I Want to Show the Society That Females Also Can be Leaders : A Qualitative Study of Cambodian Women in Leadership Roles

• Main Authors: Fors, Hanna, Käll, Axel
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Pedagogiska institutionen 2020
• Subjects: Cambodia; Gender inequality; Leadership; Semi-structured interviews; Social Sciences; Samhällsvetenskap; Educational Sciences; Utbildningsvetenskap; Pedagogy; Pedagogik
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-174821

The research was a Minor Field Study conducted in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The purpose of the study was to explore and analyze Cambodian women's experiences of leadership. A qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews was conducted with a targeted and snowball selection. Seven female leaders from different organizations and from both the private and public sector were the source of our empirical findings. We discovered in our research that the participants had both intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation. First, women that were unsure of what motivated them, second motivation grew out of hard work and third motivation was to demonstrate female capacity. The research found that success, challenges, and the benefit of being a female leader were essential components for positive experiences. Important factors for leadership were family background, education and self-confidence/belief in herself. These factors coincided with previous research from Cambodia. The research displayed three types of barriers for Cambodian women -traditional values, higher demands, and personal factors. Most commonly the female had either a democratic or transformational leadership style, but authoritarian and situational leadership styles were also used. The result displayed that one side saw a difference between the genders in their way of leading and the other suggested that leadership is based on personal attributes.