Women-friendly policies disclosure by companies in India

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2017-0291
• Published date: 18 November 2019
• Pages: 857-869
• Date: 18 November 2019
• Author: Shlesha Singh,Mrinalini Pandey
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour,Employment law

Women-friendly policies

disclosure by companies in India

Shlesha Singh and Mrinalini Pandey

Department of Management Studies,

Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad,

Dhanbad, India

Abstract

Purpose –The purposeof this paper is to understand the significance that companiesgive to women-friendly

policies and practices. Thus, the disclosures on women-friendly policies made in annual reports by top listed

companies in Indiahave been examined. This paper also attempts to investigate the disclosure-level changes

over a three-year period:2014–2016.

Design/methodology/approach –This paper investigates the extent of women-friendly policies disclosure

made by top 83 Bombay Stock Exchange listed companies in India in their annual report. The content

analysis method is used to examine the annual reports of each organisation over a period of three years to

determine the extent of disclosure.

Findings –The result points out that the sexual harassment policy is the most disclosed item, followed by a

special committee for handling sexual harassment and maternity leave. Most of the companies have ignored

policies such as job sharing, cafeteria benefit plan and differential referral payment programme. It was also

found that over a period of three years the women-friendly policies disclosure by companies has increased.

Research limitations/implications –The study focuses on the annual reports published by the

companies. A broader study can be done by using other reports issued by companies.

Originality/value –In terms of the knowledge of the researchers, this is the first-ever study in the area of

women-friendly policies disclosure in the annual report by listed companies in India. Thus, it also adds to the

scarce research on women-friendly policies by companies.

Keywords Women, Human resources, Disclosures, Indian companies, Women-friendly policies

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Employees are one of the most important resources of an organisation. Every organisation

has the required capital, land, equipment and technology or, sooner or later, they can have

these but, it is the human resources which are to be nurtured and if done properly, it can

give an edge. To gain a competitive advantage, workforce diversity is important (Cox and

Blake, 1991) and gender diversity is a crucial aspect when it comes to maintaining

workplace diversity. It is no more an option but a requisite for an organisation to be able to

sustain in the competitive market place. According to ManpowerGroup’s (2016) Annual

Talent Shortage Survey, 40 per cent of the employers, all across the globe, are facing

difficulty in filling the vacant positions, whereas in India, the percentage of employers

facing the same problem is 48 per cent and one of the main reasons for this is the lack of

availability of applicants. In this scenario of talent shortage in India, organisations can gain

substantially if more women are recruited, developed and retained. There are several

barriers that women encounter at the workplace (Morrison et al., 1987) that lead to lesser

participation of women in the workforce (Ruble et al., 1984). According to World Bank (2017)

estimates, in India, the rate of participation of women in the workforce is estimated to have

drastically decreased from 35 per cent in the year 1990 to 27 per cent in 2017. Thus, it is very

crucial for organisations in India to have practices that are women-friendly. Organisations

often state that they are concerned towards gender diversity and according to Subbarao and

Zeghal (1997), the HR information disclosed by a company in the annual report indicates the

importance that it gives to human resources. Therefore, how vital gender diversity is to the

organisations can be discovered through their disclosed information in the annual reports.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 8, 2019

pp. 857-869

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-12-2017-0291

Received 26 December 2017

Revised 11 August 2018

14 March 2019

Accepted 21 July 2019

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

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