Women from Diverse Backgrounds in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Professions

The strength of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) talent pool is a key factor for boosting innovation. This pipeline has been weakened substantially as emerging groups of STEMs, particularly White and minority women, have failed to enter STEM professions at the same rates as White males. Moreover, once women from diverse backgrounds overcome significant hurdles during the educational process, they depart the STEM workplace at alarmingly high rates. Some of the reasons for this phenomenon are discussed in this chapter, along with some solutions about how to decrease these departures. Additionally, ways to focus on the future needs of the changing demographics of the STEM workforce are reviewed. Ultimately, the goal is to offset STEM shortages in intellectual capital and mitigate brain drain and brain migration circumstances so that the U.S. can fully leverage the contributions of high-ability women from diverse groups, eventually benefitting innovation strategies.

Gender Differences in Motivations to Use Social Networking Sites

This chapter investigates gender differences in motivations to use social networking sites (SNS), a subset of social media. The present research focuses on Facebook given its prominence among currently available SNS. Analysing a survey of university students in Australia, the results indicate that female consumers are more likely than male consumers to use Facebook to seek information (to research and learn new things and to discuss products and brands) and for convenience (to obtain things with little effort). Both of these reasons in turn relate positively to their degree of engagement on Facebook, where engagement is operationalized as cognitive absorption which is a state of deep involvement with an activity.

Triple A Leadership Dynamics of a Self-Empowering Women Group

From the Triple A Leadership model, this chapter shares a story of four women who gained economic empowerment through a bakery project whose success can be attributed to the application of the three tenets of this model, namely; accountable, attitude and approach. The first A denotes that ‘Accountability' is an indispensable aspect of leadership while ‘Attitude' is the other basic element. The theory further highlights that ‘approach' is fundamental to good leadership. The four women displayed self-reinforcing attitude that gave rise to increased interest in the project resulting in self- empowerment. It is clear that when people' personalities display leadership skills such as awareness of individual differences, responsibility, conflict resolution, tensions can be avoided as was the case with women who owned the bakery. In reality different situations call for different leadership styles, different actions, different strategies and this case illustrates that Triple A leadership was the appropriate approach.

Women in Global Professional Services Firms

Professional services firms (PSFs) have traditionally relied on professional partnerships as an organizational principle. This system was developed more than a century ago, when women did not actively pursue careers in professional services. Professional partnerships are very resistant to change and have managed to preserve their main features for decades. Their formal and informal practices still have exclusionary effects on female professionals. However, professional services firms are increasingly facing a deregulated, competitive, and very dynamic environment and are pressured by the labor market and client firms to rethink their stance on gender diversity. This chapter presents an overview of the management practices in professional services firms and outlines the major changes in their environment. Recent trends in changing management practices in the professional services sector and their impact on female professionals are analyzed. Implications for theory building and future research on management practices in professional service firms are discussed.

Gender and Other Factors That Influence Tourism Preferences

The consumption process of travel decision making, is influenced by a number of factors and a substantial body of decision making literature in the form of the broader ‘models of consumer behaviour' has been adapted to attempt to describe this process. Existing ‘foundation models' present variables such as personal characteristics and attitudes as factors that affect the vacation decision making process, but fail to discuss the extent to which gender and technology preferences influence decisions and destination choice. Economic models are based on utility theory as a decision making framework, however, they do not allow for the other consumer oriented variables. Current models (economic or otherwise) focus on individuals and their decision making process without a combined consideration of information search and technology gendered preferences and the impact they have on choosing a destination for a vacation.

Gender and Water

This chapter examines the welfare implication of wage revisions for two Indian unorganized sector female workers with opposite preference patterns for income and leisure in drought-prone zone. The female workers here face a gender-based wage gap and the inconveniences caused by water shortage adversely affect their effective incomes since females are the major users of water in the family. This chapter also makes a couple of recommendations for policymakers and legislators. It experiments with alternative utility functions in neoclassical microeconomic behavioural model framework.

Engaging Men in Women's Economic Empowerment in Butiama District, Mara Region, Tanzania

The chapter addresses women's income poverty using men as active participants in empowering women economically. Butiama district was used as a study area, using 120 women and their husbands who were beneficiaries of the programme dealing with loan provision. As an outcome of the study, men had little participation in women's economic activities, hence, women's economic empowerment was at medium level. Unlike men, women's income was used for fulfilling basic needs of the family, therefore, had little impact on their economic empowerment. By conclusion, men as decision makers have high impact on women's economic empowerment. It is recommended that, awareness creation among men would enhance their participation in empowering women. Improvement of women's access to and control over production resources would improve their income. It is recommended that lobbying and advocacy approaches should be applied to enable women's control over the production resources.

Role of ICT in Socio-Economic Development in Kenya

The growth of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has empowered communities in diverse ways. Both males and females use ICTs to transact businesses and carry on relationships. Access and use of mobile phones have changed people's lives. This chapter discusses the magical revolution of mobile telephony in Africa and specifically in Kenya. Innovations such as MPESA have transformed people's lives in Kenya and in other emerging economies. Both males and females have used the innovations to bring about development that has enriched their lives. Secondly, the role of gender socialization is discussed in relation to how the ICTs have eliminated the long-held belief that females are not participants in societal development. Thirdly, the role of the media in development is examined because they socialize people into the gender roles. Through mobile telephones, females perform diverse roles. Positive portrayal of men and women in development acknowledges that men and women must be active members of the process.

Diversity in the Workplace

The ‘diversity in the workforce' chapter looks at the current status of gender diversity in the workplace and describes initiatives that are commonly designed and implemented by organizations for their female workforce and their senior leaders in pursuit of gender parity. It is emphasized that one or two interventions in isolation will not guarantee gender parity but that a combination of interventions is necessary, depending on the size and complexity of the organization. Furthermore, it is underlined that if these interventions are perceived as attractive by senior leaders then the senior leaders should be encouraged to invest time and resources in pursuing them. It will raise their commitment to become diversity champions, which is key for sustainable change. Examples from finance and professional service firms illustrate how some of the described interventions are used to enhance diversity.

Enhancing Women's Economic Empowerment Through Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia

This chapter aims, first, to explore the state of the art of women's economic empowerment as a challenging research inquiry that needs a real investigation and to explore the different mechanisms of entrepreneurship development for women. It presents, then, the evidence of how Saudi women are economically empowered and how their potential is unleashed and sparked through entrepreneurship mechanisms. This chapter is based on a literature review on women's economic empowerment and entrepreneurship and a desk research involving the collection and analysis of already available information in the country. It introduces a needed ecosystem for Saudi women's economic empowerment and highlights some main empirical evidence from selected initiatives. Moreover, the recommendation that this chapter advances would be helpful to the practitioners, researchers, planners, and policymakers who are involved in the concerned area. Further, it tries to contribute to the literature of economic empowering of women through entrepreneurship in an emerging economy.