ABSTRACT
Since independence in 1947, the percentage of women in the Indian workforce has been on a steady increase (Datt & Sundharam, 1999). This pattern is expected to continue in the future. The economic reforms initiated in the early 1990s have resulted in many macro-level changes in Indian organizations (see Datt, 2003). Among others, the liberalized Indian economy has created a large number of employment opportunities for women, though mainly for educated women residing in urban areas (Das, 2003). To survive in the current dynamic business environment, firms operating in India are also now looking for talented human resources (see Budhwar & Boyne, 2004). They are now realizing the need for changing their traditional stance towards women employees as well 1 . At present, women in India comprise approximately 31 per cent of the official workforce -both in rural and urban (and formal as well as informal) sectors (United Nations, 2000). However, their representation in management is low. Globally, women comprise around 10 per cent of senior management positions in Fortune 500 companies (Chadha, 2002). In India, their presence is known to range between a high of 5.8 per cent (Kulkarni, 2002: p. 11) to a low of roughly 3 per cent (see Chadha, 2002; Mehra, 2002; Singh. 2003) of all administrative positions. They can be seen mainly in HR, IT and servicing activities. Their presence in hard-core production or marketing is much less and still lower at strategic policy-influencing levels. This is despite claims that women in India have played significant roles in social organization, politics and administration (Gupta et al, 1998).
