Glass Ceiling Topic

INTRODUCTION The interrogation team has selected the topic of grouch crown survive for the seek project. It has been observed that during the destination few years a lot of women are going in management field of run into but non a lot of them are getting an opportunity to get into the top management positions. This has got nonhing to do with their abilities and dedication to their work, it is clear that crosspatch cap is affecting and fillet the women from reaching the top management positions.The problem of glass ceiling persists in the other countries of the world as is clear from the previous researches but this problem is more(prenominal) evident in Pakistan. This is because despite the boom in education sector, the society still re master(prenominal)s conservative and negative feelings and stereotypes do exist against women employees. As a result of the glass ceiling, the carrying out of women employees is to a fault being impact. This is a cause of concern and it is happening because women managing directors feel that they are not being treated equally.They transgress the feelings that their efforts are not being properly rewarded. Due to the presence of pre-defined rules and regulation for promotions women working in public sector are not being affected a great deal by glass ceiling. Thus it is the closed-door sector where the women are facing glass ceiling the most. The significance of this study is that the research team looked into the main problems which are prohibiting the women from going into the top management positions. By identifying the factors causing the problems, the team will be able to judge the reasons and help prohibit them.It is important to look in the organizational factors that would help the women to reach to top management positions as early as they deserve. This study is an effort to not lonesome(prenominal) identify the factors responsible for affecting the process of women managers through glass ceiling but also to give solutions to over come from this problems. LITERATURE REVIEW The edge glass ceiling refers to the transparent but real and strong barrier which prevents women from moving up in the management hierarchy in an organization (Morrison & Glinow, 1990).The nonage of women in senior management has led many researchers to investigate whether glass ceiling barriers such as sexual discrimination, sexual practice wage gap, sexual activity stereotype, molestation and lack of family-friendly work regulate policies in the organizations are at play and how these barriers affect the slaying of distaff employees in the organizations (Jeavons & Sevastos, 2002). The existence of glass ceiling in antithetic organizations, cultures and eon span has been sustain by many researchers.In 1997, Tokunaga & graham flour looked at employees in the technical division at one large stack 500 corporation and found that womanly person engineers could not advance as far up the corpo mark hie rarchy as did the virile engineers, on that pointby providing certainty for the existence of a glass ceiling against women. A research conducted by Veale & Gold (1998) in Metropolitan District Council situated in Yorkshire, UK also confirmed that a glass ceiling did exist within the council and this inhibited womens progression into senior management.This existence of a strong glass ceiling magnetic core prevents women to progress in the organizations. A study controlled for previous job experience, education, age, tenure, initial job level and gender come oned that even levels of promotions existed for men and women. However, qualitative info showed that women were diligent by the organization at a level that was lower than their qualifications, or lower than men doing the identical job. Therefore, even with equal rates of promotion, women will not progress as far as men (Jeavons & Sevastos, 2002). There a number of factors that keeps the glass ceiling in exertion.One of t hem is the gender stereotype. Over the last three decades, Schein (2007) found that gender stereotyping of the managerial position has continue to be the major barrier to womens progress in management, worldwide. He also shown that on international level, the view of women as less likely than men to possess requisite management characteristics is a normally held belief among antheral management students in the USA, the UK, Germany, China and Japan. Apart from gender stereotyping, gender wage gap also plays its intention in the organizations.Across a sample of eleven atomic number 63an amalgamation countries in 19952001 Booth & Bryan (2007) found that women were paid less than men and this wage gap typically widened toward the top of the wage distribution (the glass ceiling effect), and in a few cases it also widened at the bottom (the sticky floor effect). In recent studies of promotion to partner process, Kumra & Vinnicombe (2008) concluded that the disadvantages women face in o rganizations in relation to the promotion to partner process arise from a combination of firm-based and societal based factors.Discussing the relationship between discrimination, harassment and glass ceiling (Bell, McLaughlin & Sequeira, 2002), glass ceiling was referred as one of the form of sex discrimination. In the study it was concluded that because all three have some common antecedents, steps to go down one of them will likely affect the others. Apart from that they suggested that stripes designed to increase numbers of women in higher level positions will reduce sexual harassment. As a result of this glass ceiling there is an inclination of women to entrepreneurship as a result of barriers to womens advancements in corporation (Mattis, 2004).Mattis showed that lack of flexibility continued to be a feature of the corporate culture that lead to the attrition of high potential women and contributed to the dramatic increase in entrepreneurship among women in the US Glass ceil ing affects the public presentation of women at managerial posts. Some of the masculine organizational barriers that severely hinder womens ability to be effective in their role as strategic decision makers include reluctance of male subordinates towards womanish managers isolation by male colleagues exclusion from male-dominated informal ne devilrks and the lack of mentorship (Okanlawon, 1994).Exploration of a model of decision making (Large & Saunders, 1995) explains how a combination of both individual choices (employees own intuitions, requirements and priorities like family, social life) and organizational blockages (organizational structure, policies and culture) maintains the glass ceiling. Gender related attributes also play their role. An appropriate theoretical foundation for explaining differences between male and pistillate service providers originates in the sociology literature and is referred to as feminist theory. This theory proffers two perspectives regarding gender-related differences in execution of instrument.One argues that there are a wide variety of issues that are impacted by societys attitudes towards women (Hooks, 2000). These attitudes are based in the memorial and institutional structure of society. As a result, women are treated differently than men, so that the performance of businesses owned by women suffers. Another stream of literature argues that there are innate differences between male and female approaches to issues. These differences lead women to take different actions than males in similar situations (Buttner, 2001 Fletcher, 1998).There is an alternative theoretical perspective that would not accept the arguments advanced by feminist theory. The foundation for most of this research is the rational economic model (Ferber & Nelson, 1993). This theory argues that individuals make rational economic choices and adjudicate to maximize economic benefit to themselves or the firm. Most of these models assume that custom ers are economically rational and will make their choices based on the benefits gained from the transaction, and not the gender of the service provider.Prior research on whether gender as an impact on the financial performance of professional service providers has not provided clear insights on whether feminist theory or the rational economic model is more valid. Some researchers find that women get lower financial performance than men (Hisrich & Brush, 1984 Loscocco, Robinson, Hall, & Allen, 1991 Lustgarten, 1995 Chaganti & Prasuraman, 1997 Fasci & Valdez, 1998), plot others argue that there is no performance difference between male & female owned enterprises (Fischer, Reuber & Dyke, 1993 Kalleberg & Leicht, 1991).Davidson & Cooper (1983) found that managerial women experience greater descriptor and feel more isolated at work than males which in turn affect their performance. There is gender difference in lead because of negative perception and evaluation of women in leadership (Stelter 2002). Sex role orientation and the stereotype of manager role as masculine construct, along with lack of career grooming among women are predominant theme that explains why so few women progress to leadership position (Chugh & Sehgal 2007).Women are not advancing in work place because they did not receive training to perform job moreover manager do not appreciate achievements of their women employee as compare to men (Asplund 1988). RESEARCH mind How glass ceiling affect the job performance of managerial women? THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK There are three variables which are under study. Job performance is dependent variable and it is the variable of primary interest and changes or variations in job performance will be explained by two independent variables (1) gender stereotyping (2) cooperation among colleagues.Gender stereotyping has negative relation with job performance i. e. if there is less gender stereotyping among the members of organization because greater will be t he job performance. Cooperation has despotic relation with job performance i. e. if there is more cooperation among the employees the greater will be the job performance. Review of past researches shows if there is gender stereotyping female manager can not get the equal opportunities, males are only favoring the males so ultimately it affect the job performance of female employees thats why there is a negative relation between job performance and gender stereotype.Past researches also shows that the cooperation plays a very important role in change magnitude the job performance because if there is a cooperation among employees then they can motivate each other and it leads towards increase in job performance. Independent Variable helpless variable pic Independent Variable HYPOTHESES ? If cooperation among the colleagues at work place is increased then the job performance of managerial women will be increased. ? If gender stereotyping is bring down at work place then the job per formance of managerial women will be increased. METHODOLOGYStudy design In this cross-sectional co-relational field study data on two independent variables (gender stereotype, cooperation among colleagues) and dependent variable(job performance) were collected from both males and females at management level working in private organizations( PIFRA(Project to alter Financial Reporting and Auditing) World bank, Ittehad airlines,IBM Pakistan) in Islamabad through personally administered questionnaires. Population and Sample Population for the study comprised all men and women at managerial level working in private organizations in Islamabad.Quota sampling method was utilize to draw sample out of population because it was deemed fit by the researchers on the basis of cost and time considerations. Subjects were chosen in predetermined numbers. The total sample size was n=34 which comprised 14 (41. 2%) males and 20(58. 8%) females. 40 questionnaires were given over to both gender and th ey all were received back within a time period of 2 weeks, resulting in 100% response rate because questionnaires were personally administered and researchers clarify research topic, doubts and assist some of the respondents in understanding some questions.The units of analysis were individuals who responded to the survey. Out of females 8 (40 %) were at low and 12 (60 %) were at middle level management. Out of males 8 (57. 1 %) were at low and 6 (42. 9 %) were at middle level management. During data filtration patterns were observed in 6 out of 40 questionnaires of which 3 were filled by males and rest by females, such questionnaires were set a side and remaining 34 were used for analysis. 7 questionnaires include missing peaks ranging from 1 to 2 so middle value on the interval scale i. e. 3(unsure) was assigned to them.Variables and Measures Questionnaires include two demographic variables (gender & managerial level), they were tapped by direct single questions. ? Job performanc e This dependent variable indicates the extent to which employees of the organization are expected to acquire job knowledge, achieve assigned goals and maintain better work related relations with members of organization at workplace. Researchers develop 5 point interval scale containing 6 items to measure the relationship of this variable with cooperation among colleagues (independent variable).An example item is A friendly atmosphere among colleagues at work place leads to better job performance Reliability of these items go over via SPSS software product gave alpha= . 56 Means reliable. Researchers used 8 items scale to measure the relationship of job performance with gender stereotype (independent variable). An example item is I feel additional pressure to perform because I am women. Reliability of these items checked via SPSS SOFTWARE gave alpha= . 6334 ? Gender stereotype Stereotypes of men and women commonly reflect the distinction made in implicit personality theory between agency and communion (e. . , Rosenberg, Nelson, & Vivekananthan, 1968). This independent variable was mensurable using 5 point interval scale containing 14 items. An example item is a womans place is in home Reliability of these items checked via SPSS SOFTWARE gave alpha= . 636 ? Cooperation among colleagues cooperation is a process by which individuals, groups and organizations come together, interact and form psychological relationships for mutual gain or benefit (Smith et al. , 1995). This independent variable was measured using 5 point interval scale containing 10 items.An example item is open communication of relevant information occurs between male and female colleagues Reliability of these items checked via SPSS SOFTWARE gave alpha= . 634 Data collection method Data was collected through personally administered questionnaires because the survey was confined to local subject area i. e. Islamabad. Moreover, this method was deemed fit in Pakistan as compared to mailed and elect ronic questionnaires. Method of personally administered questionnaires was adopted to introduce research topic, clarify doubts of respondents and collect all the faultless responses within a short span of time.All questionnaires were received back within 2 weeks. 5 point interval scale was used for data collection containing range from powerfully disagree to strongly agree RESULTS In order to test the formulated hypotheses, statistical analysis of the responses of the questionnaires was done. The reliability of the four scales is given below Reliability of Cooperation among colleagues (CAC) scale flurry 1 important Reliability Coefficient of CAC for the Main Study (N=34) Scale zero(prenominal) of items Alpha coefficient CAC 10 0. 34 dishearten 1 shows the alpha reliability (r=0. 634) for the CAC scale. The results in table 1 show that scale has satisfactory reliability. Reliability of Gender stereotyping (GS) scale Table 2 Alpha Reliability Coefficient of SRS for the Main Study (N=34) Scale No. of items Alpha coefficient GS 14 0. 636 Table 2 shows the alpha reliability (r=0. 636) for the SRS scale. The results in table 2 show that scale has satisfactory reliability. Reliability of Cooperation effect on Performance (CEP) scaleTable 3 Alpha Reliability Coefficient of CEP for the Main Study (N=34) Scale No. of items Alpha coefficient CEP 6 0. 56 Table 3 shows the alpha reliability (r=0. 56) for the PER scale. The results in table 3 show that scale has satisfactory reliability. Reliability of Stereotyping effect on Performance (SEP) scale Table 4 Alpha Reliability Coefficient of SEP for the Main Study (N=34) Scale No. of items Alpha coefficientSEP 6 0. 633 Table 4 shows the alpha reliability (r=0. 633) for the PER scale. The results in table 4 show that scale has satisfactory reliability. The results are organized under five main headings 1) Cooperation among colleagues 2) Sex-role stereotype 3) Perception slightly female managers 4) Effect of cooperation on performance of female managers 5) Effect of stereotyping on performance of female managers Cooperation among colleagues Table 5 GenderMeanNSD young-begetting(prenominal) 3. 45140. 63 Female 3. 39200. 43 name Scale strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5)The male respondents think that cooperation does exist in private organizations among male and female colleagues (3. 45). Female respondents also think that cooperation exist between male and female colleagues (3. 39). Sex-role stereotype Table 6 GenderMeanNSD Male 3. 10140. 92 Female 2. 76200. 813 Note Scale strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) Sex role stereotyping does exist in male respondents but its very less (3. 1). However it does not exist in female respondents (2. 76). Perception about female managers Table 7 GenderMeanNSD Male 2. 67140. 83 Female 3. 51200. 51Note Scale strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) The male respondents do not think that female managers have to be more fitted than males and behav e in a typically masculine way in order to be noticed and promoted (2. 67). However female respondents think that they are required to be more competent in order to be taken seriously (3. 39). Effect of cooperation on performance of female managers Table 8 Correlation between Cooperation among colleagues and performance of female managers (N=34) Correlation r Correlation between . 286 cooperation among colleagues nd performance of female managers ____________________________________________________________ ____________ p=0. 101 Table 8 shows that the surmisal assuming that there is a relationship between cooperation among colleagues and performance of female managers is accepted as there is non-significant relationship between these two. Results indicate a wearied relationship between cooperation among colleagues and performance of female managers. Results also show that only 8% of job performance of female managers is affected by cooperation among colleagues. Effect of stereotypi ng on performance of female managersTable 9 Correlation between stereotyping and performance of female managers (N=34) Correlation r Correlation between . 117 stereotyping and performance of female managers ____________________________________________________________ ____________ p=0. 510 Table 9 shows that the hypothesis assuming that there is a relationship between stereotyping and performance of female managers is rejected as there is non-significant relationship between these two. Results indicate a weak relationship between stereotyping and performance of female managers.Results also show that only 1% of job performance of female managers is affected by stereotyping. DISCUSSION The subroutine of this study was to see the level of cooperation among colleagues and the gender stereotyping in private organizations and then to determine the impact of these two on the performance of female managers in the private organizations. The statistical analysis of the data acquired from the filled questionnaires revealed that both male and female managers at the low and middle level of organization think that there exists a friendly atmosphere among male and female colleagues at work place.They help each other in time of need and in performing work related tasks. Though both male and female agree that cooperation does exist but the interesting finding is that male employees perceive that there is cooperation among colleagues more then female employees do. Another interesting finding is that male employees think that a womans place is in home and they are not desirable for work outside of the home. According to their point of view traditional husband/wife roles are the best and that it is the job of women to manage the home and men to go out to work. Also, they think that women lack the skills and abilities needed at work.This finding is supported by a study conducted by Schein (2007) who found that on international level, the view of women as less likely than men to p ossess requisite management characteristics is a commonly held belief among male management students in the USA, the UK, Germany, China and Japan. However, female employees do not think that women lack the managerial skills and that they are not suited for work outside the home. Female employees think that compared to male managers, female managers essential continually prove themselves in order to be taken seriously and get promoted.Whereas male managers think that male and female managers are treated equally and in the same fashion as those of male managers. These results are supported by (Jeavons & Sevastos, 2002) who found out that the existence of a strong glass ceiling effect prevents women to progress in the organizations. The researchers also showed that women were employed by the organization at a level that was lower than their qualifications, or lower than men doing the same job It was hypothesized that if the cooperation among colleagues is increased then the performanc e of female managers will be enhanced.The study results show that there exist a relationship between cooperation among colleagues and the performance of female managers. So the study results show that if the cooperation among colleagues is increased there will be an improvement in the performance of female managers. This finding is also proved by a previous study conducted by (Okanlawon, 1994) that glass ceiling affects the performance of women at managerial posts and a friendly atmosphere among male and female colleagues contributes in the better and meliorate performance of female managers.Another hypothesis that was formulated was that the reduction in gender stereotyping will result in an improved performance of female managers. This hypothesis has been proved wrong. The study shows that there is a very weak relationship between stereotyping and the performance of female managers. Also these two are weakly correlated in a positive way. The conclusion drawn is that in the priva te organizations of Pakistan, female employees do not bother about what male think of females as managers.Female managers do not feel discouraged due to stereotyping. Their work activities, abilities and morale is not affected by the stereotyping of male colleagues. CONCLUSION The study aimed at finding either male and female colleagues in organizations cooperate with each other and either gender stereotyping exists among male and female managers. The findings show that both male and female employees at managerial posts of private organizations agree that cooperation does exist but the degree of agreement is higher in male then in female managers.The study was also aimed to see if there exist a relationship between cooperation among colleagues and job performance of female managers. A moderate relationship does exist between cooperation and female managers job performance. Hence if the level of comfort and cooperation among male and female colleagues at work is enhanced, female mana gers performance will improve. It is evident from the findings of the study that female managers performance is not affected by the gender stereotyping of their male peers. RECOMMENDATIONSSince it has been found that a friendly atmosphere among male and female employees at workplace plays a vital role in the better performance of female managers, the private organizations in Pakistan should figure out ways and make policies to make sure that female employees feel at ease with their male peers and both male and female employees work together and coordinate with each other in order to enhance employees performance. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH The generalizability of the results of this study is low since a non-probability sampling technique was used due to lack of time and resources.The sample size is also very small (n=34) which is not suitable for such kind of research. For future research, work which look more directly at these issues taking a larger sample size will be encour aged. 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