Infrastructure sector employs fewer women in top posts, scores low on integrity: Study

The infrastructure sector, despite holding the status of being the biggest sector in India, does badly when it comes to employing women and also scores low on integrity.

A study conducted by Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Churchgate, reveals that in the infrastructure sector, women occupy only about a tenth of crucial posts. This is in stark contrast with the banking sector, where one-third of the top management posts are held by women.

"The infrastructure sector scores very low on integrity, while teams and stakeholders are other areas of concerns for the sector. Part of the integrity issue in the infrastructure sector emanates from lack of talented manpower and a long-winding regulatory process, which even delays execution of projects in some cases," says the report, shared exclusively with dna. The researchers refused to divulge the names of the corporates which were surveyed citing confidentiality, but mentioned that it included real estate, road, power, oil and gas companies.

The study, titled 'Leap to emerge', is based on a leadership survey conducted among 1,000 executives from three sectors — infrastructure, banking and finance. The elements included in the survey were strategy, change, achievement, teams, receptiveness, learning, stakeholders, innovation and integrity.

"The response was collected from the top, middle and lower management executives about their respective superiors," says research coordinator S Vijaykrishnan, one of the students who executed the project and also devised a leadership index which can be used by the corporates to identify the problem areas.

The banking sector is better placed on all the nine elements, especially integrity, where it scores the highest. The study points out, "However, key focus areas for banks are stakeholders (customer relationships) and team building. Though technology has enabled most banks to reach out to the customer more efficiently, the customer is still out of ease."

As per the study, the financial services sector scores low on two elements — teams and receptiveness (to ideas).

Suggestions for improvement by the researchers
For Infra sector: Both the government and companies have to act together by reducing red tape and making the bidding process more transparent.

For banking sector: One way to improve would be to offer a one-stop-shop solution for essential banking services.

For financial services: Build teams of efficient personnel, reach out to investors in a time-bound manner. In times of volatile stock markets, where investors are left without options, receptiveness to new ideas (for products or processes) can only help companies perform better