The “Top” woman in the Organization : An assessment of females' current and future situation in high responsibility positions

• Main Authors: Belghali, Moulay Ghali, Olichon, Samuel
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Högskolan i Kalmar, Handelshögskolan BBS 2008
• Subjects: Glass ceiling; visible barriers; gender; top positions; the ecological organization; leadership; stereotypes; networks; female role model; elite diversification; Business studies; Företagsekonomi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hik:diva-346

The problem for women in the work market has been and is still being widely studied from different domains and fields, there is however still countless fissures linked to it. Even though the gender equality has comprehensively increased in recent decades, it is still apparent in high responsibility positions. This situation caught our attention and stimulated us to analyse the women’s condition within organizations. Scholars have developed different theories linked to organizations, but our complex and fast developing society has surpassed most of these classical theories, making them either partially or totally irrelevant. For instance standards such as hierarchical organizations, individualism and aggressiveness are no longer considered as the most efficient values. This work investigates the barriers that women have to overcome in order to break though leading positions, as well as the identification of female and male leadership and their stereotypes’ consequences. Accordingly, we intend to propose solutions and new approaches liable to help integrating more women in high profile positions. We are aspiring to create a new trend representing successful leadership that is no longer correlated to the male stereotype. The theoretical part engages in theories surrounding female gender leadership as well as gender related barriers, while the empirical method involves the conduction of semi structured interview with women in high management positions, with the aim of setting up a solid ground for analysis and discussion. Due to this fact, we believe that the woman is the future of the organization, therefore we firstly call for the implementation and the reinforcement of the female “role model” and secondly encourage companies to adopt and promote our new concept of “the ecological organization” in order to achieve a more flexible, balanced and sane organizational culture in a foreseeable future.