Perceptions of practicing and prospective women executives from India about Indian business newspapers

Abstract

An increasing presence of women in the premier professions in India in the past two decades has led to an increase in the requirement for business information by women (Gaur, Bhattacharjee, & Pandey, 2010). In addition, the National Readership Study (2006) shows an increase in the readership of English newspapers by women. This study is an attempt to explore the perception of women executives about the business newspapers published in India. The data of the study were collected through an online survey amongst women executives (N =111) and women students (N =83) of postgraduate management studies1 to ascertain the preferred sources of business information, time spent reading business newspaper, the perception about various aspects of business newspaper read by the respondent and level of importance accorded to and satisfaction with specific dimensions of business newspaper read by the respondent. Descriptive statistics are used to analyze and interpret the data. The findings have implications towards making the business newspaper more gender-friendly.

Keywords:

• women and business information
• gender and business newspaper
• business newspaper
• women executives

Notes

1. In India 10 + 2+3 years (4 years in the case of Engineering and 5 years in the case of Medical Sciences) of education leads to graduation. All education thereafter is called post-graduation.

2. The Oxford Dictionary of Economics defines organized sector as the parts of the economy which operate through institutions which feed figures into official statistics.

3. The Indian Readership Survey is done twice a year. R2 represents the survey data for round 2 of the year, i.e. July-December.

4. Delhi is a Union Territory and its surrounding cities, including Delhi itself, are called National Capital Region (NCR). The NCR respondents were from four cities: Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida and Faridabad. For all practical purposes NCR is considered as a one city.

5. ‘Public sector’ in India means the companies that are wholly/majority owned by the Government of India/state governments. ‘Private sector’ in India means privately held companies including listed companies.