Project Outline: Work-Life Balance of Women Employees at Accenture

This project outline presents a research proposal examining the effect of work-life balance on women employees, specifically within Accenture Australia. The research aims to explore the key elements of work-life balance, the variables contributing to family-work conflict, and the challenges faced by women employees in the organization. The methodology involves a qualitative research design using structured interviews with senior women employees and the analysis of secondary data from various sources, including Accenture's website, academic journals, and government reports. The study will employ a deductive approach, utilizing positivism as a research philosophy, and thematic analysis will be used to analyze the interview data in conjunction with existing literature to identify key themes and insights. The research intends to highlight the awareness of work-life balance policies within Accenture Australia and to provide a comprehensive understanding of the issue, potentially offering recommendations for improvement.

Project Outline, Topic and
Data Presentation

Research Topic
Effect of Work-Life-Balance on women
employees: a study based on Accenture
Australia

Brief problem statement
Work-Life-Balance has become a significant matter since the working women
have been splitting the equal responsibility for development of the family.
The working women can manage the situation by perseverance and
commitment. The women are participating in employment and they involve
in income generation that leads towards satisfying the home needs (Lyness &
Judiesch, 2014).
Family-work conflict (FWC) exerts negative influence in family domain and it
can influence greater internal conflict and lower satisfaction within the family.
There are multiple variables that can impact on the Work-Life-Balance of the
women, family size, working hours and age of the children and level of family
as well as social support (Crompton & Lyonette, 2016).

Brief problem statement (Contd…)
Accenture is a global organisation and the organisation is committed
to gender equality (Accenture.com, 2018).
However, in Accenture Australia, women workforce is not treated well
as women have been treated as they do not have the ability to
define or achieve goal.
The women in Australia cannot make the Work-Life-Balance and
Accenture Australia fails to assist the women in accessing the
network in global workforce to make the plan, evolve the women in
life stages.

Research aim
The aim of the project is to explore the effect of Work-Life-
Balance on women employees and the project will narrowly
focus on Accenture Australia.

Research objectives
• To find out the elements of Work-Life-Balance in employment
• To explore the variables of Family-work conflict for women
employees
• To highlight the challenges that the women employees have been
facing in Accenture Australia
• To establish women employees’ awareness of the existence of Work-
Life-Balance policies in Accenture Australia

Research Methodology
In this research, Positivism
Research philosophy will
be used as Positivism is used
to generate factual
knowledge.
In positivism, the researcher
will be limited to data
collection and interpretation
of data, most importantly; the
researcher will collect data in
a scientific way.
The researcher will select the
Deductive approach and
deductive approach is used
when the research objectives
are developed from already
existing theories.
The deductive approach helps
to move from more general
level to more specific level
(Flick, 2015).

Research Methodology (Contd…)
In order to collect the data about Work-Life-Balance of
women employees, qualitative research design will be
used. Qualitative data is mainly based on observation
and subjective data (Lewis, 2015).
Qualitative research design would provide help to
logical description of data collection and analyse to
address the research objectives.
The researcher would collect the data through
conducting structured interviews of the senior women
employees in Accenture Australia. 5 senior women
employees would be sample size for the interviews.
Non-probability sampling will be used. The researcher
will prepare 10 open-ended questions and the
researcher will record the observation.
Sample size: 5
Sample Population:
Senior women employees in
Accenture Australia
Sampling technique: Non-
probability sampling

Clearly identify secondary data sources
Secondary data sources will be collected through the website of
Accenture Australia, books, journals, articles, government reports
and online magazines.
Secondary data are not raw data and these are typically
inexpensive. Secondary data can be obtained quickly and
comparison can be done from different data sources (Taylor,
Bogdan & DeVault, 2015).
There is a large amount of data already present about Work-Life-
Balance on employment of women in existing literature.

Data analysis technique
In addition, the researcher will collect 10 existing journal articles on
Work-Life-Balance of women employees and the findings of the
interviews will be contrasted and compared with existing
literature.
Most importantly, data will be analysed taking the method of
thematic analysis. As stated by Lewis (2015), thematic analysis
can be defined as form of analysis of qualitative research as it
stresses, examines and pinpoints the chosen themes within the
data.
Moreover, the researcher will segregate the themes according to
the data findings and analyse these with graphs and charts.

Secondary data sources
• Aziz, S. & Cunningham, J. (2008), Workaholism, Work stress, Worklife imbalance, exploring gender’s role, Gender in Management, 23(8), 553.
• Balaji, R. (2014). Work-life balance of women employees. International Journal of Innovative. 3(10), 16841-16847.
• Cahill, K. E., McNamara, T. K., Pitt-Catsouphes, M., & Valcour, M. (2015). Linking shifts in the national economy with changes in job
satisfaction, employee engagement and work-life balance. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 56, 40-54.
• Crompton, R., & Lyonette, C. (2016). Work-life ‘balance’in Europe. Acta sociological, 49(4), 379-393.
• Heather, MS. Morris ML, Kate & Atchley E. (2011), Constructs of the Work / Life interface: A synthesis of the Literature and Introduction of the
Concept of Work / Life Harmony. Human Resource Development Review, 10(1), 6-25.
• Kumari, KT. & Devi VR. (2012), Impact of Demographic Variables on Work-Life Balance of Women Employees. International Journal of
Advances in Management and Economics, 1(6), 226-229.
• Lyness, K. S., & Judiesch, M. K. (2014). Gender egalitarianism and work-life balance for managers: Multisource perspectives in 36 countries.
Applied Psychology, 63(1), 96-129.
• McGinnity, F. & McManus, PA. (2007), Paying the price for reconciling work and family life: Comparing the wage penalty for women's part-
time work in Britain, Germany and United States. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 9(2), 115.
• Susi, S. & Jawaharrani, K. (2011), Work-life balance: The key driver of employee engagement. Asian Journal of Management Research, 2(1),
474-483.
• White, M., Hill, S., McGovern, P., Mills, C., & Smeaton, D. (2013). ‘High‐performance'Management Practices, Working Hours and Work-Life
Balance. British journal of Industrial Relations, 41(2), 175-195.

Bibliography
• Accenture Careers for Women. (2018). Accenture.com. Retrieved 27 March 2018, from
https://www.accenture.com/in-en/careers/team-culture-diversity-women
• Aziz, S. & Cunningham, J. (2008), Workaholism, Work stress, Worklife imbalance, exploring gender’s role,
Gender in Management, 23(8), 553.
• Balaji, R. (2014). Work-life balance of women employees. International Journal of Innovative. 3(10),
16841-16847.
• Crompton, R., & Lyonette, C. (2016). Work-life ‘balance’in Europe. Acta sociological, 49(4), 379-393.
• Flick, U. (2015). Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research project. Sage.
• Heather, MS. Morris ML, Kate & Atchley E. (2011), Constructs of the Work / Life interface: A synthesis of
the Literature and Introduction of the Concept of Work / Life Harmony. Human Resource Development
Review, 10(1), 6-25.
• Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Health
promotion practice, 16(4), 473-475.
• Lyness, K. S., & Judiesch, M. K. (2014). Gender egalitarianism and work-life balance for managers:
Multisource perspectives in 36 countries. Applied Psychology, 63(1), 96-129.
• Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., & DeVault, M. (2015). Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook
and resource. John Wiley & Sons.