Evaluating the Research of Others – QnQ – Fall 2019 - Mahnum Tahir – 20110338

1. Yes, the article is based on researching the impact of women in management on

organizational performance. The authors attempt to study the difference in performance by
women representation in project-based organizations compared to non-project-based
organizations.

2. The article collects data from existing sources. The sample population was based on
Australian for-profit organizations with the sampling frame representing all organizations
that reported on their gender equality initiatives to the WGEA a.ka Workplace Gender
Equality Agency, the ORBIS database and the Australian New Zealand Standard Industrial
Classification.

3. Yes, the article is logically structured and easy to follow. However, the article measured its
results through multiple hierarchical regression – a statistical modelling method which may
not be easily understood by readers foreign to it. The analysis assumes some understanding
of regression of the reader which may not be the applicable for a wide variety of readers.

4. Yes, the article integrates and references previous work on this topic several times during
the course of the article but especially under the Discussions heading. The authors claim that
the findings of their study support previous theories like the contingency theory and
resource-based theory. It refers to similar claims made in other studies for e.g the World
Economic Forum by stating that ‘more women managers deliver a competitive advantage,
leading to improved organizational outcomes’. The authors also claim that their findings add
to the research gap that previous studies have acknowledged. The article also quotes. The
previous work has added conceptual backing to the research problem being discussed as the
studies quoted have studied the issue of diversity in organizations. Overall, the article uses
existing work related to the research problem to set the foundation for the research gap, its
methodology, findings and even its future direction.

5. Yes, the study uses a longitudinal time-lagged research study with a sample of women
comparing women in management and organizational performance, as well as women in
non-management and organizational performance and then performs a regression analysis
to compare the effect on their organizations profitability. This method is replicable given a
sample size and information on profitability pre and post the research period. The article
considers the organizational size as a control for the study but is vague about how this
control is set, so I would want to understand that further while trying to replicate the study.
Also it distinguishes industry type as moderator, however some industries can be both
project and non-project based, so I would be interested to see how the researches verified
each sample organization between the two categories.

6. Data was collected from various governmental databases of for-profit organizations. The
data was then categorized via industry, sectors, roles of management vs non-management
roles, etc. The databases used provided extensive data and allowed for the researches to get
access to a wide range of working sectors information. Something that could be potentially
observed further is, the role level and experience of the women within these organizations,
as a woman in a mere fresh-hire position may not be able to contribute as significantly or
 strategically to the organization as say, a female CFO who’s strategic input could add to
significance change to a company’s performance. Although the article says that the sample
size differentiates between roles of management vs non-management level, the details of
the experience levels within this distinction is unclear.

7. Yes, based on the two hypothesis set. The article makes logical interpretations on supporting
both of its hypothesis by explaining the regression results by focusing on the significance
level of the tested variables which provided support for one of the hypotheses but not the
other. The hypotheses predicting women in non-management roles to have impact greater
in PBO’s compared to non PBO’s did not show enough significance for support which I
believe makes sense because to make impact on a company’s profitability, employees must
be able to contribute to relevant tasks. Women in non-management roles would not have
the kind of authority in their assigned tasks to engage in such profit contribution.

8. I appreciate the articles effort to go into a detailed study of women representation across
the various sector and the comparison between PBO’s and non PBO’s. The article also draws
interesting reference from a multitude of work of other authors in this field to build a strong
case for the problem being discussed. However, I believe the article did not stand-out in its
analysis because the second hypothesis seemed a bit obvious in its nature even though it
was important to test it empirically. I also believe the study could have considered many
other factors of the sample in detail to draw even further interesting conclusions as
discussed in recommendations earlier.