Women as leaders: the glass ceiling effect on women’s leadership success in public bureaucracies
ISSN: 1754-2413
Article publication date: 21 March 2023
Issue publication date: 20 April 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Much research has been conducted regarding leadership success challenges. However, few are practically oriented on whether the success of women's leadership aligns to organisational, personal and societal contexts as glass cliffs. Thus, this study aims to examine these factors and introduce how they inhibit women from leadership success.
Design/methodology/approach
This research examined the glass ceiling effects Ethiopian women leaders face. This research focused on adjusted clusters and a survey of 446 female employees from zones, woreda and kebeles. The data was processed through SPSS 25.0 to regress the values.
Findings
Breaking the glass ceiling, the glass cliffs effects on women’s income levels, the lack of an arena for self-improvement, the nature of organisation policies and challenges in teamwork were found to contribute to women’s under-representation in top leadership positions.
Research limitations/implications
The results focused only on the 94 public organisations in Ethiopia that were selected by adjusted cluster sampling.
Practical implications
Realizations of substantial change and refocusing on bringing a significant number of women to the boardrooms in the public bureaucracy, besides glass cliffs.
Social implications
Enhancing the importance of accepting women leaders.
Originality/value
To add value to the stock of literature in gender equality, this research brings a strategic focus on factors that inhibit women from top leadership positions.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study is funded by innovative team of philosophy and social sciences in Jiangsu Higher Learning Institution under “Grant number: 2017ZSTD002.” The authors would like to extend their appreciation to the institution for the encouragement from the beginning to the end of the study.
Data availability statement: The data supporting the reliability of the findings were embedded in the study. The corresponding author can be contacted in case the data needs cross-validations.
Competing interest: The authors have no potential conflict of interest.
Citation
Zhang, C. and Basha, D. (2023), "Women as leaders: the glass ceiling effect on women’s leadership success in public bureaucracies", Gender in Management, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 489-503. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-09-2021-0283
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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