The Effect of Cultural Values on Business Strategy Choices

The strategy is important in the effort to achieve firm performance. The decision of an entrepreneur in determining the choice of strategy is often influenced by certain factors. Ethnic cultural values embraced by an entrepreneur will often be an important issue that will have an impact on the choice of their business strategy. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of cultural values on business strategy choices. The study was conducted using quantitative methods using primary data through a survey on micro, small and medium business entrepreneurs in Palembang city. A total of 150 questionnaires were distributed to entrepreneurs. The number of questionnaires used in this study was 107 (71%). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis using Warp PLS version 5.0 software is used to test the hypothesis. The results of the study indicate that the cultural values embraced by entrepreneurs influence the choice of business strategies that they implement

Bourdieu, networks, and movements: Using the concepts of habitus, field and capital to understand a network analysis of gender differences in undergraduate physics

Current trends suggest that significant gender disparities exist within Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education at university, with female students being underrepresented in physics, but more equally represented in life sciences (e.g., biology, medicine). To understand these trends, it is important to consider the context in which students make decisions about which university courses to enrol in. The current study seeks to investigate gender differences in STEM through a unique approach that combines network analysis of student enrolment data with an interpretive lens based on the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu. We generate a network of courses taken by around 9000 undergraduate physics students (from 2009 to 2014) to quantify Bourdieu's concept of field. We explore the properties of this network to investigate gender differences in transverse movements (between different academic fields) and vertical movements (changes in students' achievement rankings within a field). Our findings indicate that female students are more likely to make transverse movements into life science fields. We also find that university physics does a poor job in attracting high achieving students, and especially high achieving female students. Of the students who do choose to study physics, low achieving female students are less likely to continue than their male counterparts. The results and implications are discussed in the context of Bourdieu's theory, and previous research. We argue that in order to remove constraints on female student's study choices, the field of physics needs to provide a culture in which all students feel like they belong.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl

Diverse virtual social networks: Implications for remote software testing teams

This paper evaluates offshore outsourcing in the IT testing industry and determines what conditions determine its success. There is particular focus on the influence of diversity in teams on group relationships. Two studies are described: the first, investigated the perceptions of professional software testers on the critical factors of offshore outsourcing; and the second study looked at the ability for diverse teams to form close working relationships through virtual networks. We find that overt diversity factors inhibit interaction across nationality boundaries. The limitations of virtual networks for fostering personal communications is apparent in preventing group members from overcoming the initial aversion to mix with out-group members, which could be achieved with closer and more personal communications between members with different diversity factors in normal face to face communications. Where software testing teams are outsourced globaly, and must rely on virtual communications, there seems potential for significant difficulties in developing close working relationships, which on the one hand, can be negative for group cohesion, but one the other hand, can be positive for encouraging imparitality

The women in IT (WINIT) final report

The Women in IT (WINIT) project was funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) from March 2004 until April 2006 under HE ESF Objective 3: Research into equal opportunities in the labour market. Specifically the project came under Policy Field 2, Measure 2: Gender discrimination in employment. The project was run in the Information Systems Institute of the University of Salford. One of the Research Associates has an information systems (IS) background, the other has a background in sociology. We begin this report with an overview of the current situation with regards women in the UK IT sector. Whilst gender is only recently being recognised as an issue within the mainstream IS academic community, thirty years of female under-representation in the ICT field in more general terms has received more attention from academics, industry and government agencies alike. Numerous research projects and centres (such as the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology) exist to tackle the under-representation of women in SET careers, although the figures for women’s participation in the ICT sector remain disheartening, with current estimates standing at around 15% (EOC 2004). Various innovative initiatives, such as e-Skills’ Computer Clubs for Girls, appear to have had little impact on these low female participation rates. Additionally, these and other initiatives have been interpreted as a means to fill the skills gap and ‘make up the numbers’ to boost the UK economy (French and Richardson 2005), resulting in ‘add more women and stir’ solutions to the ‘problem’ of gender in relation to inclusion in IS and ICT (Henwood 1996). Given that there have been decades of equal opportunity and related policies as well as many government initiatives designed to address the gender imbalance in IT employment patterns, sex segregation in IT occupations and pay and progression disparity in the IT sector (including the latest initiative- a one million pound DTI funded gender and SET project), we could be forgiven for assuming that these initiatives have had a beneficial effect on the position and number of women in the IT workforce, and that even if we have not yet achieved gender equity, we can surely argue that there are positive moves in the right direction. Although we do not wish to make definitive claims about the success or failure of specific initiatives, our research, backed up by recent major surveys, paints a picture that remains far from rosy. Indeed a recent comparative survey of the IT workforce in Germany, Holland and the UK indicates that women are haemorrhaging out of the UK IT workforce (Platman and Taylor 2004). From a high point of 100,892 women in the UK IT workforce in 1999, Platman and Taylor (ibid., 8) report a drop to 53,759 by 2003. As the IT industry was moving into recession anyway, the number of men in the industry has also declined, but by nothing like as much, so the figures for women are stark. When it comes to number crunching who is employed in the UK IT sector and when trying to make historical comparisons, the first obstacle is defining the sector itself. Studies vary quite substantially in the number of IT workers quoted suggesting there is quite a bit of variation in what is taken to be an IT job. The IT industry has experienced considerable expansion over the past twenty years. In spring 2003 in Britain, it was estimated that almost 900,000 people worked in ICT firms, and there were over 1 million ICT workers, filling ICT roles in any sector (e-Skills UK, 2003). This growth has resulted in talk of a ‘skills shortage’ requiring the ‘maximization’ of the workforce to its full potential: ‘You don’t just need pale, male, stale guys in the boardroom but a diversity of views’ (Stone 2004). In spring 2003 the Equal Opportunities Commission estimated there to be 151,000 women working in ICT occupations compared with 834,000 men (clearly using a different, much wider job definition from that of Platman and Taylor (2004)) , whilst in the childcare sector, there were less than 10,000 men working in these occupations, compared with 297,000 women (EOC 2004). It is estimated that the overall proportion of women working in ICT occupations is 15% (EOC 2004). In the UK, Office of National Statistics (ONS) statistics indicate that women accounted for 30% of IT operations technicians, but a mere 15% of ICT Managers and only 11% of IT strategy and planning professionals (EOC 2004). Although women are making inroads into technical and senior professions there remains a ‘feminisation’ of lower level jobs, with a female majority in operator and clerical roles and a female minority in technical and managerial roles (APC 2004).

Organizational cultures: Obstacles to women in the UK construction industry

The global economic downturn coupled with recent changes in UK law have led to a sizable reduction in public sector funding. As a result, both public and private sector organizations are under greater pressure to provide evidence of their activities in promoting equality and diversity in their use of public sector funds. This requirement poses a particular challenge for the UK construction industry, which remains largely White male dominated. Empirical data gathered from a series of semistructured questionnaires and focus groups that have received managerial and soft skills training are analyzed and discussed in this article in an effort to establish the organizational cultural obstacles that women face in working in the UK construction industry. The findings outline that White male-dominated organizational cultures, inflexible work practices, and a lack of supportive networks serve as obstacles to women in the UK construction industry. This study concludes with recommendations for the expansion of training opportunities for women to encourage workforce diversity within the UK construction industry

Preparing women for dead-end jobs? Vocational education and training (VET) for information and communication technology (ICT) jobs

This paper discusses the role that vocational education and training (VET) in ICT subject areas plays in contributing to the gender and social class structuring of ICT occupations, focusing in particular on education and employment data from the UK. The paper also makes reference to similar data about ICT VET in Germany and Japan to argue that the new areas of ‘soft’ ICT skills – in education and in occupations - have become feminised, and channel women into low skilled and low paid work. Unlike university level ICT education, which has opened opportunities for women and students coming from families with no experience of higher education, sub-degree level ICT VET seems to be continuing to reproduce gender and socio- economic class within and through ICT occupations. I argue that those concerned with gender equity research and interventions in ICT need to work with an analysis that disaggregates what are now appearing to be quite different skills sets, and different career opportunities often misleadingly conflated under the umbrella term ‘ICT’. I also argue for better analytical models for the gendering of ICT than those offered by the ‘leaky pipeline’ or ‘critical mass’ models, and for new analyses that would incorporate both a structural analysis and new ways of looking at women’s choices, such as Hakim’s ‘orientation to work’

Gender stereotypes and the apology in a small state : uncovering Creole male stereotypes in the Seychelles using digital matched-guise methodology

Recent research in the Seychelles speaks of a “growing crisis of masculinity”, manifested in statistics such as a ten-year life expectancy difference in favour of women, alarmingly high levels of substance abuse amongst younger men, and underachievement of boys in schools. According to the authors, males are generally disempowered by stereotypical views of males as “irresponsible”, “unreliable” and “secondary to women”. Similar gender patterns have been observed in other ex-slavery Creole cultures such as the small states in the Caribbean, and some scholars argue that these structures have historical origins dating back to slavery. In this study, we seek to explore aspects of Seychellois stereotypes of masculinity through so-called matched-guise experiments. Through digital manipulations of voice quality, we produce identity-warped male and female versions of the same monologue recording – a short apology. We then asked respondents to listen to the recordings and respond to the same in a short online questionnaire, where we ask questions relating to their impressions of the apology and the speaker. Dimensions here include honesty-dishonesty; politenessimpoliteness; weakness-strength; and reliability-unreliability. Differences in results of responses to male and female versions of the apology give strong indications that Seychellois stereotypically view males as dishonest, unreliable, lazy and careless. We discuss potential origins and consequences of such constructions, and propose awareness-raising measures for how these destructive historically produced scripts of gender can be rewritten.peer-reviewe

Examining Scientific Writing Styles from the Perspective of Linguistic Complexity

Publishing articles in high-impact English journals is difficult for scholars around the world, especially for non-native English-speaking scholars (NNESs), most of whom struggle with proficiency in English. In order to uncover the differences in English scientific writing between native English-speaking scholars (NESs) and NNESs, we collected a large-scale data set containing more than 150,000 full-text articles published in PLoS between 2006 and 2015. We divided these articles into three groups according to the ethnic backgrounds of the first and corresponding authors, obtained by Ethnea, and examined the scientific writing styles in English from a two-fold perspective of linguistic complexity: (1) syntactic complexity, including measurements of sentence length and sentence complexity; and (2) lexical complexity, including measurements of lexical diversity, lexical density, and lexical sophistication. The observations suggest marginal differences between groups in syntactical and lexical complexity.Comment: 6 figure

Gender, mentoring and social capital in the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland, UK

This chapter investigates the role of gender, mentoring and social capital and contributes to literature about the career development of women in senior management roles in the National Health Service of the UK. It draws on a doctoral study of senior-level managers in a Scottish NHS Board. The data collected are: (i) documentary; (ii) quantitative; and (iii) qualitative. The quantitative data are collected through questionnaires, while the source of qualitative data is in-depth semi-structured interviews. The doctoral study is embedded within an interpretivist and feminist paradigm. Although access to mentoring and social capital was seen as likely to enhance the career progression of females to senior managerial roles, gendered work and family expectations, gendered organisational culture, and normative performances of gendered senior management were identified as obstacles in taking advantages of mentoring and social capital. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only piece of work that explicitly investigates the role of mentoring and social capital in managing gender diversity at the senior managerial positions of the NHS