Professor, Organizational Behavior and Personnel Management Department RESEARCH Organizational psychology and Organizational Behavior Psychological aspects of manager’s professionalism Psychology of decision making process in management
Firms are highly interested in better inclusion of women with childcare commitments, especially for leadership positions, as reward for higher work groups’ gender diversity is valuable. Gender diversity became topical issue in corporate social responsibility of companies. However, many firms report that gender diversity is stalled, due to conflicting stereotypes about social roles of employees. Hakim’s influential preference theory suggests explanations of how women choose between productive and reproductive work. According to it, there are three types of employed women: home-centred, work-centred and adaptive workers, who combine both. Three options for preference assume three alternative frames of reference. Inclusion-related initiatives aim to reshape such frames by addressing employees’ identity work through readjusting managerially inspired discourses. Current research narrows the focus to the most vulnerable of them – home-centred women. We referred to responses of 721 mothers with previous working experience, from the biggest cities in Russia to find answers to the following questions: what affects home-centred women in their decision to return to the same employer after the maternity leave and what causes them to quit. We enriched empirical analysis with a theoretical review of initiatives helping to readjust corresponding stereotypes.
Part of the book: Corporate Social Responsibility
This research contributes to the field of diversity and inclusion by analyzing how employers can assist women in shaping their career trajectories and strategies in relation to their additional family commitments. The study utilized a sample of 204 participants collected during the COVID-19 pandemic when the boundaries between work and family were blurred for many women. Existing established scales were used, and the reliability and validity of these scales were assessed in the selected context using exploratory factor analysis. OLS regression analysis followed by Welch ANOVA allowed to test research hypotheses. The findings confirmed the high role of negative spillover between work and family domains in employee’s well-being, while taking parental leave, distant work and attitude to COVID-19 were insignificant in this relationship. This might lead to employees’ withdrawal from the labor market. However, active coping strategies can mitigate this negative relationship. Employers can support active coping through corporate programs and managerial discourse in order to retain employees despite existing role conflicts.
Part of the book: Human Resource Management - An Update