EDOS

EDOs of the random selected districts were interviewed to solicit their perspective of decentralization.

All EDOs had an academic and a professional degree in Education.

One of the EDOs defined decentralization in education in these words, "if all powers related to schools are centered at provincial or divisional level, it is centralization but if they are devolved to districts, it is decentralization." He further stated, "Decentralization benefits schools a lot because most of their issues, problems and inquiries get resolved in their own districts." They all felt that decentralization was introduced by the federal government by giving powers from provincial governments to districts.

The EDOs of the districts with high literacy rate considered that lack of motivation and commitment on the part of teachers and HTs had been the biggest reason of problems like dropout and teachers' absenteeism.

Majority of EDOs considered that equity within the school in the district, increasing enrolment, controlling dropout, increasing teacher student ratio, teacher absentees and monitoring of the school could be improved through this system largely.

Thus, it is not surprising that women representing small business are twice as likely to join EDOs at the local (city) level rather than at the higher state level (Andre, 1992).

Having obtained CEO status, women must meet the further entry criteria of the EDO. Typically EDOs select one or more companies to represent an industry or sectors, and they require a membership fee, often on a sliding scale based on company size.

In order to understand interpersonal influence within and among EDOs, it is useful to understand that internally an EDO operates much like an interlocking directorate, which is "a network though which affect, evaluation, knowledge, opinion, influence and power are constantly passing among directors" (Koenig and Gogel, 1981: 40).

Although Zajac's data are indicative for interlocking directorates among competing firms, the opposite may well hold for interlocks among cooperating organizations such as EDOs. The useful distinction between mandated and nonmandated organizational ties made by Boje and Whetten (1981) suggests that non-mandated (e.g., voluntary) linkages such as EDO memberships carry more perceived influence and more actual influence than mandated linkages of which corporate boards are examples.

In sum, the existing information suggests that women approach networking differently than men and that there will be sex differences in networking in EDOs. These differences could exist at any point of participation, from obtaining access to EDO membership, to interacting within EDOs, to interacting among EDOs.