Maneuvering to the Top: STEM Women Persistence.
| Author | Devasia, Jaya |
Introduction
The debate over women's underrepresentation in the workplace persists despite two decades of efforts to attain gender parity in the workplace (Christie et al, 2017). This essay analyses the methodical development of existing women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) disciplines to serve as a model for future aspirants interested in increasing their participation in STEM subjects. The variables under consideration were carefully chosen in order to understand more about what and how these STEM women endure despite personal and professional socio-cultural problems at work. Psychological empowerment, emotional agility, and learning agility all contribute to increased endurance for problem at work. Additionally, they also have a positive impact on job aspects such as task performance, innovative work behavior, work values, and work-life balance.
Background of the study
That women are underrepresented in STEM fields has been well documented. Women's advancement in STEM disciplines has become a double-barreled problem for them as they battle to balance their commitments at home and at work. Different kinds of biases exist in the workplace for STEM women, including 'prove it again' bias wherein being a woman she has to prove her worth time and again. The tightrope bias forces her to become more feminine at the job where more masculine traits are required. The maternal wall bias i.e., motherhood which renders her further less competent and low on commitment to job on becoming a mother. Tug of war bias wherein the women themselves along with men discriminate against women in traditionally masculine domain (Williams et al. 2016).
Although organizations are thought to be gender-neutral, this isn't always the case. The gendered nature of professions is largely concealed by the perplexing nature of the tasks assigned, which definitely produces the picture of a man. Furthermore, this image of an employee marginalizes and attempts to highlight a woman's feminism through her body and femininity and as a procreator, encourages her to adopt feministic methods of behaving in a male-dominated workplace, as well as to subsume a subservient position. The creation of gender-neutral administrative structures and work relations is part of a larger control strategy in industrial capitalist societies, which are founded, at least in part, on a deeply rooted substructure of gender variance. (Acker, 2009)
Review of Literature
Psychological empowerment refers to a person's internal dogmas about their abilities to execute a work, as expressed through the four ideologies of meaning, self-determination, competence, and impact. (Fenn & Scior, 2019). Organizations are continuously working to recruit a diversified workforce that can fill in all the gaps in terms of essential skill sets. As a result, it works to ensure that the proper resources are available at all times. Psychological empowerment influences a person's organizational appropriateness and performance in specific roles (Gregory, et al. 2010)
Positive self-mannerism evaluations are linked to psychological empowerment and are heavily influenced by environmental circumstances. Exposure to female STEM role models increased affirmative attitudes and a stronger natural connection to STEM, resulting in better subjective identification and connectivity with these people. Seeing more identical sex experts leads to increased efficacy in the individual and increased STEM effort, which in turn predicts more effectiveness, implying affection for and commitment to pursuing a career in the STEM field. In particular, females' own self-perception is enhanced by forming connections with female experts, despite negative stereotypes about their sex in STEM fields that remains operational (Stout et a, 2011). Psychological empowerment has also been described as an innate motivation to conduct more important and rewarding tasks as a motivational construct (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990).
Organizations that want to boost performance urge people to take on extra responsibilities (Onyishi et al., 2012). Individuals may feel compelled to take on additional responsibilities in order to innovate at work (Williams et al., 2016). An empowered employee is meticulous and dedicated to his work. (Sun, 2016).
Innovative work behavior (IWB) is defined by Farr and Ford (1990) as a person's demeanor with the purpose of initiating and launching fresh and useful thoughts, practices, outcomes, or procedures (within a task function, team, or organization). IWB is clearly intended to provide a specific benefit.
Innovative work behavior, according to Janssen (2000), is the deliberate production, institution, and presentation of unique concepts in a task function, team, or business with the goal of advancing functional operations, the team, or the organization. Furthermore, employees are not expected to engage in "innovative work behavior" in their formal functions as employees, nor is it part of an expressed contract between the employees and the business. Extra-role activity is a type of discretionary activity that is rarely recognized by administrative incentive schemes (Organ, 1988).
The level of innovation done by employees is influenced by the work environment. The influence of self-efficacy based on creativity for creative conduct was stronger in a work context characterized by heightened information exchange (Teng et al., 2020). Work-based learning takes on task-related and interactional aspects as a result of information sharing. Innovative work behavior is facilitated by a supportive communication context, which has been observed in both men and women. In comparison to men, women exhibit task behavior that is characterized by greater inventiveness and is more welcoming of supportive communication environment (Arif et al., 2006). Instead of standardized jobs, heterogeneous jobs would make use of a variety of abilities to complete various tasks, fostering more innovative work behavior at the workplace (Luoh et al., 2013). Because of the demanding nature of the activities itself, knowledge gained for the duties performed has a positive association with innovative behavior (Battistelli et al., 2019).
Theory Development
Value percept theory and Social exchange theory are used in this paper to explain psychological empowerment. According to the theory, employees appreciate various things at work (Locke, 1967). In a job, there are various components, some of which are more significant and valuable than others. If some aspects of a job may provide the value that an employee values, he will be satisfied and immersed in it. If an employee cannot get what he values most in the...
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