Does distance matter? A study of married Indian women professionals staying away from families to pursue higher studies

PurposeDrawing from the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) theory, this paper aims to identify unique job demands, job resources and personal resources in the context of Indian women flexpatriates (IWFs) and understand how they manage to perform in their short-term international assignments (SIAs).Design/methodology/approachThis study takes a qualitative approach by conducting in-depth interviews of 15 IWFs.FindingsThematic analysis reveals dual-role workload, emotional demands and diluted importance of the assignments as job demands; opportunity for professional growth, social support and combination of work and leisure as job resources, and building up of self-esteem and self-efficacy as personal resources. Also, the unique Indian family structure, Indian women's desire to have “me-time” and zeal to strengthen their identity emerge as differentiating factors for IWFs that enhance their performance.Practical implicationsIWFs are enthusiastic to take up SIAs as it gives them opportunity to enhance their career and strengthen their identity. In addition to their willingness to travel, advance planning of SIAs and profiling of women based on marital status, family type and children can be done for selection.Social implicationsDespite hailing from paternalistic and male-dominating society and facing familial challenges, IWFs find SIAs liberating, which gives them an opportunity to spend some “me-time,” strengthen their identity and enhance their professional growth.Originality/valueThis is the first qualitative study contextualizing flexpatriation with gender and region by studying Indian women professionals.

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Factors effecting career advancement of Indian women managers

South Asian Journal of Business Studies ◽

10.1108/sajbs-07-2016-0062 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 6 (3) ◽

pp. 314-336 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Sumita Datta ◽

Upasna A. Agarwal

Keyword(s):

Women Professionals ◽

Women Managers ◽

Career Advancement ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Small Sample ◽

Social Psychological ◽

Women Leadership ◽

Indian Women ◽

Content Type ◽

Leadership Pipeline

Purpose Reasons that have an effect on the continuity and career progression of women in corporate India are complex. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that have an effect on the women leadership pipeline of Indian organizations. Design/methodology/approach The present study adopted a qualitative research methodology within a dyadic framework by including women managers and their respective supervisors in the study. Findings Thematic analyses of the qualitative study conducted on Indian women managers as well as their supervisor revealed rich insights into the antecedent social-psychological factors of a women leadership pipeline that can be summarized under three broad categories, namely, intra-personal, interpersonal and organizational. Research limitations/implications The limitations are the small sample size and the qualitative nature of this study. An important implication is that the results of this study can be used for cross-cultural comparisons because most studies that have focused on the effect of gender on career advancement have used western conceptualizations and measures. Practical implications The findings of this research suggest designing organizational interventions that can help women professionals in navigating the complex social environment in order to create their own leadership identities supported through a high-quality leader-member exchange. Social implications The study takes an important step toward developing a better understanding of the factors affecting the career advancement of women managers by contextualizing the way women professionals perceive their career identity and the meaning they imbue to career advancement. The findings of this study can aid policy makers toward arresting the leaking women leadership pipeline. Originality/value The study contributes by exploring several social-psychological dimensions of objective-subjective career success perceptions and their interplay among women managers drawn from three organizations in India.

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Indian Women at Workplace: Coping with “Role boundedness” through “Hardiness”

International Journal of Business and Management Research ◽

10.37391/ijbmr.090211 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 201-206

Author(s):

Dr. Pallabi Mund

Keyword(s):

Women Professionals ◽

Stressful Life Events ◽

Research Work ◽

Working Hours ◽

Protective Mechanism ◽

Indian Women ◽

Role Stressors ◽

Roles And Responsibilities ◽

Descriptive Research ◽

Work Style

Stress has become a matter of concern in the present post-globalization world which has brought in enormous changes in the ways organizations work, the professionals’ work-style and pattern, extended working hours, meeting deadlines, added roles and responsibilities, role overload and ambiguities; and cultural and technological changes. Researchers have demonstrated a gender variation with respect to coping with role stressors or stressful life events. Golpelwar [1] finds that Indian women professionals suffer from a role stress typically termed as “Role boundedness”, a result of wanting “to be everything for everybody”. The present descriptive research work, probably one of the first on the issue, highlights the importance of “hardiness” - a stress resilient personality disposition [2] - in coping with “role boundedness” and shows a relationship between role boundedness and hardiness in women professionals indicative of the protective mechanism of hardiness in coping with role boundedness.

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