Beyond Glass Ceilings and Brick Walls - International Labour ...

views about women’s capabilities in management. Dispensing of these biases
are necessary to develop a more conducive and productive organizational culture.
Unfortunately organizations have not adopted this approach.
VI. Women in management: The Case Studies
A selected number of companies were studied to develop profiles of the
gendered aspects of management. A set of questions guided the interviews
based on issues that were identified earlier. (Annex A).
Constructing the reality of the structures, functioning and dynamics of an
organization requires adoption of a triangulation approach in research. A
valid approach will require adopting several methods. Each method has merits
as well as limitations. Each may complement the other. Such a triangulation in
approach includes observations, interviews of representative samples of people
from all strata of the organization, perusal of documents on policy and procedural
matters, annual reports, minutes of meetings, and review of investment and
expenditure patters. Further, the appropriateness of each method needs to be
validated before adoption. Due to the time limitation, we adopted a single
approach. This included interviewing a few persons, usually two, to get an
insight into the organization. What are reported are the views expressed by
those interviewed and the inferred status based on the interviews and the
observations that took place during the visits to the organizations.
Inferences drawn from the case studies
Ten companies were selected for in-depth case studies. These were visited in
addition to the others surveyed. The CEO and/or other senior persons in
management were interviewed.
The additional interviews included women in senior management posts and if
available, the person in charge of human resource development, to get a clearer
understanding of the dynamics within the organization in relation to women in
senior management positions. It was an exercise in mapping the organizational
culture, the attitudes, opinions, decision-making processes and the situation
that women face in their day-to-day work environment. A qualitative approach
was adopted to understand the dynamics and organizational culture, to identify
the issues and draw inferences on what needs to be done to bring about gender
equity and equality and fairness at the workplace for women managers. The
purpose was to understand general situations and trends and not to undertake
individual organizational analysis. In order to identify a broad spectrum of issues
different types of businesses were chosen to capture common issues that could
be focused on in developing the gender policy guide, which was the final goal
of this book.
The types of companies selected for the case studies on women in
management:
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