Investigation of the under-representation of women at senior management levels in modern organisations: Biases and Barriers

Running head: APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH
APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH
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APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH1
Title
Investigation of the under-representation of women at senior management levels in
modern organisations: Biases and Barriers
Background and significance
This research has aimed to examine the under representation of women at
senior management level in different organisations. The current global market has
changed the demographics of women in workforce where there has been significant
increase in the number of female workforce. This has led to corporate restructuring
in many organisation and companies were forced to develop equal opportunities and
rights for women (Tan, 2019). This has led to development of new creative
approaches for managing workforce effectively. This has been included
organisational policies in all organisation which can be referred to diversity and
inclusion management within various business entities. Diversity management is not
only restricted to equal opportunity but it is the process of developing a work
environment that is inclusive to everyone (Saleem, Rafiq & Yusaf, 2017).
Gender is one of the major dimension of diversity initiative in the past few
years due to the increase in number of female employees within organisations.
Gender equality and women empowerment is one of the major development goals in
different companies. Companies have been able to realise the advantages of
promoting diversity and gender equality at workplace. Many countries have passed
laws to develop quota system for women in different levels of management to
promote equal representation of both the genders (Nikolaou, 2017). However, this
policies have not been able to make much of a difference in the top level of
management. Survey shows that fewer women have taken up senior positions held
by women and ever fewer positions are held by women in executive position. It is
still unclear in majority of the cases the reason for under representation of women at
various levels of management, especially, senior management positions even
though significant efforts have been made by companies to bring women into
organisations (Modesto et al., 2016). This makes is apt to analyse the various
reasons due to which women are facing challenges in growing in organisations and
moving to higher levels of management.

APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH2
Research challenge and questions
Various surveys conducted on women representation in organisations, it has
been seen that there has not been significant changes in the position of women in
organisations. It is highly problematic to see that there is under representation of
women in organisations, even though there has been significant increase in number
of women with higher educational background. This continuously is hinting at
discrimination at workplace and this imbalance between genders raises a critical
question about the distribution of roles of different genders at top level of
management. This also results in issues for women working in lower levels of
hierarchy within the organisation and makes life difficult and challenging for them.
The increase in women in among the highest level of management results in balance
and implementation of strategies to promote equality at lower levels of management.
Moreover, it also reduces the gender wage gap at the lower level of management
which is relatively higher in corporate organisations. This indicates that companies
are unable to fully utilize the potential of existing employees at workforce.
The main objective of the research is to investigate the barriers and
challenges faced by female employees at work while trying to get promoted to higher
level of management. This will determines the biases, challenges and barriers
perceived by women to highlight the key issues to understand the under
representation of female employees at work. The research will take in to account the
women perspective to identify the self-perceived barriers highlighted by social
convention of roles of different gender. The objectives of the current study are as
follows:
 To highlight the ways women perceive challenges, biases and barriers of
under representation at work
 To evaluate the ways women assess and experience the various
opportunities related to work for promoting to higher level of management
 To recommend suitable strategies to bring about gender balance at higher
level of management.
Research questions
What are the ways women perceive challenges, biases and barriers of under
representation at work?

APPLIED BUSINESS RESEARCH3
What are the ways women assess and experience the various opportunities related
to work for promoting to higher level of management?
Literature review
The underrepresentation of women in the senior management is specifically
based on the different factors like societal beliefs, prejudices, marriage and children,
organizational cultures and the dominance of men’s values. The different factors
greatly affected the rate of involvement of women in different managerial positions in
the organizations. Roulstone and Williams (2014) opined that the prevalence of
gender inequalities and the prejudiced social forums restricts the women to get
indulged in respective senior managerial roles even with their qualifications. The
different changes in the organizational operations and the cultural affinities and
biases influenced gender inequality.
Societal beliefs
Mulcahy and Linehan (2014) opined that more than 47% of the global labour
force and 38% of all managerial positions worldwide were occupied by women in the
year 2011. However, Chapple and Humphrey (2014) argued that the inclusion of
women in the years were not up to the mark as the overall percentage of women in
the managerial positions accounted for 8.5% which declined to professional
positions. The major cause of underrepresentation of women in the different
managerial roles are based on the prejudiced beliefs of the social structure. It has
been noted through evaluation of different cases that women has an enhanced
capability of managing a situation as compared to men. However, the male
dominance and the outlook of the social structure greatly acknowledges the
potentials of a male manager over a female candidate.
The outlook and perception of the society towards the contribution of women
in achieving a greater benefit is often disillusioned by the biases and the prejudices.
On the other hand, Parker and Roan (2014) opined that the male ego relating to
dominance is again an important factor that has affected the rate of involvement of
women in the managerial positions. It has been noted that more than 40% of the
women in US are indulged in managerial roles as compared to the other 60% male
population (Haile, Emmanuel & Dzathor, 2016). The biases and beliefs that are
retained by the society and the domination of male in the different aspects has