Gender equality in entities setup in spanish science and technology parks

Abstract

The constant social, political, and economic changes require business organizations to continuously readjust. Sensitivity regarding gender equality has been determined by factors such as the entry of women into the work market, changes in business management proposals, which have started to appraise human capital as the companies’ main assets or the implementation of measures to reconcile working, family, and personal life. This effort not only guarantees compliance with the applicable regulations but also an increase in productivity and satisfaction both of the workforce of the organization and of its customers/ suppliers. The aim of this study is to shed light on gender equality and the degree of satisfaction of employees of technology-based companies of Science and Technology Parks (STPs), members or partners of the APTE (Association of Science and Technology Parks of Spain), trying to identify good practices carried out in these entities, extracting success factors that show how to guarantee the specific procedures to achieve the aforementioned gender equality, and indicating those aspects that can be improved in order to reach effective equity. To this end, an empiric, quantitative analysis is performed using the survey technique, with the participation, via an online questionnaire, of mid- and top-level managers of all the companies set up in the 49 partner STPs of the APTE. An analysis of the results of this phase provides a clear vision of the success elements in favor of gender quality in STPs, which can also be generalisable to other companies.