Gender inequalities in India’s new service economy: a case study of the banking sector

PhDThis study explores women’s experiences of work and employment in the banking sector in India, addressing the paucity of research in this area. The research assesses how the assumptions of theories on gender, work and employment, primarily based on empirical experiences from the Global North can be interpreted in the Indian context. It argues that experiences of gender inequalities are geographically reconfigured in the Indian banking sector through the interplay between gendered organisational practices, local cultural discourses on femininity, institutional factors, particularly government laws and organisational structures. The research draws upon a case study of the banking sector in the National Capital Region (NCR), one of India’s largest consumer financial centres, combining a questionnaire survey of 156 female bank employees with 74 qualitative interviews with female and male bank employees in three types of banks. The study uncovers how gender discrimination, albeit covertly, is widespread in Indian banks. Gendered organisational practices create universal constraints for Indian women’s career development. This study, however, reveals how local cultural discourses on femininity, emphasising respectability and family values lead to distinctively Indian patterns of gender inequalities in the banking sector serving to highlight the intersection of gender with class identities. Crucially, the comparison of government-owned, foreign-owned and Indian private banks demonstrates that local cultural norms and gendered organisational practices are mediated through different organisational structures to create varied experiences of gender discrimination for women in the different banks. Finally, the study provides new conceptual perspectives for addressing the limitations of existing theorisations on gender, work and employment. It develops the concept of ‘family-based femininity’ highlighting the influence of the family in shaping the nature of gender inequalities in the workplace. Where previous typologies focused on resistance in the workplace, this research introduces the notion of ‘compliance in the workplace’, whereby women passively conform to gendered organisational practices, with little intention to create change.University of London Central Research Fun

Factors for Sustainable Operations in the FinTech Industry. A Survey of Nigerian Users, Providers and Regulators.

This research looks at the success and failure rates of FinTech (Financial Technology) industries in Nigeria, and the factors responsible for its sustainability. FinTech global investment now makes up a multi-billion-dollar industry. The Financial sector, which is the backbone of economic growth in Nigeria is dominated by start-ups that offer technological solutions to products and services. The suggested approach enables the researcher to explore the complexity of the FinTech ecosystem, the stakeholders’ inter-relations, and critical success factors responsible for achieving and maintaining success in the industry. This also allows a better understanding of the different factors of success and failure, which have been generally identified as regulatory support, customer centricity, stakeholders’ partnership with incumbents, technology (including innovation), infrastructure, business environment and trust, as well as poor business plans, poor management, poor location, lack of inventory, uncontrolled growth, poor financial control, lack of funds or experience, lack of a strategic plan and many others. Consequently, the study reviews the global FinTech, with emphasis on countries and hubs that have been ranked successful in terms of FinTech operations, both in the developed and emerging markets which allows for the correlation of these business success and failure factors with the growth and sustainability of the industry in such countries. The research draws upon 20 interviews (unstructured, semi-structured, and highly structured) with high profile stakeholders of the FinTech industry, across the different components of the ecosystem. NVivo 11 was used to assist in the thematic analysis of the transcribed audios. This helped to identify, from different perspectives, the challenges faced by stakeholders in Nigeria. This, therefore, makes this research a mix of the current practices, perception, and respective roles concerning the issues of FinTech success and sustainability in Nigeria. Three basic themes (with several sub-themes) emerged from the empirical study as areas of most concern to FinTech sustainability in Nigeria: Financial Inclusion, Sustainability and, Regulation and Compliance. The outcome of this research is an outline of a robust framework proposed at addressing the factors affecting sustainable operations in the Nigerian FinTech industry. As a way of building the framework, solutions have been proposed under the studied themes listed above that were identified as impediments to success. This study outcome is also a useful addition to the body of knowledge and academic research that pertains to financial technology growth and sustainability in Nigeria and globally

Customer perceptions and expectations of service quality in the medical insurance sector in Zimbabwe.

Doctor of Philosophy in Management. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2018.This study sought to evaluate customers’ perceptions and expectations of service quality in the medical insurance sector in Zimbabwe. This will help to identify the service quality gaps experienced and to come up with strategies to improve service delivery in the industry. Literature has shown that service quality has been least reflected on by researchers in private health insurance, and efforts to improve quality in the sector were mainly centred on regulations and benchmarking against practices adopted in developed countries. Therefore, an empirical assessment of service quality in the Zimbabwean medical insurance industry will greatly contribute to understanding the service quality dimensions, which could bring efficiency, profitability and sustainability to the industry threatened by increased competition and economic challenges. Furthermore, to ensure continued subscription by members in such a volatile situation, medical insurance companies need to align their service offerings with customer needs. The theoretical underpinnings of the study were the SERVQUAL and gaps models of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985). A positivist research philosophy and quantitative methodology were adopted. The population constituted of 1000 000 members of five major medical insurance companies in Zimbabwe, namely PSMAS, CIMAS, First Mutual Health, Fidelity and Altfin. A sample of 384 was chosen from five major health institutions in Harare using quota and convenience sampling. Data was collected using a questionnaire adapted from a generic instrument (SERVQUAL scale), based on a fivepoint Likert-type scale. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 was used for data analysis in which both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The major findings were that medical insurance customers in Zimbabwe are dissatisfied with service offerings in the industry with highest levels of dissatisfaction being expressed towards the quality dimension, reliability and lastly tangibility. Levels of dissatisfaction also varied across the service quality dimensions in terms of age groups, periods of membership to medical insurance companies and other demographic variables. The study also found that service quality was lower in government-owned than in privately owned medical insurance companies. Strategies to improve service quality in the industry are suggested, with some managerial and theoretical implications being highlighted

Consumer behaviour regarding stock market participation in South Africa

South Africa (SA) has a highly sophisticated financial services sector that contributes significantly to the economy. A stock market forms a significant component of the financial sector of any economy. While the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has managed to arouse interest of many South Africans, there appears to be apathy and inertia when it comes to actual participation in the stock market by South African consumers. Stock market non-participation is considered a “puzzle” in microeconomics and finance literature because it is not easy to explain the reason why many consumers, in spite of high stock returns, do not own listed shares. Thus, the primary objective of this study was to investigate consumer behaviour regarding stock market participation in SA by considering the antecedents and outcomes of stock market participation in SA.The study presented a theoretical literature review on the factors influencing stock market participation in SA. From the literature review, three sets of variables classified as independent variables, an intervening variable and dependent variables were identified. The independent variables (Demographic characteristics; Financial literacy; Investment risk tolerance; Communication; and Consumer trust) were identified as possibly influencing the intervening variable (Stock market participation) and ultimately the dependent variables (Client satisfaction and loyalty, Financial sustainability and Repurchase intentions). These variables were used to construct a hypothesised model and research hypotheses. The study further presented the research methodology (following a positivistic paradigm and quantitative research method), and the results of this study. In order to establish the influence of the independent variables on stock market participation, as well as ultimate influences on the dependent variables, an empirical investigation was conducted. Since it was not possible to reach all members of the target population, the population of this study was South African consumers located in four of the nine provinces, namely, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Gauteng. A sample of 510 respondents participated in the study

Consumer behaviour regarding stock market participation in South Africa

South Africa (SA) has a highly sophisticated financial services sector that contributes significantly to the economy. A stock market forms a significant component of the financial sector of any economy. While the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has managed to arouse interest of many South Africans, there appears to be apathy and inertia when it comes to actual participation in the stock market by South African consumers. Stock market non-participation is considered a “puzzle” in microeconomics and finance literature because it is not easy to explain the reason why many consumers, in spite of high stock returns, do not own listed shares. Thus, the primary objective of this study was to investigate consumer behaviour regarding stock market participation in SA by considering the antecedents and outcomes of stock market participation in SA.The study presented a theoretical literature review on the factors influencing stock market participation in SA. From the literature review, three sets of variables classified as independent variables, an intervening variable and dependent variables were identified. The independent variables (Demographic characteristics; Financial literacy; Investment risk tolerance; Communication; and Consumer trust) were identified as possibly influencing the intervening variable (Stock market participation) and ultimately the dependent variables (Client satisfaction and loyalty, Financial sustainability and Repurchase intentions). These variables were used to construct a hypothesised model and research hypotheses. The study further presented the research methodology (following a positivistic paradigm and quantitative research method), and the results of this study. In order to establish the influence of the independent variables on stock market participation, as well as ultimate influences on the dependent variables, an empirical investigation was conducted. Since it was not possible to reach all members of the target population, the population of this study was South African consumers located in four of the nine provinces, namely, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Gauteng. A sample of 510 respondents participated in the study

Global practices and local interests: Implementing technology-based change in a developing country context.

The guiding principle of this research is that the utilisation of information technology (IT) in any part of the world currently is taking place within the globalisation trends. The need to take a wider view of IT use has become important due to the ease with which IT and associated management practices now pervade countries. These practices, developed in the 'west' and applied in countries around the world, are becoming increasingly universal as a result of the globalisation process. The Nigerian economy was deregulated towards the end of the 1980s and different sectors of the economy - including banking - were liberalised with a view to promoting competition and efficiency. In the face of these environmental changes, organisations in Nigeria have, over the past few years, been investing extensively in IT and adopting global IT-based practices. Although studies have discussed the importance of adapting these global practices to suit the context of their implementation, few have actually focused on revealing the nature of these adaptations and the factors influencing them. The overall aim of this study, therefore, is to increase understanding of why and how adaptations take place, and what results are achieved. This understanding is achieved in the thesis by incorporating ideas from both resource-based theory and new institutional theory within a contextualist framework, to study the implementation of planned technology-based change programmes in two Nigerian banks. It is suggested that local adaptations to global IT-based practices involve an adaptation process where organisational resources and local institutional rules are employed rationally, as well as symbolically, to modify the techniques. Rationally, organisational members redefine the global institutional rules embodied in global practices in order to fit the organisation's resource context and the demands of the immediate institutional environment. Symbolically, global practices are modified when organisational members ritually sustain organisational traditions and taken-for-granted practices about how to do things within the organisation or the wider societal context. Thus, such redefinition and symbolic processes specify the nature of local adaptations to global IT-based practices when they are being implemented in local contexts