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Barry Fallon
Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the relationship of the perceived
presence of organizational practices designed to support women’s career advancement and their work
and extra-work satisfaction and psychological well-being.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 98 early career women in Australia
using anonymously completed questionnaires. Five organizational practices combined into a
composite measure were considered; top management support and intervention, policies and
resources, use of gender in human resource management, training and development initiatives and
recruiting and external relations efforts.
Findings – Women reporting more organizational practices supportive of women, with higher levels
of job and career satisfaction, and indicated fewer psychosomatic symptoms and less emotional
exhaustion. Organizational practices were unrelated to intent to quit or extra-work satisfactions and
physical or emotional well-being.
Research limitations/implications – Further research is needed to determine if results generalize
to women in later career stages.
Practical implications – Guidance for organizations interested in supporting women’s career
advancement are offered.
Originality/value – The paper illustrates an understanding of the qualities that are part of work
environments that are supportive of the career aspirations of women (and men).
Keywords Women, Career development, Equal opportunities, Careers, Job satisfaction, Australia
Paper type Research paper
Method
Respondents
Data were collected from 98 female business school graduates from the same
Australian university working in a wide range of industries in Australia.
Questionnaires were mailed to female business school graduates and returned to a
university address; the sample (N ¼ 98) represented a less than 10 per cent response
rate.
Table I shows the demographic characteristics of the sample. Most were 30 years of
age or younger (77 per cent), had undergraduate degrees (80 per cent), were single or
divorced (60 per cent), childless (78 per cent), worked full-time (87 per cent), had
graduated within the past 5 years (55 per cent), were in non-management or lower
management jobs (65 per cent), had worked continuously since graduation (69 per
cent), worked between 41 and 50 hours per week (46 per cent), had relatively short
organizational and job tenure (77 and 93 per cent having 5 or fewer years, respectively)
and worked in relatively small organizations (78 per cent having 1,000 or fewer
employees).
Measures
A variety of single and multiple item measures were used.
WIMR
N Per cent
21,5
Age
25 or less 41 41.8
26-30 35 35.8
31-35 7 7.1
418 36 or older 15 15.3
Marital status
Single/divorced 59 60.2
Married/co-habiting 39 39.8
Length of marriage
1 year 5 11.6
2-5 20 46.5
6-10 7 16.3
11 or more 11 25.6
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Core 39 41.1
Support 56 58.9 Table I.
Personal demographics and work situation. These included age, current employment
status, current marital status, parental status, number of children, type of business
degree, year of business degree, hours worked, organizational level, organizational and
job tenure, organizational size, continuous employment since graduation and whether
one’s job produced core products or services or provided support for these products or
services.
Work outcomes
Job satisfaction was measured by a seven item scale (a ¼ 0.80) developed by
Kofodimos (1993), e.g. “I feel challenged by my work”.
Career satisfaction was measured by a five item scale (a ¼ 0.87) developed by
Greenhaus et al. (1990), e.g. “I am satisfied with the success I have achieved in my career”.
WIMR Intent to quit (a ¼ 0.67) was measured by two items, e.g. “Are you currently looking
21,5 for a different job in a different organization?”. This scale had been used previously by
Burke (1991).
Psychological well-being
Psychosomatic symptoms was measured by 19 items (a ¼ 0.83) developed by Quinn
420 and Shepard (1974). Respondents indicated how often they experienced each physical
condition (e.g. headaches) in the past year.
Emotional exhaustion was measured by a scale from the Maslach Burnout Inventory
(Maslach et al., 1996). The scale had nine items (a ¼ 0.94), e.g. “I feel emotionally
drained from my work.”
Physical well-being was measured by five items (a ¼ 0.61) developed by Kofodimos
(1993), e.g. “I participate in a regular exercise program”.
Emotional well-being was measured by six items (a ¼ 0.77) developed by Kofodimos
Downloaded by Carleton University At 02:29 16 February 2016 (PT)
Extra-work satisfaction
Three aspects of life or extra-work satisfaction were included.
(1) Family satisfaction was measured by a seven item scale (a ¼ 0.91) developed by
Kofodimos (1993), e.g. “I have a good relationship with my family members”.
(2) Satisfaction with friends was measured by three items (a ¼ 0.88) developed by
Kofodimos (1993), e.g. “My friends and I do enjoyable things together”.
(3) Community satisfaction was measured by four items (a ¼ 0.82) also developed
by Kofodimos (1993), e.g. “I contribute and give back to my community”.
Results
Practices supporting women
All five practice areas were significantly and positively intercorrelated; the correlations
ranged from a high of 0.74 (administration and training and development) to a low of
0.59 (resources and recruiting and external relations). The mean correlation among the
five areas of practice was 0.70. A composite measure of organizational practices
supporting women was therefore created by combining the five practice areas.
Extra-work satisfactions R R2 DR 2 P
Family (N ¼ 80)
Personal demographics 0.48 0.23 0.23 0.001
Work status (20.29)
Marital status (0.28)
Work situation 0.58 0.34 0.11 0.05
Role (0.30)
Organizational practices 0.58 0.34 0.00 NS
Friends (N ¼ 80)
Personal demographics 0.30 0.09 0.09 NS
Work situation 0.35 0.12 0.03 NS
Organizational practices 0.36 0.13 0.01 NS
Community (N ¼ 80)
Personal demographics 0.47 0.22 0.22 0.01
Age (0.46) Table V.
Work status (20.25) Organizational practices
Work situation 0.54 0.30 0.08 NS and extra-work
Organizational practices 0.56 0.31 0.01 NS satisfactions
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Corresponding author
Ronald J. Burke is the corresponding author.