The 'Glass Ceiling' and Women's Career Advancement to Top Management: The Moderating Effect of Social Support

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Abstract

Purpose: This study investigates the effect of 'glass ceiling' on women's career advancement to top management. Although there is an uptrend in the number of women graduating from tertiary education and more have entered the workforce, they are still under-represented at the top management level in organizations. This study examines family factors, organizational culture, organizational networking, organizational practices and personality traits impact on women career advancement. Social support was tested as the moderator.

Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a quantitative approach with selfadministered questionnaires distributed to 140 female respondents. To test the hypotheses, this study used IBM SPSS and Smart PLS analysis software

Findings: From the data analysis, organizational culture, organizational networking and organizational practices are found to have significant impact on women's career advancement while family factors and personality traits indicated no significant impact. Furthermore, social support indicated no significant moderating effect on family factors, organizational culture, organizational networking, organizational practices and personality traits against women's career advancement.

Research limitations/implications: The study was limited by its geographical area coverage. Another limitation concerns the lack of serious responses where respondents chose "neutral" for every question in the questionnaire. Lastly, as this is a quantitative research, opinion of respondents were not collected.

Practical implications: Results of this study can be used as a guidance for the human resource departments to create an inclusive working environment for female employees. The study is also important towards improving the understanding of organizations concerning the barriers that hinder women from accessing top management positions in the workplace. Results of this study might also help governments to identify the kinds of support which women need in the workplace. Originality/value: This study investigates the phenomenon of women in top management within the context of an emerging Asian market.

Keywords: Women's Career Advancement, Family Factors, Organizational Culture, Organizational Networking, Organizational Practices, Personality Traits, Social Support

Introduction

The "glass ceiling" is a term used to describe the invisible barriers which hinder women from reaching top management positions (Pai & Vaidya, 2009). "Ceiling" is an obstacle that blocks the upward advancement while "Glass" reflects the invisibility of the obstacle (Afza & Newaz, 2008). Women seem to have hit a point where they are unable to progress further even where there is a clear path...