Women Discrimination in the European Business World - Research Proposal Example

Women discrimination in the European Business world Aim The aim of the present study is to understand the reasons behind the fact that there are only very few women in the senior management positions in the European Business world. 2. Research objectives 1. To identify factors that might discourage women to take up such positions 2. To understand the notions of the public as well as the senior management of organizations about a women in the senior management positions 3. To development strategies that would help women to progress to the board level positions in the organizations at a world wide level. 3. Background It is a well-known fact that in this 21st century also women discrimination is in full swing although most of the developed countries claim that they encourage women in all aspects and there is no gender discrimination at all. In spite of all the legislations to protect women against this discrimination, the situation of women has shown only less progress (Trenthem and Larwood, 1998). One of the most important evidence of this fact is that there are only very few women in the senior management positions of organizations. Studies conducted by CNN Money in the year 2006 revealed that only 10 women are operating Fortune 500 companies and among the top 1000 companies only 20 are managed by women. According to the sex and power report submitted by the UK Equality and Human rights commission in 2008, women hold only 11 positions in the FTSE directorships. The study revealed that even though anti discrimination legislations have been constituted to help women and it had been implemented long ago, still the position of the women has undergone only little improvement as they are not represented in many of the occupations especially in senior positions (Broughton and Miller, 2009). Very recently BBC news has reported that women discrimination is wide spread in Europe (Viewpoint: A fair deal for women, 2009). It was also revealed that the chances of a woman to get a job in Europe is only 47% because of discrimination against women (Discrimination in the European Union, 2009) 4. Introduction Business world is the area where women discrimination is prevalent even today (Peiss,1998). This could be understood from the fact that only a very few number of women are running their own business. When it comes to the senior management only very few women are there in the scenario. This is true through out the world irrespective of the level of development. In USA and in most of the countries in Europe although there are many organizations that draw attention at a global level, only very few have a female in the board level position (Brougton and miller, 2009). Many reasons are attributed to this like women are reluctant to take up such positions, people at the senior management level as well as public have negative opinion on women coming to such high positions, etc. But there might be several reasons behind these main reasons. So there is a great need to understand the full range of reasons, which discourage women to take up promotions to the board level positions to find out solutions to this problem. In fact one of the key objectives of executive coaching is to encourage women to take up these positions. The reasons why they are not preferred by their employers when it comes to the senior management positions also has to be clearly understood so as to take appropriate measures to encourage these employers to give opportunities for women at least to prove themselves. For this, such studies are highly essential to develop strategies that could help women to achieve progress in their career. So the present study is intended to find reasons for less representation of females in the business world of Europe especially at the senior positions. Review of literature 5.1. Effect of discrimination in Child hood According to Wolfe (2009) stereotyping from the childhood onwards results in women becoming less confident to enter into the business world. From the childhood onwards women are forced to believe that they are suitable only for certain types of jobs and their prime responsibility is to become a good wife and a mother. In the elementary schools, studies have proved that the teachers are giving more time and attention for teaching science and math to boys and for girls they prefer to teach language and arts. Throughout these school days they are discouraged from taking part in sports or debate clubs. They are encouraged to take part in social activities and also in other passive activities. All these facts would certainly reduce their confidence to take up senior positions in any organizations. Women are not allowed to take part in discussions relating to business matters in most of the families. This discrimination and stereotyping is continued throughout the growing stages and by the time they reach adulthood their lower level of self confidence would pull them back from entering into business world and to take up senior positions there. They would be encouraged to take up teaching or nursing profession or even office administration and not as doctors or engineers or in the business world (Istodor, 2009). Nowadays women in Europe are having more degrees and honors than men as reported by China daily (2008), but most of the women entering into the business field would not be having much educational qualifications and that too a qualification closely related their business. In a Ph.D related field it is very difficult for a woman to get a job. According to the above news Europe is wasting a huge manpower potential by way of their discrimination to women especially in the buisness field. Asian countries as well as United States are far better in their attitude towards women compared to Europe (Women entrepreneurs - Europe's untapped small business potential, 2009). Even as managers they experience a stereotyping which stands in the way of their progress (Yin Yim, 2002). There are evidences of this gender stereotyping holding back the investors (Boselovic, 2006). It is high time that women managers break off this stereotyping (Aissatou, 2006). There is also a view that some of the women already in the senior positions are behaving in such a manner to encourage this stereotyping (Hymowitz, 2005). One of the important components in the global drive to encourage equality between men and women is to encourage women to take up senior management positions so that they would become part of board level positions. But in most cases women in the senior levels fails to progress to board level positions and many reasons are attributed to this fact. These include issues connected with gender discrimination and 'glass ceiling' prevailing in those scenario (Istodor, 2009). The term 'glass ceiling' denotes that the system would allow women to see the top positions but would prevent them from reaching there (Akande, 1994; Cai and Kleiner, 1999; Women in business - Is SA lagging or leading, 2005). Most of the women managers are now smashing into this glass ceiling (Veale andGold,1998; Mattis, 2004). Nutley and Mudd (2005) are of the opinion that now a glass cliff has replaced glass ceiling, whereby although they reach top they are used by management to improve the face of the organization in front of public. But there are other reasons also. Some women would not take up such positions even if they are given considerable coaching for the same and are encouraged to the maximum possible level. Broughton and miller (2009) 5.2. Management style It is widely believed that management style of men and women are different. The style of business women is regarded different from men but the skills are not different (Baack et al., 1994; Business women differ from business men in style, not skill, 2008). According to Nelton (1991) the new generation likes a management style, which encourage and motivate rather than giving orders and therefore women are more suitable than men for such posts. The study conducted among women by Broughton and Miller (2009) revealed that even though there are changes in the style, these styles would contribute positively in their career. The women who participated in the study do not feel that their styles are unsuitable for the positions. It was revealed that women in such positions would be forced to take up the style of men and once they adopt it, that would be counted as a behavior not suitable for women in that position and they would be thoroughly discouraged. 5.3. Organizational culture In most of the organizations it is believed that there should be somebody at home to support the lifestyle of people in board level positions. This is one of the main reasons why they don't prefer a female to be in that position, since it is expected that women would be having an important role to be played at home as mother and wife. This is not the case with the males. The general conception of the people is that there is no need for a male to be at home as father and a husband. People believe that male has a less role to be played at home. It is this belief that is standing in the way of woman's progression into board level or such senior positions. Even today people are not thinking that both male and female have an equal role to be played at home. This perception has led to 'boorish cultures' in many organizations and in fact women who want to progress to senior positions, who are really ambitious, have to see that such culture is not prevailing in an organization before they join the organization (Broughton and Miller, 2009). In the senior positions, a male could be assertive which is highly essential for such a position. But here also the concept of women in the mind of people would come in the way. People believe that a woman cannot not be assertive anywhere. So if they are not assertive they would not be able to carry out their jobs in a senior position. If they are assertive that would affect the belief of the people around them and that would eventually lead to less progress. So even though a women can be assertive and would be able to carry out all the duties of a senior position the concept of women in the mind of people block their progress, which eventually leads to less number of women in such positions (Broughton and Miller, 2009). 5.4. Discrimination at recruitment level It was found that most of the senior managers would like to recruit a person with their own image to the senior positions. In such cases they would be having a male image in their mind and would therefore prefer only a male to that positions. Resistance to change is another factor that comes in the way of progress of women in this situation (Broughton and Miller, 2009). Even though one could identify women who are most appropriate for the post, she would not be considered because the management would not prefer a change in the management style. Yet another problem is the experience required to be in the board level position. Even when a woman is highly qualified than any of the male in the same organization it would never be counted. According to most of the management, experience is an important criteria and a woman who is facing discrimination from the very low level position onwards would not be having so much experience as that of a man. This factor also hinder the path towards progress of women to senior positions. Men, who believe that a woman would not be able to manage things like them, do not give women opportunities. Studies have revealed that most of the women in the senior positions today have created opportunities by themselves (Broughton and Miller, 2009). They did not wait for anybody to accept them to such a position. So the most important aspect that is required from women is to find opportunities by themselves and to be bold to fight for it. This is highly required for them to be accepted in the senior position and once more and more women come to this position the concept of the women would change in front of the world and people would no longer think that such positions are not suitable for women and the responsibility at home is not purely for women alone. 5.5. Occupational segregation It is a well-known fact that most of the occupations have gender segregation. Most of the board members would prefer males from finance and engineering expertise to become head of Human Resources department. Even when they lack appropriate experience or knowledge to be in that position they would be preferred because of gender segregation. Since males now occupy most of the senior positions this gender segregation would play its role to block the progress of a women to such areas (Broughton and Miller, 2009). 5.6. Tokenism Most of the women who have reached senior positions have a pioneering spirit and they are pioneers in the filed. But there is another side also. There are many organizations in which female are offered a senior post just as a token to improve the public image of the company. In most cases this is highly insulting for women who are being used like that because they would represent a fact, which in reality is false. Since such posts would be in spotlight, it would be highly difficult to be in such a posts as it gives much stress. But most of the women in such a position believe this as an opportunity to gather experience in the field and would not mind to be used as a token by the employers (Broughton and Miller, 2009). 5.7. Appearance The appearance of the women in the senior positions is also a matter of debate. Appearance is given much importance in the case of females than in the case of males. People believe that the appearance of women in senior position should be like men in that positions and women would be forced to change their costumes to business suits once they get that position. But the problem is that the costume would look unfeminine and such a change of costume would affect negatively in their total attire (Broughton and Miller, 2009). 5.8. Quotas In Norway the government declared quotas for women at senior management positions in order to bring more and more women to that level. The same policy was considered by other European countries also but the debate on whether there is a need for quota continues. Study conducted has revealed that most of the women are against such quotas because they think that would augment gender discrimination. If they come to such positions, it would be thought as because of quota and not because of the merit. The problem here is that the people are reluctant to accept the merits of women and this problem remain unsolved even when there is quota (Broughton and Miller, 2009). 5.9. Male network Most of the men in the senior management position would be having a network which would help them to manage their duties in a better manner and also give access to many areas which would be otherwise closed for them. Since there are only a few women in such positions such a network is very few for females. In Europe, such a female network is reported only in Geneva (Senior men join the gender debate, 2008). Only if they could break into the network of male they could be as successful as males. The effectiveness of females forming a network for themselves would be less useful compared to the presence of female in the network of men. So the male network in the senior management position is another important reasons for better access of male to senior management position compared to females. 5.10. Childcare This is one of the main reasons of women lagging behind men in the senior management positions. Even though they are well talented and could perform duties much better than male partner, when it comes to childcare women would be forced to refrain themselves from other duties at least for a short period of time and by that time their contemporaries would reach top positions. After childbirth most women face problems at family and at the level of society if they want to come back to their duty. Most of them would be forced to take up duty on a part time basis and in such cases they would not be considered as an appropriate candidate for the board level positions in any organization (Supporting women in Business, 2009). Women constitute only 30% of middle management position in Europe and face these problems, which block their career (Wentling, 2003; Women at helm, 2009). In fact they fall as the victim of glass ceiling in this way (Jackson, 2001) 5.11. Experiences abroad In order to take up senior management positions it is highly necessary to go for training programmes abroad (Linehan et al., 2001). Here also tying up of women to family and childcare would hinder their chances to undergo such training. In the present days in a family both husband and wife would be employed. So both of them would be able to go together to such trainings or to take up positions abroad. In most cases it would become the responsibility of female to sacrifice her career to allow progress in the career of husband. So the husbands would be going abroad and the wife would be denied such chances and this would in fact very seriously affect their progress into board level positions. According to Anderson (2004) the discrimination is less detectable as it is under the radar, but it is still present and could be combated only through training, seminars and such education given to work force. Bible and Hill (2007) also have expressed the same opinion in their article on discrimination of women in business. So it is possible to believe that in the near future the attitude towards women in business would change in a positive manner that would help in their progression to senior positions (Flynn and Adams, 2004). Helms and Guffey (2007) studied the role of women inn the united Europe. They studied their roles in education, mentoring, promotion compensation etc especially in the labor markets and found that economic, organizational and demographic trends are in support for the uplifting of women in the workforce. 6. Research methodology Research could be done based on primary or secondary data as per the requirement of the topics. The primary data is the one, which is obtained from the field or from an experiment. The secondary data on the other hand is the data available as literature resources available (Primary & Secondary Data - What's The Difference, 2009). There are some topics where primary data is of utmost importance and this is mainly in the case of science subjects. But when the topic is about a political or social issue, secondary data would be more reliable than primary data, since through primary data it would be difficult to get a correct picture of the entire situation (Rabianski, 2003). In most cases it is possible to draw conclusion on hypothesis using the data already available. Nowadays considerable information could be acquired from internet and other library sources (An Introduction to Using Data at DPLS, 2009). Apart from these the researcher could also gather valuable information from government agencies, advertising agencies, research companies etc. (What are the sources of collecting secondary data for research, 2007). One could obtain these data without much effort and in most of the cases, analysis of this data could give an accurate insight into the problem than primary research. The two main advantages of using secondary data for research are the savings in time and costs (Steppingstones, 2004). If the researcher is a good analyst he or she could gather all the information required within 2 or 3 weeks. It is very easy to locate the resources and extract the information required unlike as in primary data (Pienka, 2009). The expenditure required to collect this data is negligible. However it is highly essential to present the data in the same way as primary research using illustrations like graphs and figures and tables (Singleton, 2009). Statistical analysis is also possible with secondary data. The proper use of secondary data in research is given in detail in Use of secondary source data (2009). Nowadays secondary data is also analyzed in the same way as primary data and is used even in animal studies (Church, 2002) as well as in nursing research (Nicoll and Beyea, 1999) and also for other health purposes (Comber, 2009). In cases where secondary data is not available in the required quality one might be forced to use primary data. But in the present study, considerable amount of information is available in research papers, books, and as news and internet articles. The information provided in these resources would be far better than going for primary data with a questionnaire and survey. This is because such information could be wrong or would be with a prejudiced mind and it would require a lot of such data to come to a conclusion. In that case also it would only support secondary data available. So in the present study only secondary data is used for making inferences. 7. Conclusion The topic selected for the present study is a detailed analysis of the reasons for the less representation of women in the business world of Europe. It is highly necessary to find out these reasons in order to develop strategies that could be employed so as to extract the potential of women also in the progress of these countries. The women discrimination is wide spread in Europe and is comparatively of more intense than in other developed and even developing countries in Asia. The discrimination from childhood may be making them less confident to take up the senior level positions in business. There are many other reasons also whereby they are discriminated both by the society and management. In fact there are a lot of information available in internet as well in government and news agencies. The study proposes to use these secondary data and to analyze it in a manner so as to get a realistic picture of the entire scenario. References 1. Aissatou, S. (2006) 'Women executives must learn to maneuver around stereotypes'. San Antonio Express News. 2. Akande, A.(1994). 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