonal relationships and
general welfare. A similar pattern has been found with respect to the personality characteristics of female and male
managers: Women who achieve senior management positions usually resemble men in their personality and
behavior characteristics. Furthermore, female managers are more likely to be unmarried and childless than their
male colleagues. This also implies that these women resemble men in that they do not have primary
responsibilities for household or children. These findings suggest that managers will also have stronger
preferences for a masculine-typed culture than employees in a non-managerial position have. Moreover, because
masculine preferences can be seen as strongly associated with a management function, gender differences in
culture preferences should decrease at managerial levels.

Culture preferences are assumed to direct career choices in that they affect one's motives to pursue a career in
higher management. Apart from having the right competencies, individuals need a strong motivation and interest
in an upward career. If they lack this ambition or if they do not want to put extra effort into their career, the chance
of being perceived as one of the potential managers in the organization is very small. Masculine culture
preferences are especially assumed to affect employees' motives to advance in their careers.

Psychological Congruence: The Impact Of Organizational

Context On Job Satisfaction And Retention Of Women In
Technology
The Information Technology field has characteristics that make for a unique working
environment. An organizational subculture has been recognized which can impact job
satisfaction and turnover. The purpose of this article is to identify contextual elements that have a
strong impact on job satisfaction and intentions to leave. Because organizational climate is often
examined in conjunction with organizational culture, we will also attempt to identify those
characteristics of climate that influence job satisfaction and intentions to leave. We also consider
the moderating effect that gender schema may have on the relationship between organizational
culture, job satisfaction, and intent to leave. Lastly, we offer propositions designed to inspire
empirical research in these areas.
Information Technology personnel wear many hats and carry many titles. It is not unusual to
envision a programmer sitting at a keyboard when computer related jobs are discussed, but the
category also encompasses positions of management and interaction with information users.
Project managers, database administrators, network administrators, systems analysts, chief
information technology officers, call center support staff, software engineers, and hardware
technicians are just samples of the titles and job descriptions that fall into this group of the
specialized workforce under the IT heading.
As highlighted in a special issue of Human Resource Management call for papers (11-29-04),
Information Technology (IT) workers have unique characteristics thus having the potential for
disparate effects of human resource policies. identified differences in motivation as well as other
characteristics among Information Technology personnel. For example, IT managers in general
have both lower social needs and higher growth needs than other managers. Strong occupational
norms, and perhaps even a subculture, have formed for this group of professionals due to several
factors. One of these factors is the extremely dynamic field itself in which Information
Technology workers must function. The specialized up-to-date skills that must be developed
have a very short life span. This requires employees to focus on professional development in
addition to their daily work responsibilities, which can lead to an imbalance between work life
and family life or outside activities. Stress can also be a factor. Many IT employees are on call
24/7, expected to work long hours and weekends. When problems arise with the organization’s
information systems or new projects approach implementation deadlines, IT personnel are
summoned for unanticipated assignments. These factors, indicative of the profession’s culture,
can lead to dissatisfaction with the job and ultimately lower productivity and/or increased
turnover.
Yet another aspect of the profession that can impact the IT working environment is the
proportion of males and females in the field that hold radically differing gender schemas. Gender
schemas refer to cognitive structures of organized prior knowledge regarding the role
expectations of individuals based on biological sex. The IT field has traditionally been
considered “male” and as with any profession that has been dominated by one gender,
stereotyping occurs. The potential for unconscious bias in personnel selections for projects and
promotions can contribute to stress and the loss of valuable qualified employees.
Although current societal attitudes continue to identify men with technology, the growing area of
computers and technology has certainly lured women away from traditional roles and career
paths. Once in the field of IT, however, the women may not find the male culture of technology
as attractive. In 1971, the female proportion of computer systems analysts and other specialists
was only 9%. By 1990, this figure had jumped to 35%. But in 1993, a decline was noted in the
proportion of females to 30% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). In 1993, the National Science
Foundation reported 255,000 women in the computer field; this figure decreased to 240,900 in
1995. A similar trend was found in the female share of computer and information science
bachelors’ degrees. The female portion was 14% in 1971, increased to 37% in 1984, but declined
to 28% in 1993.
The number of women versus men in IT managerial positions is also unbalanced. Information
Week provided a list of the 500 leading IT users in 1996. Women held the highest-ranking IT
positions at about 7% of these organizations. Another indication of the scarceness of females in
high ranking IT positions is the composition of membership in the Society for Information
Management (SIM). This society is an organization of senior male and female IT executives. Of
SIM’s 2,700 members, only 195 were women (Wilde, 1997). The U.S. is not alone in its shortage
of IT skills and decline in representation of women in this field. A study of the status of women
in the IT industry in the United Kingdom suggests that even though the IT industry does not
exclude women, it does little to promote them or to retain them. Trends such as these have raised
questions and prompted gender research in the IT arena.
Although the environment can have a positive or negative impact on all IT workers, there is
reason to believe that females in the field more often leave the organization due to their negative
experiences sometimes driven by the culture. In a study of women entering and exiting computer
related occupations, Wright noted that women leave computer work more than men when
controlling for differences in background, education, experience, specialty, and industry. In
general, women can more easily enter IT fields and acquire salaries close to that of their male
counterparts. However, pressures exerted by the culture found in these occupations results in
them leaving the industry.
Although aspects of culture are often referred to when describing the work environment and
explaining behavior, there frequently lacks a clear distinction between organizational culture and
climate. For some, there is no distinction and the terms are used interchangeably. For this article,
we use explanations proposed by Svyantek and Bott (2002) that define organizational culture as
a set of shared values and norms held by employees. These values and norms guide interactions
with peers, management, and clients. Organizational climate, on the other hand, represents
employees’ perceptions of organizational policies, practices and procedures that support
creativity, innovation, safety or service. Climate might be considered a manifestation of culture
(Schein, 1985, Schneider, 1990). Thus, the purpose of our article is to first identify
characteristics of culture and climate that influence job satisfaction and intentions to leave of
women in IT. We then consider the moderating effect that traditional and non-traditional gender
schemas may have on the relationships just described (Figure 1). Finally, we offer propositions
and suggestions for future research in this area.

Women's perceptions of organizational culture,

work attitude and role
modeling behaviors:

According to the National Centre for Education Statistics, women in America currently
occupy more than half the seats in the nation's college classrooms and earn more than
half the MBAs (Gerald and Hussar, 2002). They comprise half the U.S. workforce and
their numbers in traditionally male- dominated.

Environments (such as manufacturing) are steadily growing. Yet they

continue to be significantly underrepresented in the executive ranks of nearly every
industry and enterprise in the nation. Only about ten percent of the senior
managers in Fortune 500 companies are women, with less than four percent holding
the "C-level" titles of CEO, CFO, and CO0. Among top corporate earners, women
number less than three percent. Overall, women continue to earn less than males. Even
after correcting for theories explaining these gaps--that women neglect to build their
"human capital," that married women sacrifice their careers for their spouses', that
women choose the "mommy track"--the fact remains, men still achieve greater extrinsic
career success than women. What these researchers conclude is that organizations
may create a climate in which subtle forms of discrimination still exist.
Various speculations exist for why this might be. For example, in a recent survey of men
and women executives from Fortune 1000 companies, more than 46 percent cited
stereotypes about women's roles and abilities, a lack of role models, a lack of
mentoring, and an inhospitable corporate culture as explanations career advancement
inequity between men and women (Wellington et al., 2003). These factors appear to
create a condition we call the opportunity gap: the phenomenon that bars women from
advancing in their careers at the same rate as men.

For women to advance, it is important for those few women at higher

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES AND WORK ATTITUDES

The survey of 1,000 corporate executives by Wellington et al. (2003) also revealed that
inhospitable organizational cultures contribute to the opportunity gap between men and
women in corporate America. Organizational culture represents the values, norms, and
beliefs internalized by organizational members that shape the behaviors and attitudes
that are rewarded (Schein, 1992). We suggest that an "inhospitable" culture is linked to
the lack of role models and mentoring available to women indirectly through women's
career satisfaction and organizational commitment. Because there are many common
typologies and dimensions of organizational culture (a thorough review is beyond the
scope of this study), we focused on two cultural dimensions that reflect our theoretical
interest in examining the degree to which the organization equally values men and
women (i.e., is more hospitable towards women): masculine and collectivistic.
Masculine Culture

The masculine organizational culture dimension reflects the more traditional workplace--
one created, maintained, and controlled by males since its inception. Masculinity
captures the extent to which the organization values men more than women. It is
associated with more stereotypical male traits, such as independence, internal
competition, self-promotion, overt ambitiousness, decisiveness, aggressiveness, and
the establishment of status and authority. This "code of conduct" in masculine cultures,
while recognizable to males, can be completely alien to females and thus would be
considered less hospitable towards women's careers. For example, an "old-boy
network" excludes women from centres of influence and valuable sources of
information, often trivializing or ignoring their contributions (Mann, 1995). Even women
in senior roles in large corporations find themselves "on the outside looking in" when it
comes to information sharing and access to the inner circle, where decisions are made
(Delany, 2003). Women characterize such a culture as exclusionary and claim that
upper management often lacks awareness of the barriers it creates to women's
assimilation and advancement.

While women can and do function in masculine cultures, it is not without a cost. Those
who attempt to adopt male behaviours generally have not found it to lead to career
success, nor did their experience help create a more hospitable setting for future
generations of women. Women come to the workplace believing that they have equal
opportunity with males with similar credentials. When they do not achieve at the same
pace as their male counterparts, they become confused, believing they have done
everything necessary to succeed (Singh et al., 2002).

Some women attempt to emulate the male behaviors in the belief that it is necessary for
career advancement, yet this may leave them feeling untrue to their own identity.
Others, frustrated with barriers to advancement, leave to build their own business.
These feelings that they cannot be themselves and there are too many barriers for
advancement may lead to women being less committed to the organization and less
satisfied with their careers. Many other women reasonably conclude that they do not
"fit" into their organizations; yet seeing little if any alternative, they opt to stay. Person-
organization fit--that is, the compatibility between an individual's values and the
organization's values--is critical to retaining committed employees (Chatman, 1991) and
has been related to career satisfaction.

Hypothesis 3: Women's perceptions of a masculine organizational culture will be

negatively related to (a) career satisfaction and (b) organizational commitment.

ROLE-MODELING BEHAVIORS AND WORK ATTITUDES

Studies have identified mentoring and organizational citizenship behaviours as
important workplace behaviors associated with career advancement. Vincent and
Seymour (1995) found that mentors' careers are enhanced because protégés offer work
assistance and serve as sounding boards for ideas. In fact, 97 percent of mentors
reported that being a mentor helped their own careers. Likewise, research on
organizational citizenship (OCB), such as promoting the organization and helping co-
workers improve work-group functioning, found that organizations reward OCB in terms
of salary and promotion and overall performance evaluations. noted that mentoring and
OCB are conceptually similar in that both represent extra-role behaviours not mandated
by organizational roles but are nonetheless rewarded by organizations. Yet these are
distinct constructs in that mentoring involves more depth and focuses on behaviors
intended to develop junior colleagues, whereas organizational citizenship focuses on
specific behaviors directed toward individuals that benefit the work group or
organization as a whole.

Mentoring Behaviors
Mentoring is a developmental relationship that occurs between senior and junior
colleagues. Mentors provide both career and psychosocial development). Career
mentoring includes sponsorship, exposure and visibility, coaching, protection, and
providing challenging assignments. Psychosocial mentoring includes role-modelling,
acceptance and confirmation, counseling, and friendship. The majority of research on
mentoring has focused on how the protégé benefits from receipt of mentoring in terms
of career advancement and work satisfaction. Research has also examined gender
differences in receiving and benefiting from mentoring and concluded that both men and
women equally receive mentoring but some career outcomes associated with mentoring
depend on the gender composition of the dyad. While less studied, research has
examined the benefits of being a mentor.
References And Bibliographies:
www.zeroriskhr.com

www.hrsurveys.com

Text: management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Magazine 4Ps (Dec 2008)