Assessment of gender gap in formal and informal relationship networks

The most exponential barrier to the curtailment of gender bias is lack of reliable
information on the scope of the issue. To achieve a better position in hierarchical structure of organizations, optimized social networks, for both men and women, must be stressed. The main concentration of this article is to provide a realistic view of women’s position in intra organizational relationship networks in Iran. With network analysis approach, informal relationship networks(including communication network, information network, know network, problem solving network) of 85 male and female workers in the faculty of management, University of Tehran, are emerged to discover whether women’s position is the same as men’s position in these networks and to determine existence of gender discrimination. Data are analyzed in UCINET software and depicted by Netdraw
software. Major findings, sadly, demonstrate apparent sex discrimination; moreover, other factors, such as tendency of female staff to contribute to the research unveiled a poor trend. Although the incidence of women respondents was higher in comparison to that in men, female employees answered questions more skeptically. This was widely noticeable for those in senior and junior
levels, even though, middle staff cooperated most. This is maybe for the fear of unemployment; nevertheless, findings require further investigations.