FACTORS AFFECTING WOMEN EMPLOYEES ENGAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE IN INDIAN IT INDUSTRY

Abstract

The thesis intends to identify the factors influencing women employees’ engagement and performance in the IT sector in India. Glass ceiling or biases in organizational policies and supervisor behaviors have reduced the engagement and performance of women employees. Factors named as intervention or enablers, which help in improving women employees’ engagement and performance are: strategic leadership, internal corporate communication, work life balance, career planning and development, and mentoring. Employee engagement is proposed to be the mediating variable, which helps in improving performance of women employees, as it increases their physical, emotional, and cognitive behaviour. Methodology: Systematic review of extant literature has been carried out to identify the constructs and selected variables. These constructs are: female employee talent, glass ceiling (Organizational bias), glass ceiling (Supervisor bias), female employee engagement, female employee performance, strategic leadership, internal corporate communication, work life balance, career planning and development, and mentoring. Top three companies of IT sector have been identified based on their continuous performance in the National Stock Exchange and their higher recruitment of women employees as per NASSCOM report 2014. Further, selection of offices are based on maximum location or offices in the seven IT hubs of India. Sample has been selected from 309 entry level women executive, who have spent less than 5 years in the organization. Their responses have been collected on self-designed questionnaire measured with the help of systematic review of literature Analysis: SPSS and Amos 21 version of the software have been used to analyse results. After preliminary testing of normality, multidimensional constructs or measurement models were tested for reliability and validity using structural equation modeling (SEM) method. Further the structural path of hypothesized between the constructs, which resulted in a complex, mediated moderation model, haven been tested using Latent Variable Structural Equation Modeling (LVSEM). The Hypothesis H1, H2, H3, and H7 have been accepted and rest of the proposed hypothesis have been refuted. Results: The final model included constructs female employee talent, glass ceiling, career planning and development, employee engagement, and performance. iv Managerial Implications: Career planning and development acts as a moderating variable, which improve women employees’ engagement, and performance. Young female executives are experienced and they need guidance and support, and knowledge transfer from senior employees. Their confidence and self esteem grows, if they see supportive policies for career growth and learning opportunities in term of developmental training. Thus, career planning and development increases women employees’ engagement and performance. Future scope  In-depth analysis of variables identified in the present study can be carried out to understand individual effect of each variable on employee engagement and performance.  Future studies can identify relationship between female employee engagement and intention to stay. This will help top management to identify factors to develop engage and retain female employee talent. Limitations:  The present study have been adopted LVSEM method to analyse hypothesized relations using AMOS 21 software package. In future PLS modelling and PROCESS Macro software can be adopted.  The responses have been taken from entry level women executives only in the present study.