Balancing Managerial and Motherhood: Nigerian Women's Strategies

This dissertation proposal examines the coping mechanisms employed by Nigerian women in managerial positions who are also mothers, focusing on their strategies for balancing work and family life within the context of the Nigerian banking sector. The research aims to investigate how these women experience work-life balance, the challenges they face, and their adjustment strategies, addressing a gap in existing literature. The study will compare findings with existing research on work-life balance in the UK, exploring key research questions through data collected from women working in different banks. The research also considers the role of the organization in providing an ideal work environment to support talented female professionals, with the Nigerian banking sector serving as a key case study. The proposal outlines the research design, including the research philosophy, approach, strategies, time horizons, and data collection methods, which include questionnaires and interviews. The final chapter discusses the expected contributions of the research and potential limitations.

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DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Title: The coping mechanisms of Nigerian women balancing managerial and motherhood roles
DISSERTATION PROPOSAL OUTLINE
CHAPTER 1............................................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PROBLEM..........................................................................4
1.0 BACKGROUND INFORMATION........................................................................................4
1.1 RATIONALE FOR STUDY...................................................................................................5
1.2 AIMS OF THE RESEARCH...................................................................................................6

1.3 SCOPE OF RESEARCH.........................................................................................................7
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS.....................................................................................................7
CHAPTER 2............................................................................................................................................8
REVIEW OF LITERATURE..................................................................................................................8
2.0 WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT...............................................................................................8
2.1 THE NOTION OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE........................................................................9
2.1.1 WORK LIFE BALANCE: THE UK CONTEXT............................................................9
2.2 THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN WORKPLACE PRESSURES AND DOMESTIC
PRESSURES.....................................................................................................................................11
CHAPTER 3..........................................................................................................................................12
RESEARCH DESIGN...........................................................................................................................12
3.0 RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY.................................................................................................12
3.1 RESEARCH APPROACH....................................................................................................12
3.2 RESEARCH STRATEGIES..................................................................................................13
3.3 TIME HORIZONS................................................................................................................13
3.4 DATA COLLECTION METHODS......................................................................................13
3.4.1 THE QUESTIONNAIRE..............................................................................................14
3.4.2 THE INTERVIEW........................................................................................................14
3.5 DATA ANALYSIS................................................................................................................14
CHAPTER 4..........................................................................................................................................15
CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................................15
4.0 CONTRIBUTION OF PROPOSED RESEARCH................................................................15
4.1 POSSIBLE DIFFICULTIES AND LIMITATIONS.............................................................15
APPENDICES.......................................................................................................................................16
APPENDIX A....................................................................................................................................16
APPENDIX B....................................................................................................................................17
APPENDIX C....................................................................................................................................18
APPENDIX D....................................................................................................................................18
APPENDIX E....................................................................................................................................20
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................22
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AWA Alternative Work Arrangements
DTI Department of Trade and Industry
EI Emotional Intelligence
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EU European Union
FFWA Family Friendly Work Arrangements
PENCOM National Pension Commission
WLB Work Life Balance
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
1.0 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The participation of women in the labour force is now a global phenomenon that developed
significantly over several decades hence majority of women including those with toddlers
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now work as paid labour in previously male dominated management jobs (Kroska, 2004). A
number of changes such as industrialization of world economies, modification of societal
attitudes towards the career woman, and a shift from manufacturing to service sector were
identified by Davidson & Burke (2004) as providing an impetus for an increase in the number
of women entering managerial and professional careers. This apparent trend has not gone
without concerns crucial of which is the balanced commitment of women to work and their
personal life
Manfredi and Holliday (2004) opined that Work Life Balance (WLB) is premised upon the
notion that demands of paid work and personal life are visualized as complementary versus
competing proprieties. The fact that balancing work and home life poses a challenge for
women brings the concept of multiple role conflict into lime light because conflicting
demands 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, so
enabling work environments which support women in balancing work and personal life are
essential.
This dissertation proposal has four chapters which mirror the final dissertation. The first
chapter provides a background on WLB, the rationale, aims, scope and questions of the
research. The second chapter is a review of the key points in literature. The third chapter will
describe the research methods. The final chapter looks at possible limitations and the
contribution of the proposed research to existing literature.
1.1 RATIONALE FOR STUDY
The published and accessible literature on WLB is a far cry from being scarce. In particular
narrowing focus to female gender we find many articles, books and research work that
identify the importance of WLB, challenges of female employees and employers whilst
attempting to balance and possible solutions, the implications of WLB for women and the
coping strategies of women managers in reconciling work and their other domestic
responsibilities to mention a few (Woodward, 2007; Manfredi & Holliday, 2004; Crompton
& Lyonette, 2006; Gatrell & Cooper, 2008; Doherty, 2004). However most of these studies
develop 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 a
developing 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 battle
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in maintaining time and energy for multiple parts of life concluded by saying WLB problems
cannot be individualized as it is related to wide social concerns. Again a silent reiteration of
problems encountered but a neglect of coping mechanisms individuals employ and a focus on
providing advice to governments intending to initiate family friendly policies. This is as close
at 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 strategies
of 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 what
about a country like Nigeria which is deemed as the most populous country in Africa, with an
estimated 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 Resource
Management practices in Nigeria noted that the percentage of the female population in
Nigeria is more than half at 57%. Unfortunately until PENCOM develops a working
population 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 approves
qualities such as submissiveness, subservience and supportiveness (Kitching & Woldie,
2004). Hence this acceptable tradition often results in conflict as it can undermine the ability
of women to apply themselves to their responsibilities as embedded in the culture on one
hand and succeed in their chosen careers on the other hand. No doubt this double burden
bearing as is difficult for all women regardless of their country of origin. However, it is pretty
obvious from lack of infrastructure, policies and high poverty levels that, women in
developing countries feel this burden more. The question that then arises is - how do they
cope under such unfavourable conditions?
The available literature on WLB which takes Nigerian women as case studies simply focuses
on examining the major sources of work-life conflict; the relationship work-family conflict
has with career commitment; challenges of WLB, men’s view on female WLB, professional
women’s adjustment strategies to their husband’s attitude towards their commitment to their
job (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 examining
the coping strategies of these women, instead they propose strategies. This calls for an
empirical investigation that will result in the identification and subsequent understanding of
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these coping strategies in the Nigerian work environment. The proposed dissertation seeks to
address this apparent dearth using work already done in the United Kingdom as the basis of
comparison. In doing this research it is imperative to begin by identifying how Nigerian
women in management positions experience WLB and then proceed to identify challenges
faced and how they cope. The role of the organization in providing an ideal work
environment that leads to retention of talented female professionals in their leadership
pipeline is also considered. The ideal working environment for this research is the stress
laden Nigerian banking sector.
1.2 AIMS OF THE RESEARCH
The aims of this research are three fold:
1. To investigate how Nigerian women experience WLB, the challenges they face and
their adjustment strategies in order to address the existing gap in academic
literature and research already identified.
2. To utilize scholarly articles and books in understanding how women generally
experience WLB in the United Kingdom and how they have adjusted. The findings
here would then be compared with the field work carried out in this research on
Nigerian women.
3. To explore the key research questions posed, the data collected would be from
multiple sources – that is information would be collected from women working in
different banks in order to address the issues of environmental context which will
vary from bank to bank.
1.3 SCOPE OF RESEARCH
The proposed research is limited to women who are middle or first line managers and are
single or married mothers responsible for nurturing one or more dependants in the
characteristically stress laden banking institution in Nigeria. Floyd and Wooldridge (1994)
regarded these levels as the organizations control system where top management strategies
are translated into action. In a relatively recent field work by Adebisi (2009), it was observed
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that there is a noticeable improvement particularly in south west Nigeria as women are given
more managerial opportunities with the figure for women at top and middle management
almost equating that of men at 66% – 67% and 65% to 64% respectively.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The central research question guiding this proposed dissertation is: “What coping, adjustment
strategies or mechanisms do managerial women that are mothers employ in balancing work
and family life?” This study will also address the following sub questions:
1. Do managerial women that are mothers see WLB as a problem or issue?
2. What are the challenges faced by these women in order to balance work and
family life?
3. How do these women currently perceive the role of the organization as an
employer in assisting with these WLB challenges?
4. What would be the ideal work environment for these women in assisting with
balancing work and family life?
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.0 WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT
Key changes have taken place within married couple households with less probability of
couples relying solely on the male as the source of income. The fact that we see women as
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governors, presidents, vice chancellors and chief executives reflects the breaking of the ‘glass
ceiling’, ‘glass walls’, obstructing hierarchical and lateral progression respectively
(Bagilhole, 2006). Hayward (2005:59) proposed that the apparent increase in the number of
women in leadership roles is because “the traits we associate with women have become
increasingly valuable, things like communication, teambuilding and negotiation”. An
important skill required by today’s mangers is EI and research conducted by Sy, Tram and
O’hara (2006) point out that managers with high EI rise faster through the leadership ranks
within the organization because they are more skilful at using their emotions to facilitate job
performance. Women, being more emotional tend to acknowledge the power of EI more than
their male counterparts.
Work done by Schwartz (1989) which examined new facts with women managers, though
criticized as being a pretext for assisting women to succeed at work because it summarized
the employment of women as a valuable though cost laden endeavour – focus on solely on
career or family thus placing the issue of women and families struggling to achieve WLB
solely in the corporate agenda.
2.1 THE NOTION OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Previous perceptions about WLB were straightforward because the man is seen as the full
time worker and the woman was typically labelled the unpaid labour responsible for domestic
work (Crompton, 1999). So there was a balance between paid and unpaid work, determined
through the domestication of women (Crompton & Lyonette, 2006). However as mentioned
earlier, women are no longer excluded from the labour hence WLB called FFWA or AWA in
international literature takes the centre stage.
Clutterbuck (2003) took a deconstructive approach to defining this concept because he
believed all three words have highly ambiguous meanings. He saw ‘Work’ as relating to the
“time and energy people contract to expend to a third party in return for a defined reward”;
‘Life’ as “the opportunity to achieve in a diverse range of contexts”; and finally ‘Balance’ as
“a state where an individual manages real or potential conflict between different demands on
his or her time Clutterbuck (2003:8). He further argues that this means WLB requires an
understanding of various demands on an individual’s time and energy and choices available
which the individual considers carefully. Hence, we see some form of complexity
management emerge in the sphere of WLB because we are increasingly faced with demands,
choices and opportunities.
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There are concerns in particular that as more women enter into management, they are
required to walk the ‘tight rope between work and home’ and face the strains of maintaining
their seemingly dual management roles of corporate manager and family manager (Davidson
& Cooper, 1992). Hence, some form of adjustment is required such that women find cadence
that facilitates the combination of work, family responsibilities and their desires (Pillinger,
2001).
2.1.1 WORK LIFE BALANCE: THE UK CONTEXT
In the European context, WLB and FFWA are used somewhat interchangeable to describe
policies made collectively by industrial relations actors – employers, trade unions, works
councils and the state – to aid reconciliation of work and family life (European Commission,
2002). The UK, a liberal welfare state, as far back as the mid 1990’s, took a unique stand
from other EU member states, who have long involved the state in reconciling work – family
pressures, by confining this responsibility to the adult family members (Brannen & Lewis,
2000).
However, in 1997, the UK government developed a range of family friendly policies
signalling a focus on WLB. These family friendly policies have been promoted in order to
enhance the competitiveness of business corporations and make recruitment and retention
easy (DTI, 1998). This focus is also evident in the DTI work-life campaign initially launched
in March 2000 by Tony Blair with components such as getting the buy-in of employers,
developing a checklist for employers and creating opportunity for employers to apply for
funds to support their WLB projects (Hooker, Neathey, Casebourne, & Munro, 2007).
However, government’s role is perceived by Crompton and Lyonette (2006) as reliance on
exhortation rather than legislation.
In general, WLB policies in the UK are indicative of its governments agenda to address new
social risks emanating from conflict between the family and labour market, and focus mainly
on flexible work arrangements that will give consideration to working time (part – time or
full time); parental leaves (maternity and paternity - one of the longest in Europe), allow for
time to care for children and dependants (Bonoli, 2005; Daly & Lewis, 2000). A quick look
at a research which assessed women’s perception of WLB policies and how they might adapt
when policies aren’t available is quite interesting. Dean (2007) found out that their
participants especially those in the low income group said policy solutions didn’t address
needs such as caring for both children and elderly and this led Dean (2007: 533) highlight a
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significant implication of his study which is ‘there can be no single or simple policy solution
to the diverse needs and aspirations signified by the different [changing] scenarios
identified ....’. Meanwhile, the study reveals these people have adapted to this apparent gap in
policy by changing the location of their jobs and opting for part-time work so they are closer
to their homes and can quickly commute home in case of emergencies have more time to
attend to their dependants.
Overall, Parent-Thirion et al (2007) noted that the level of satisfaction of women in UK with
work life policies varies by sector and social class but is still relatively high especially for
maternity and flexible work provisions. However, negative views are also evident as women
in research by Yerkes et al (2010) revealed that the role of policy is minimal and they still
had to negotiate with employers. Where there is an apparent lack they employ strategies such
as already mentioned in the study by Dean (2007). In essence, support structures (e.g. flexible
work arrangement) are clearly exploited by these women and this is in sharp contrast to
Nigeria even though it was colonized by the British. This again brings the need for this
project work to the fore as Nigeria evidently lacks support structures for families – the
question again is ‘how do they cope?’
2.2 THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN WORKPLACE PRESSURES AND
DOMESTIC PRESSURES
The interplay between work and family produces what is called ‘Work – Life Conflict’. It is
quite interesting the kind of phrases various literature have used to describe this term e.g.
‘working to live or living to work?’, ‘holding a job or having a life?’ or a tightrope between
work and home (Roehling, Moen and Batt, 2003; Casner-Lotto and Hickey, 1999; Davidson
and Cooper, 1992). The summary however is that pressure exists on both sides which
Greenhaus and Parasuraman (1994) say isn’t mutually incompatible. The ensuing paragraphs
will examine the interplay between these work and family pressures.
Beginning from the workplace, we traditionally see the manifestation of pressures such as
lengthening of the contracted hours of work and work intensification. Greenhaus &
Parasuraman (1994) opined that additional work hours may be capricious and startling
particularly in the service sector where the notion of customer service tends to determine the
length of working day and total working hours. Turning to work intensification we see a
growing trend as performance management systems and demands to meet targets are intense
especially after the global financial crises so that companies can remain competitive,
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profitable and manage to survive (Burchell, et al., 1999; Green, 2001). These workplace
pressures often encroach into the domestic lives of workers so that for instance a meeting to
review sales after work hours may coincide with picking your toddler from the crèche.
House work primarily remains the responsibility of women – they cannot shy away from this,
and neither do they want to. The active participation of women in the labour market has not
resulted in commensurate increase in house chores done by husbands and so the
responsibility of this second shift of work still remains with the working wives (Hochschild
& Machung, 1989). Hence the emergence of two types of domestic pressure – care for
dependents and division of domestic responsibilities between the husband and wife (Hyman,
Scholarios, & Baldry, 2005).
In considering the interplay between these two pressures, the two dominant forms of work-
life conflict proposed by Greenhaus and Parasuraman (1994) provide a ready answer - Time
based refers to difficulty in fulfilment of work responsibilities when attempting to devote
time to family whilst strain based results in a negative emotional spill over affecting both
work and the home. A possible solution to this was proffered by Hardill et al (1999) is heavy
dependence on individuals such as cleaners, nannies, who aren’t members of the household,
for help with work not related to the labour market.
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH DESIGN
The subsequent sections will present a layout of the research process using the research onion
by Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill (2007) (appendix A). See appendix B for summary of
research process for proposed dissertation.
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3.0 RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY
Levin (1988) sees research philosophy as a belief about the method of gathering and
examining a phenomenon. Easterby-Smith, Thrope and Lowe (2002) provide three important
for this - it allows for a careful consideration and evaluation of the chosen method and also
exposes the researcher to other research methods he hasn’t used before that maybe suitable
for the study.
Two research philosophies exist according to Gill and Johnson (1997): positivism and
phenomenology – positivism endorses an objective interpretation of veracity using surveys
and experiments; phenomenology is interested in examining people and their social
behaviour. This dissertation seeks to identify the coping mechanisms of Nigerian women in
WLB hence subscribes more to phenomenology because it involves eliciting human interests,
motives and strategies.
3.1 RESEARCH APPROACH
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007) say it depends on the research philosophy and could be
inductive or deductive. Inductive approach is employed in situations where there is an
attempt to understand the meanings human beings attach to an occurrence whilst deductive
approach is concerned with scientific principles and the need to describe the causal links
between variables (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007). By adopting phenomenology, this
dissertation shows a focus on a move from data to theory because it intends to proceed by
thinking about WLB and how Nigerian women cope. Hence, this dissertation though it has
some elements of the deductive approach can be best described as inductive.
3.2 RESEARCH STRATEGIES
According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007), there are six strategies- experiment,
survey, case study, grounded theory, ethnography, or action research.
Action research though inductive in nature is not suitable, it focuses on an organization and
relies on employee involvement in proffering solutions to issues that are of genuine concern
to them (Eden & Huxham, 1996). Case study will also not be selected because the researcher
is not focusing on one organization but instead intends to work with a representative sample.
Ethnographic style requires study of people to understand social meaning and this Brewer
(2006) opined requires a close immersion in the organization hence this style is unsuitable.
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