Innovative Career Support Services for Professional Women in India: Pathways to Success

Abstract

This article examines the emerging concerns of professional working women in India, highlighting their unique needs within the context of rapidly changing environs and sociocultural gender expectations. An innovative intervention model that supports the goals of female professionals to sustain and succeed in their career, created by a women-managed consulting and training firm in Bangalore, India, is presented. An exploratory analysis of the impact of the group-based intervention modules, drawing upon detailed case studies and posttraining surveys, is summarized. The qualitative analysis identified participants' outcomes using interview data from two availability samples: (a) case studies drawn from multiple multinational organizations (N ¼ 16) and (b) case studies drawn from a single multinational organization (N ¼ 12). Descriptive evaluation survey outcomes from a third organization sample (N ¼ 71) were utilized. The identified themes included the evidenced adaptations of participants to work-life stressors, gender issues, and internal and organizational glass ceilings through their use of mentors, networking, assertiveness, and strategies for taking control of their career paths. The findings are relevant to advancing female career support services.

The subjective career success of women: The role of personal resources

“…As more women enter and remain employed, a growing scholarly interest in studying women’s careers is evident ( Cadaret et al, 2017 ). Although female professional careers only began to be mainstreamed in the last century ( Younger et al, 2015 ), according to Khilji and Pumroy (2019) , women’s career advancement has received a fair share of interest in the literature. However, entering the workforce did not guarantee an easy path for women, and barriers to career success and advancement are well documented in recent literature ( Ibáñez, 2017 ; Kim and O’Brien, 2018 ; Schizas et al, 2022 ).…”

“…However, far less attention has been given to factors or personal resources that promote women’s career success. According to Younger et al (2015) , evidence relating to how women strengthen their internal resources to sustain their career goals and increase their career persistence is lacking.…”

Motivational factors and challenges of women entrepreneurship: insights from rural Uttarakhand

“…This study fortifies the existing literature on women entrepreneurship by highlighting the motivation that keeps them engaged and their challenges in managing their ventures. Researchers have reasoned that women stand the accountabilities of harmonizing and balancing work life and family, unlike their male counterparts which necessitate lots of grit in reality (Desai et al, 2011;Younger et al, 2015). The existing work on entrepreneurship is substantially rich and explored the entrepreneurial challenges faced by woman entrepreneurs.…”