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Balancing Managerial and Motherhood Roles
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Added on 2019-09-16
Balancing Managerial and Motherhood Roles
Added on 2019-09-16
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[TYPE THE COMPANY NAME]DISSERTATION PROPOSALTitle: The coping mechanisms of Nigerian womenbalancing managerial and motherhood rolesDISSERTATION PROPOSAL OUTLINECHAPTER 1..........................................................................................................................................4INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PROBLEM.........................................................................41.0BACKGROUND INFORMATION.......................................................................................41.1RATIONALE FOR STUDY..................................................................................................51.2AIMS OF THE RESEARCH.................................................................................................6
1.3SCOPE OF RESEARCH.......................................................................................................71.4RESEARCH QUESTIONS....................................................................................................7CHAPTER 2..........................................................................................................................................8REVIEW OF LITERATURE................................................................................................................82.0WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT.............................................................................................82.1THE NOTION OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE.......................................................................92.1.1WORK LIFE BALANCE: THE UK CONTEXT...........................................................92.2THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN WORKPLACE PRESSURES AND DOMESTIC PRESSURES...................................................................................................................................11CHAPTER 3........................................................................................................................................12RESEARCH DESIGN.........................................................................................................................123.0RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY...............................................................................................123.1RESEARCH APPROACH..................................................................................................123.2RESEARCH STRATEGIES................................................................................................133.3TIME HORIZONS..............................................................................................................133.4DATA COLLECTION METHODS....................................................................................133.4.1THE QUESTIONNAIRE.............................................................................................143.4.2THE INTERVIEW.......................................................................................................143.5DATA ANALYSIS..............................................................................................................14CHAPTER 4........................................................................................................................................15CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................................154.0CONTRIBUTION OF PROPOSED RESEARCH...............................................................154.1POSSIBLE DIFFICULTIES AND LIMITATIONS............................................................15APPENDICES.....................................................................................................................................16APPENDIX A.................................................................................................................................16APPENDIX B..................................................................................................................................17APPENDIX C..................................................................................................................................18APPENDIX D.................................................................................................................................18APPENDIX E..................................................................................................................................20REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................22LIST OF ABBREVIATIONSAWAAlternative Work ArrangementsDTIDepartment of Trade and IndustryEIEmotional Intelligence2
EUEuropean UnionFFWAFamily Friendly Work ArrangementsPENCOMNational Pension CommissionWLBWork Life BalanceCHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PROBLEM1.0BACKGROUND INFORMATIONThe participation of women in the labour force is now a global phenomenon that developedsignificantly over several decades hence majority of women including those with toddlers3
now work as paid labour in previously male dominated management jobs (Kroska, 2004). Anumber of changes such as industrialization of world economies, modification of societalattitudes towards the career woman, and a shift from manufacturing to service sector wereidentified by Davidson & Burke (2004) as providing an impetus for an increase in the numberof women entering managerial and professional careers. This apparent trend has not gonewithout concerns crucial of which is the balanced commitment of women to work and theirpersonal life Manfredi and Holliday (2004) opined that Work Life Balance (WLB) is premised upon thenotion that demands of paid work and personal life are visualized as complementary versuscompeting proprieties. The fact that balancing work and home life poses a challenge forwomen brings the concept of multiple role conflict into lime light because conflictingdemands of marriage, children and work impinge on an individual’s career (Aaron-Corbin,1999). This often leads poor performance or voluntary resignation due to burnout, soenabling work environments which support women in balancing work and personal life areessential.This dissertation proposal has four chapters which mirror the final dissertation. The firstchapter provides a background on WLB, the rationale, aims, scope and questions of theresearch. The second chapter is a review of the key points in literature. The third chapter willdescribe the research methods. The final chapter looks at possible limitations and thecontribution of the proposed research to existing literature.1.1RATIONALE FOR STUDYThe published and accessible literature on WLB is a far cry from being scarce. In particularnarrowing focus to female gender we find many articles, books and research work thatidentify the importance of WLB, challenges of female employees and employers whilstattempting to balance and possible solutions, the implications of WLB for women and thecoping strategies of women managers in reconciling work and their other domesticresponsibilities to mention a few (Woodward, 2007; Manfredi & Holliday, 2004; Crompton& Lyonette, 2006; Gatrell & Cooper, 2008; Doherty, 2004). However most of these studiesdevelop their case and arrive at conclusions by focusing on countries like United Kingdom,Germany, France, United States, Australia and thankfully South Africa and India. Even in adeveloping country like India, research carried out by Gambles, Lewis and Rapoport (2006)which unveiled the havoc that intense work patterns create and highlights the difficult battle4
in maintaining time and energy for multiple parts of life concluded by saying WLB problemscannot be individualized as it is related to wide social concerns. Again a silent reiteration ofproblems encountered but a neglect of coping mechanisms individuals employ and a focus onproviding advice to governments intending to initiate family friendly policies. This is as closeat it get to creating awareness about the need to focus on peculiar individual capabilities.Even though work has done by Woodword (2007) a year later to identify balancing strategiesof women it is however restricted to the United Kingdom.It is conspicuous that most studies on WLB in Africa is linked to South Africa (Kotze, 2003;Greef & Nel, 2003; Booysen, 1999; Booysen, 2000; Brink & De la Rey, 2001), but whatabout a country like Nigeria which is deemed as the most populous country in Africa, with anestimated population of 120 million as at 2004 which has grown to 158 million? (PRB,2010). Also Anakwe (2002) in considering challenges and insights into Human ResourceManagement practices in Nigeria noted that the percentage of the female population inNigeria is more than half at 57%. Unfortunately until PENCOM develops a workingpopulation database, the exact size won’t be known but it would most likely result in a fifty-fifty split between men and women similar to the statistics in the western world. Furthermore,the Nigerian culture still has a high consideration for the traditional female role and approvesqualities such as submissiveness, subservience and supportiveness [ CITATION Kit04 \l 2057 ].Hence this acceptable tradition often results in conflict as it can undermine the ability ofwomen to apply themselves to their responsibilities as embedded in the culture on one handand succeed in their chosen careers on the other hand. No doubt this double burden bearing asis difficult for all women regardless of their country of origin. However, it is pretty obviousfrom lack of infrastructure, policies and high poverty levels that, women in developingcountries feel this burden more. The question that then arises is - how do they cope undersuch unfavourable conditions? The available literature on WLB which takes Nigerian women as case studies simply focuseson examining the major sources of work-life conflict; the relationship work-family conflicthas with career commitment; challenges of WLB, men’s view on female WLB, professionalwomen’s adjustment strategies to their husband’s attitude towards their commitment to theirjob (Adekola, 2010; Okurame, 2011; Karatepe & Magaji, 2008; Alutu & Ogbe, 2007; Bisong,Ekuri & Ajake, 2008). It is quite disturbing that no literature on Nigeria begins by examiningthe coping strategies of these women, instead they propose strategies. This calls for anempirical investigation that will result in the identification and subsequent understanding of5
these coping strategies in the Nigerian work environment. The proposed dissertation seeks toaddress this apparent dearth using work already done in the United Kingdom as the basis ofcomparison. In doing this research it is imperative to begin by identifying how Nigerianwomen in management positions experience WLB and then proceed to identify challengesfaced and how they cope. The role of the organization in providing an ideal workenvironment that leads to retention of talented female professionals in their leadershippipeline is also considered. The ideal working environment for this research is the stressladen Nigerian banking sector. 1.2AIMS OF THE RESEARCHThe aims of this research are three fold:1.To investigate how Nigerian women experience WLB, the challenges they face andtheir adjustment strategies in order to address the existing gap in academicliterature and research already identified.2.To utilize scholarly articles and books in understanding how women generallyexperience WLB in the United Kingdom and how they have adjusted. The findingshere would then be compared with the field work carried out in this research onNigerian women.3.To explore the key research questions posed, the data collected would be frommultiple sources – that is information would be collected from women working indifferent banks in order to address the issues of environmental context which willvary from bank to bank.1.3SCOPE OF RESEARCHThe proposed research is limited to women who are middle or first line managers and aresingle or married mothers responsible for nurturing one or more dependants in thecharacteristically stress laden banking institution in Nigeria. Floyd and Wooldridge (1994)regarded these levels as the organizations control system where top management strategiesare translated into action. In a relatively recent field work by Adebisi (2009), it was observed6
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