[ CHAPTER - HI I

[ M I!:THODOLOGY I

Trends and Notable GIDS;-

Above studies based on investigated variables show the following trends and

notable gaps of studies. The review of literature of all the above cited variables exhibit

that extensive work bas been done in the area of glass ceiling in relation to wage and

salary structure in the corporate world, gender dilemmas of the work life balanced

women manager training modules, cross-cultural differences etc. but there is a dearth of

empirical evidence of glass ceiling in relation to psychological measures, i.e. self-esteem,

organizational commitment etc. Though the review really highlights that the constructs of

organizational commitment and advancement have been widely studied empirically in

relation to occupational stress, job satisfaction, morale etc. But major evidence is

available in relation to glass ceiling as an independent variable. Moreover, women are

upcoming and effectively dominating in every field from home to various kinds of work

set-up. But in spite of showing remarkable achievements and excellence in various fields,

they are suffering from gender discrimination. Whenever it is a myth or their false

perception or the ground reality of an traditional patrlarchical society, is a big question

mark and needs to be pondered over. After identifying these trends and notable gaps and

inclination of mind, the present problem was framed to make a comparative analysis of

glass ceiling perceivers and non-perceivers along with the role of glass ceiling in relation

of organizational commitment, self-esteem, adjustment and well-being. Following

hypotheses were formulated and tested in the present research: -

I. There would be significant difference in the normative, affective and continuance

commitment of high glass ceiling perceivers and low glass ceiling perceivers.

2. There would be significant difference in the emotional & occupational adjustment

of high glass ceiling perceivers and low glass ceiling perceivers.

3. There would be significant difference in the well-being of high glass ceiling

perceivers and low glass ceiling perceivers.

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4. There would be significant difference in the self-esteem of high glass ceiling

perceivers and low glass ceiling perceivers.

5. There would be differential role of glass ceiling on the organizational

commitment, self-es~m, adjustment and well-being of female's executives of

different categories (Low Glass Ceiling Perceiver, High Glass Ceiling Perceiver,

Mixed Glass Ceiling Perceiver).

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MULTINATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (MNC)j-

A corporation that has its facilities and other assets in at least one country other

than its home country. Such companies have offices or factories in different countries and

usually have a centralized office where they coordinate global management. Very large

multinationals have budgets that exceed those of many small countries.

The first modern MNC is generally thought to be the Dutch East India company.

established in 1602. Very large multinationals have budgets that exceed some national

GDPs. Multinational Corporations can have a powerful influence in local economies as

well as the world economy and playa very important role in international relations and

globalization. Many MNC's that have succeeded remaricably elsewhere in the world have

yet to make a significant impact in India. The market entry and penetration strategies that

have worked so well for these companies in other countries have been for less successful

in India. Many MNC's have struggled to understand Indian customers and come up with

suitable products and services. At the same time. some MNC's have done pretty well for

themselves.

Today. virtually all the big MNC's in the world have operations in India. These

include Unilever. BAT, Colgate Palmolive &. Gamble, General Electric, General Motors.

Ford. Pepsi. ffiM. Pepsi. Intel. Coca-Cola, Oracle etc. India is now considered by many

MNC' s to be a strategically important market. In recent times. other reasons have made

India an attractive destination for MNC·s. India has emerged as a low cost back office.

manufacturing and research base. thanks to its skilled but relatively cheap manpower. In

the computer software induStry. many MNCs are establishing offshore development

centers to tap local manpower. ffiM. Accenture. EDS and Computer Associates have all

been strengthening their presence in the country. Not only are Indian software workers

among the best in the world. when it comes to technical skills but they are also more

comfortable with English. compared to their counterparts in countries such as China. Dell

and Deloitte have major back office operations in the country. General Electric (GE) is

looking at India as an important R&D base. which can contribute to their global

knowledge pool. GE's local outfit has filed for several patents in the last couple of years.

Nokia has set up three R&D centre that work on next-generation packet-switched mobile

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technologies and communications solutions. Texas Instruments is also doing cutting edge

R&D work in the country.

Many MNCs are large in relation to the national income of the countries in which

they are located. This means that it is not as easy for the host governments to enforce

national laws on MNCs. Generally speaking. governments want investment from these

MNCs because they generate jobs and incomes. Other benefits include training of local

workers in neW and potentially transferable skills. In a highly competitive world.

companies seek to reduce their costs as much as possible. The prospect of a foreign

company setting up in a country where labor is cheap and attractive both for the company

and a host country's government.

While several MNCs have entered India, not all of them are doing well. This is

evident when performances are compared across industries. However. even within a

given industry. some MNCs seem to be doing better than the others. Consider the

automobile industry. Here. Suzuki and Hyundai are way ahead of formidable rivals such

as General Motors. Honda and Ford. Similarly in the FMCG sector. even after allowing

for its relative late entry. Procter & Gamble (P&G) remains a marginal player compared

to Hindustan Lever. In some industries. the local players have left the MNCs high and

dry.

One must be careful while explaining the good performance of some MNCs and

the poor performance of others. An important point to note here is that different MN Cs

have entered India at different points in time and responded to the needs of the

environment accordingly. For example. MNCs. which entered India since the 199Os. have

in general been more aggressive and proactive in a liberalized business environment. than

those which began operations during the license Raj. Hyundai. Samsung and LG are good

examples.

At the same time. some of the successful MNCs have also realized that price is

not the only factor driving purchase decisions. Value conscious consumers. will pay a

premium if the benefits of superior features and quality are seen to far outweigh their

cost. LG for example. has reengineered its TV product specifications in order to develop

three offerings specifically for India. including a no-frills one to expand the market at the

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low end and a premium 21-inch flat TV for the middle segment. By keeping the price of

the premium offering to within 10 percent of the price of TVs with conventional screens,

LG has persuaded many consumers to buy it. These innovations have helped the

company to establish a very strong competitive position in the country's consumer

durable-goods and electronics appliances market.

Sample-

A total sample of 350 female executives, working at middle level of

management, having at least five years managerial experience belonging to an age group

of 35-40 years were selected for the present study.

Desip-

A two independent group design was used. One group (n=IOO) was of high glass

ceiling perceivers or those who could not cross the barrier and the second matched group

(n=IOO) was of those women who crossed the barrier and reach at elite leadership

positions (low glass ceiling perceivers).

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Table No. 3.1

Frequency of Female Managers in different MNCs N=350

Organization Faridabad Delhi Gurgaon Noida

Escorts India Pvt. 30 - - -Ltd.

Newchem 25 - - -

Goodyear 29 - - -

HDFCBank II 28 19 -

ICICIBank 9 19 14 -

ICICI Prudential 13 15 7 -Life Insurance

HCL - 19 8 25

Technologies

Ltd.

Whirlpool 18 - - -

Tata Consultancy - 15 - \0

Services

Infosys - 12 - -

Wipro - 10 8 6

Total 135 118 56 41

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Material-

Standardized tests and scales were selected to measure the glass ceiling,

organizational commitment, adjustment, well-being and self-esteem of female executives

of various multinational organizations. The following material was used in the study: -

(i) Glass Ceiling Questionnaire (self-construed and operationalized).

(ii) Organizational Commitment (Allen and Meyer, 1990).

(iii) Bell Adjustment Inventory (Bell 1934).

(iv) PGI Well-Being Measure (Verma & Verma, 1989).

(v) Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith, 1967).

Description of the Tests;

Glass Ceiling: -

A sixteen-item questionnaire was construed and operationalized to measure the

glass ceiling phenomena among female executive of multinational organization. These

items were taken on the basis of different parameters, i.e., equal employment

opportunities and affirmative actions, appropriate job openings at higher levels, training

and development opportunities to improve skills, assigning challenging tasks, decision

making etc. It was a forced-choice questionnaire having inverse scoring pattern. The

higher the score, the lower is the glass ceiling and lower the score, the higher is the glass

ceiling.

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT SCALK=

The organizational commitment scale was developed by Allen and Meyer in

1990.They developed three scale using items from Mowday et. al (1979), Buchanan

(1974) and Quinn & Staines (1979) to measure the normative, affective and continuance

conceptualizations of organizational commitment. Each scale contained eight statements

presented in a seven-point Likert scale response format with the following anchors:

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Strongly Disagree, Moderately Disagree, Slightly Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree,

Slightly Agree, Moderately Agree, Strongly Agree. It has 24 items deigned to measure

the various dimensions of organizational commitment. The reliability for each scale was

as follows: Affective Commitment Scale, 0 .87, Normative Commitment Scale,

0.79,Continuance Commitment Scale, 0 .75. Scale development had been supported by

acceptable levels ofreliability and validity (McGee & Ford, 1987; Meyer & Allen 1984).

There is no definite time limit for the administration of this test but it usually gets

completed withia 15 to 20 minutes.

ADMINISTRASTION & SCORING-

After collecting the data from different Multinational organizations, the response

was scored. In case of organizational commitment scale, there was three components i.e.

affective, normative and continuance commitment. There were eight items in each

component. Out of eight items, four items were positive, whereas, rest of four was

negative. Organizational commitment scale as a seven-point scale, the scoring of which

had been objectified by assigning 'One of Seven' scores respectively for seven

alternatives of the positive items, sequentially rated from "strongly disagree to strongly

agree". For negative items, the scores assigned to each of the alternatives had been

reversed. The scoring system is given as below:

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Table:3.2

Scoring systems of organizational commiCment scale.

7items Strongly Moderately SJigbdy Neither S1igbdy Moderately Strongly

agree agree agree agree agree disagree disagree

Nor

disagree

Positive 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Statements

Negative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Statements

The AdjusCmept Ipyeptory:-

The adjustment inventory has been developed by Bell (1934). The adult form of

the adjustment inventory provides five separate measures of personal and social

adjustment Le. Home Adjustment, Health Adjustment, Social Adjustment, Emotional

Adjustment and Occupational Adjustment. But we had taken only occupational

adjustment and emotional adjustment.

This adjustment inventory was suitable for both sexes. The high reliabiJities of the

separate measures made possible comparison of one individual with another. The

measurement of five types of adjustment by the one blank permits location of specific

adjustment difficulties. The use of small letters a, b. c. d & e corresponding to the five

measures of adjustment. There was no time limit but not more than 25 minutes. The

reliability for emotional adjustment .90 and for occupational adjustment is .85.

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Administration and Scoring: -

After administration of the test next step was scoring. Thus, to obtain the score on

emotional adjustment, we took the scoring stencil entitled "Emotional" and laid the

column for page of the inventory. So that the top and bottom of the number of instances

where the vertical marks on the scoring stencil fall immediately over a circle on the test,

writing that total at the bottom of the page or keeping it in memory. Then similarly

applied the column on the stencil for next page of the inventory. After that total the

scores of emotional adjustment. Similarly obtain the scores of occupational adjustment in

the same manner. There was no score for the question marks.

PGI Genera! WeD ReiDl Scale:-

It was 20 item scale in simple English constructed on the lines of scales by Faizo

(1977) & Dupuy (1970), modified & simplified (or Indian population. Since it deals with

the construct pertaining to subjective feeling which was difficult to fathom & measure

objectively but it was useful in a variety of research and applied setting such as a quality

of life index, a mental health status appraisal, a measured psychotherapy outcome

evaluation & a social indicator of measuring population changes in the sense of well­

being over time (Faizo, 1977). It was found to have satisfactory highly significant

reliability, i.e. KR 98 & discriminatory value. The scale correlated significantly with

Bradburn's Scale (Verma & Verma 1989). The higher the score the higher the well being.

SELF-Esteem Inventory -

Self-Esteem Inventory was developed by Coopersmith in 1967. He developed

three different types of inventories for different age groups i.e. the school form. the short

school form and the adult form.

The School form was used with student's aged 5 to 15 and it consists of 58 items.

The School short form was used with the same age group as the school form. It was

consisted of 25 items.

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The Adult form was used with the person's aged 16 and above. It was consisted of

twenty-five statements adapted from the school short form and Adult form exceeds 80.

Every statement has two types of option "Like me" or "Unlike me". Before starting

following instructions were given to subject. Those 25 statements were about feelings. If

a statement describe how he feel usually, put an x in the column" Like me and if that

statement does not describes how he usually feel put an X "Unlike me". There is no

option for right or wrong answers. The reliability is .80 (Battle, 97).

Administration and ScOriJU!i-

After collecting the data from the female managers, once the inventories had

completed then the next step had started. The Self-Esteem was scored in a few minutes

by using the scoring keys and if the key was not available then general rules listed below

were followed:

a. Score negative items correct if they have been answered "Unlike me". For ego "I

get upset easily at home".

b. Scale positive items correct if they have been answered "Like me". (For eg- I am

pretty sure of myself. If the answer is "Like me" then give her a point.)

Procedurei -

After completing the preliminary requirement of sample selection and tools

selection, data collection was started. The appointments were pre-fixed with the female

managers at individual level of different Multinational Organizations. The purpose of the

study was explained in detail to these female managers to make a rapport and collect

information on selected questionnaires with their consent. At the time of explaining about

the purpose of the study, it was assured to maintain the confidentiality of the information

given by them. Necessary instructions to be followed were given in a submissive way,

before filling up the scales/questionnaire etc. Some of the managers in the first instance

were hesitating in sparing time to fill the scale/questionnaire due to time constraint but

after convincing about the study they agreed to give information on the tools. A set of

Organizational Commitment scale, Bell's Adjustment Inventory, Self-Esteem, PGI Well

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Being and Glass Ceiling was given to female managers. Most of the female managers

were not interested to fill the scale/questionnaires. They raised some equerries about the

procedure of filling up the scale/questionnaires. All the equerries were resol ved

immediately. In some cases the set of tools were misplaced by female managers, another

set of tools was given to them. It was a long process to collect data from various

Multinational Organizations. Approximately 30 minutes were taken by one female

manager in completion of these five scales/questionnaires.

Analysis:

The data was analyzed a light of descriptive statistics, frequency analysis and

multiple regression analysis:

DesgjpUve Statistics:

Descriptive statistics was used to study the interrelationship between eight

variables i.e., mean, median and SO (100 low glass ceiling perceivers and 100 high glass

ceiling perceivers).

Frequency Analysis:

Frequency analysis of mixed 150 female executives.

Mu!tlpJe Reemsion Analysis:

Where one dependent variable i.e., glass ceiling was regressed upon seven

dependent variable i.e., normative commitment, affective commitment, continuance

commitment, emotional adjustment, occupational adjustment, well-being and self-esteem.

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