Alleviation: An International Journal of Nutrition, Gender & Social Development, ISSN 2348-9340
Volume 3, Number 3 (2016) : 32-36
©Arya PG College, Panipat & Business Press India Publication, Delhi
www.aryapgcollege.com, www.apcjournals.com

Corporate World and the Position of Women: A Sociological Perspective

Sandeep Kaur
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Sri Guru Teg Bahadar College, Sathiala
(Punjab), India
Email: kaursandeep1810@gmail.com

Introduction

The thought of writing about women in business sector and their status in it, has not arisen only due to the perception that they are less in number in this field, rather from the fact that despite overall magnificent capacities, they are still at the ignorant considerations in this male dominating world and the best possible hurdles are always imposed against them. Such situation doesn’t only happen in the developing countries but similar is the condition even in the countries which are perceived highly developed and diverse.
During the past decade, the environment for Multinational Corporations (MNCs) has changed a lot as they have to face various challenges to maintain their functioning. And, accepting women at the main front has always remained as one of the great qualms for such firms. Due to various social hurdles, women had to face barriers to clinch the top positions in corporate houses, but still with the passage of time, they have proved all such myths wrong and could make a successful room of their excellence for the betterment of the organizations.
Fictions Prevalent for Women in Business Firms
• Women switch jobs more frequently than men.
• Women have low Emotional Quotient (EQ), so they are less able to cop up with critical situations.
• Women are not close-mouthed, so they cannot be trusted in handling confidential matters.
• Women are not interested in touring for the organization.
• Women are fragile and lack managerial skills.
• Women cannot deal with official tasks with their feminine traits.
• Women feel more secure with the less challenging jobs, thus, they are not willing to get placed at refined positions as these involve more risk and danger.
• Women are introvert at social front, so they fear the exposure which highly skilled jobs involve in the giant firms.
• Women are complex in nature, so they complicate the matters worse.
• Women are indecisive. They inevitably take long time for decision making.
Despite the above, women have struggled against all the odds and even few women could make it to the refined positions in labor market. But still, majority of the female population needed to be determined and confident to overcome the obstacles which male dominating society has posed in the economic world. In order to shut the sluggish state in the society, they need to build an approach which is more career oriented.
Unequal Worlds Though women have been paddling through the situations to establish their existence at the top level in market sector but still they are not considered equal to men. Not only in the economic field itself, rather, do they not even find their world equal to men in other parts of life also. Be it their domestic front, personal choices for life or any other aspect, they usually have to look at the male members of their family. This happens so, as we are deeply drenched into the typical patriarchal social system.
Due to such social system only, it is bit difficult for women to elevate themselves in the socio-economic life. It is very problematic for them to balance their work-life. They are majorly shouldered with domestic liabilities such as household chores and raring children. Thus, they always have to prioritize their family-life over work-life. It is true that equal opportunities are denied to female employees in many clear or hideous ways on daily basis due to many factors viz: refusal to hire women who are soon to get married, refusal to hire those who might become pregnant, and firing unmarried pregnant females, relieving a pregnant women as she requires long leave to cater her pregnancy and post- pregnancy period and others.
However, such inequality can be combated by an employer, who is desirous of providing equal opportunities for female employees by following some practices, such as:
• Veiling off sex labels from all jobs.
• Framing policies for better treatment of female workers in the organization.
• Opening all job spheres for even women also.
• Paving a clear way for their development and progress in the firm.
• Providing more flexibility in work times through flexitime, sharing jobs, entertaining genuine leaves and letting them working at home etc. (Flippo 1984).
Job Satisfaction and Career Growth
Defining job satisfaction specifically is a vague idea. It is a positive approach towards individual’s work. It is more about his likings, about his work than his disliking, thus, highlighting his general attitude towards his job. Traditionally, the employment of women has always been undermined. But, with the passage of time, with the advancement in industrialization and urbanization, such attitude has been changing. Ritually, a woman is expected to fulfill her family expectations at first and to keep her job orientations at the secondary level. Therefore, besides the organizational and personal factors, family situation of a female worker also plays a great role in her career growth and consequent job satisfaction.
Another, attitude and behavior of the management also decide the level of work contentment. It is to say that, how the management of a company deals with his female workers; as if they provide enough room to their genuine requirements or not. Engagement of women in the organizations does not comprehend forwarding a favor to them, rather, such efforts bring them growth and sustainability (Sengupta 2013). For the betterment of the economy of any nation, women act as a wonderful resource. Constructing a positive effort for growth in women’s career and their job satisfaction, women resource can be valued by considering following factors:
• Equal work, equal pay.
• Women leadership development.
• Supportive family policies:
o Pregnancy care leave
o Post-pregnancy leave
o Day-care (Crèches)
• Anti-sexual harassment policy.
• Physical security of women.
• Networking, counselling, and mentoring.
Wage Discrimination
Wide range of pay disparities still exist in many firms between male and female workers. Studies from the globe found that irrespective of sector or geographic regions, the female workers are getting lesser wages than their male counterparts.
Glass Ceiling: Gender Stereotyping
The research indicates that women who work in the male-dominated professions must attempt to fit in the male culture to avoid being treated as outcastes (Bradley 1989). Many women in business have attempted to do exactly this. They have dressed in acceptable versions of power suits and have behaved as their male counterparts do, carefully avoiding being overtly feminine. They do this, in part, because the defining behavioral characteristics of the majority, typically affect the evaluation of behaviors of minority members of the organization (Reskin, McBrier & Kmec 1999). Unfortunately, in the business organizations, female minority population tends to be stereotyped with negative features. Their talent and excellence tend to be ignored under the shadow of preconceived myths that are rooted in the social beliefs about women. Simply stated, stereotypes can be a very powerful influence on one’s career and certainly are one of the factors that have contributed to remove the glass ceiling (Meyerson & Fletcher 2000).
Glass Ceiling refers to discriminatory practices that have prevented women from advancing to executive-level jobs. Though women are making progress in getting senior level, managerial, and professional jobs, nevertheless, they hold only a small percentage of the higher ranking jobs in big ventures (Mathis, Jackson & Tripathy 2012). It is an invisible barrier that separates women from top management positions. The prevailing attitudes and stereotypes are invisible obstacles to their advancement (Daft 2012). Such obstacles that impede the vertical growth of women only in certain fields have been referred to as glass walls or glass elevators. These limitations are seen as being tied to organizational, cultural and leadership issues (Mathis, Jackson & Tripathy 2012).
While conducting a survey by Wall Street Journal in collaboration with Gallup website, women managers were asked about the obstacles in their business career. Only 3 per cent cited “family responsibilities”, but the most frequent response was simply “being a woman” and out of which 60 per cent faced the signs of racism. Including to this, more than 80 per cent of the executive women in the survey believed that there are disadvantages to “being a woman in the business sector”. Apart from these societal barriers, some women may find it hard to obtain the education and training required to advance into the management positions, corporate cultures and climate. Moreover, lack of opportunities for career advancement, mentoring, management training and biased rating and testing system, lack of support from upper management to address and eliminate gender issues are some reasons acting as pillars to glass ceiling, narrowing the percentage of women in senior positions and widening gender gap (www.wsj.com).
Sexual Harassment and Physical Insecurity: Unprofessionalism Comes to the Closet
Sexual harassment refers to the actions that are sexually directed, are unwanted and subject the worker to adverse employment conditions. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has defined two basic types of sexual harassment as follows (www.eeoc.gov):

Quid Pro Quo

In this employment, outcomes are linked to the individual granting sexual favours.

Hostile Work Environment

In this, intimidating or offensive work conditions affect the individual’s work performance or psychological well-being (Cascio 1995). As digital media has made its strong foothold in every field, so is the number of electronic sexual harassment cases has grown. It is widely occurring via e-mails and internet access system. Cyber sexual harassment may happen when an employee or some managerial authority forwards an e-mail joke with sexual content with other employees. In cyber stalking, a person continuously sends e-mails to a female employee requesting dates.
This practice is very rampant at workplaces. Only few cases are reported and majority of such cases go unreported because of social taboo, shame and lengthy procedures of courts. It is generally felt that our judiciary lacks the capacity to deal with such cases effectively and on time. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Bill was proposed by National Commission for Women (NCW) in India in the year 2006.

Workplace Stress and Its Management

In a survey conducted by Kenexa Research Institute, an HR advisory firm based in the US, 56 per cent women surveyed said their stress level was reasonable, while 26 per cent felt they were under unreasonable stress (www.amwa-doc.org). Across roles, more women experienced unreasonable amount of stress as compared to males. For instance, it was found in survey of 19 countries, including India, while doing front-line supervisory jobs, women experienced 10 per cent additional stress than their males who did the same functions. Women felt 8 per cent additional stress in service and production related jobs. At middle and upper manager level, the stress levels were up by 6 per cent as compared to men (www.medicaknewstoday.com). Adding to this, it is not surprising that allegations of stereotyping frequently contain allegations of sexual harassment as well. This definitely frames a fertile ground for stress for women at workplace. Many women often believe that they must tolerate stereotypes to fit in. And, many a times, a woman may fail to stand against the discrimination happening to her just because she doesn’t want to be labeled as a trouble-maker and imagine the corrected situation could be worse for her career than her existing condition; thus, suffers traumatic state under the same stereotypes.
Strategies to Combat the Stressful Situations at Workplace
• Firstly, organization can bring awareness to abandon usage of stereotypes among its employees through education in terms of academic lectures.
• Secondly, it is appreciable for managers to lead by example. Authorities at managerial posts should take onus to accommodate female employees positively, so that a constructive environment could be established at the workplace.
• Thirdly, firms should use objective performance evaluation criteria. The more subjective the criteria, the more likely stereotypes impact the evaluation of women candidate for progress.
• Fourthly, company should take appropriate actions when it receives some complaint against any discrimination or harassment faced by female employees.
• Lastly, business firms should promote the recruitment of women candidate. This would act as a supportive measure for adding majority of women population, providing social and psychological security to women at workplace and another contribution in the economic gains would be added up by including more women population into the labor market

Pragmatic Share of Women in Business Sector

Traditionally, women have always received a minority like treatment in the labor market. But recently, this unacceptable condition has been changing for the better. Since long time, women were engaged only in domestic chores, or if to say about their economic participation, they were little involved in the chores on the farms, as that required more labor. But talking about the current phase, the traditional and limited role of women in the economic life of our nation has been altering rapidly in the recent decades. Over the past 30 years, women have raised their level of expectations and aspirations sharply higher. This resulted only through their socio-political and economic betterment. Women empowered themselves by managing their fronts, family and profession well.

Following are the prominent reasons, providing a thick base for the better position of women in corporate sector:

Changes in the Family System

Families have started accepting their female members as professional members. Moreover, with change in family system; from joint to nuclear and even further to the evolvement of single-parent families, women have become the providers to their families. So to cater their business passion and to manage family expanses, they have become far active in the labor market than ever.

Changes in Education

Majority of women have been attending college and receiving degrees in high education since last three decades. Thus, resulting in bringing awareness to use their knowledge to earn money.

Changes in Technology

Technological advancement at both places i.e. home (Frozen/ready-to-eat foods and machines for household chores) and workplace (Reduction of manual labor due to computers and other machines) have resulted in greater participation of women in the economic sector.

Changes in the Economy

Females being industrious in nature and constituting the 50 per cent of the society’s population are considered as the important resource for the economic growth of any nation. Thus, including them into the mainstream is not a favor to them; rather, that’s a favor to the economy itself.

Moreover, authentic leaders, who are connected to the managerial posts, are also hallmarks of interactive leadership, which has been found to be associated with female leaders. Although, both male and females can practice such leadership well, but women’s such style of leadership is typically different from most men’s and is particularly suited to today’s organizational pattern. One study found that when rated by peers, subordinates and bosses; female managers scored significantly higher than men on abilities such as motivating others, fostering communication, and listening to their employees (Daft 2012). Another study found that they were rated higher even on social and emotional skills, which are crucial for interactive leadership. At present, women are accelerating in number at the top level managerial positions. And the time will come when women will outnumber the men at top-notch posts in the near future. Companies with a higher percentage of female senior officers such as PepsiCo, which is led by CEO Indra Nooyi, an Indian born, and Xerox, headed by CEO Ursula Burns, have programmes that help women prepare for these powerful senior jobs. The number of women at senior levels has shown good increase in many organizations including Infosys (Varsha 2012)) and Shell India (Bhaskar & Vasudevan 2012). My Advika Plan (MAP) of Broadridge India to develop leadership qualities of women in the age group of 28–30 years was particularly useful for women who did not have co-education or cosmopolitan background (Kaul 2012). Percentage of women in the workforce, percentage of women promoted from the eligible pool and the rejoining rate after maternity leave, all have increased at Infosys (Varsha 2012) and other organizations. In TCS, the percentage of women in workforce has been steadily increasing: 24 per cent in 2006–07, 27.8 per cent in 2007–08, 30.1 per cent in 2008–09 and 30.4 per cent in 2009–10 (TCS Annual Report 2010). Average performance ratings of women at Broadridge India improved after MAP (Kaul 2012). The participation of men and women employees in the programme improved with time, thus indicating the acceptability and success of gender inclusivity initiatives. These initiatives provide various forums and platforms to women employees to improve their formal and informal networks.

Conclusions

Quintessentially, it is better to say that the aspiring women must be especially competent and well-educated. If a woman is both of these things, she should not have to wait for that “lucky break” to get ahead. Aggressiveness and self- confidence are just as crucial for the aspiring women as they are for the aspiring men. Successful women have found it to be essential for women to think highly of their own potential and avoid feelings of inferiority when competing with men. There are still many stereotypes and prejudices to overcome in this male-dominating sector. Women need to learn new behavior for dealing with interpersonal conflicts and to develop leadership and team-building skills. The assumptions for the women growth are generally lying in the socialization pattern of our society. Women deal with fear of success since beginning of their childhood as their families tend to be conventional in raising them. Men have been prepared for leadership roles early in the life, learning how to work with others as early as their first little league game. In early work experiences, men have learned the informal rules of behavior. But, on the other hand, women are brought up to be unsure of their futures. Most women have not developed a long-term strategy concerning their careers. With the situation changing in terms of their childhood experiences in team and individual sports and with parents who encourage their daughters to think in terms of their future in business, women are becoming better prepared for a place in the executive suite. Hence, there is a need to instill the optimism and productive thought structure into the socialization process, so that women with better and bright future can be raised to develop the economy at a faster rate.

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