Typology of career development for Arab women managers in the United Arab Emirates

Translating cross-language qualitative data in health professions education research: Is there an iceberg below the waterline?

Health professions education research is an increasingly global community with culturally and linguistically diverse research teams who are challenged in how to communicate across cultures, contexts and languages. In today's diverse research landscape, language transcends its role as a mere means of communication and becomes a bridge that facilitates connections within research teams, between the team and its participants and between participants from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and the scientific community. English as the 'lingua franca' is often seen as the international language of science and 'a prerequisite for scientific exchange'. This creates a language bias within the body of health professions education literature and involves methodological challenges for conducting research in non-English speaking contexts.

Women and Leadership in the Jordanian Armed Forces

Ever since gaining approval to be admitted to the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF), Jordanian women have become more visible in this sector. Women were recruited in various fields across the military, including administrative posts, education, and human resources. There is a noticeable gap in the number of women reaching leadership positions despite the quality of their work and their tremendous contributions in this sector. The present study aims to explore the correlation between military culture and environment and women’s perceptions of leadership by drawing on quantitative data from female personnel at Al-Hussein Medical Center (HMC). A five-point Likert scale was adopted in the current questionnaire to test the extent of agreement with question items suggested for each aspect of work culture and environment construct. The results demonstrate that women at HMC perceive their work culture and environment positively, which in turn reflects their positive perceptions about their quality of work and their ability to lead. The female participants at HMC demonstrate positive perceptions of gender that challenge prevailing gender norms through gaining necessary support and opportunities for career advancement. The study results imply that supportive work environments have a greater impact on women’s aspirations to become leaders.

Feminist Emergence in a Traditionally Male Industry: Case from Jordan—The Jordanian Banking Industry

Purpose: This research explored the role of female managers as change agents and the “problem of making women visible,” specifically in top management positions in in Jordanian banking industry. Methods: This research design is built on the basis of qualitative research, analyzing the perceptions in the mind of research subjects. Interviews were conducted with 32 participants from the Jordanian banking industry. Findings: Our research has revealed different and important insights into the changing role of Jordanian female workers, not only in such a male-dominant industry but also more broadly in Jordan’s wider society, in which the Arab masculine culture has been dominant. The positive impact of increased acceptance of females’ roles is significantly evident in our research, and we support the assertion that women can survive and prosper in the face of Arab or Eastern culture traditions. In addition, we asserted that females’ managers are deemed to be internal change agents through their knowledge, experience, and leadership traits and behavior. Conclusions: We shed the light on emancipation, in which females have had the opportunity to cross previous social and taken-for-granted boundaries, and which has eroded gender-biased boundaries and behavior as a response to the situational demands.

Transformational leadership behaviours of women in a socially dynamic environment

Purpose

This paper aims to provide insights into the female transformational leadership behaviours within a socially dynamic environment. Research was conducted in the State of Qatar, a country that is going through a rapid social change.

Design/methodology/approach

The research framework was based on the transformational leadership framework (TLF) initially proposed by Burns (1978) and further developed by Bass (1985). A respondent set, consisting of 25 Qatari female managers, was taken from the largest public university in the State of Qatar. In-depth interviews were the main source of collected data. The data were analysed using NVivo 11.

Findings

Predominantly, Qatari female leadership behaviours were reflective of transformational leadership. In their dealings, Qatari female managers displayed motherly instincts, encouraged open communication, used relationship adaptations and used trust. From time to time, Qatari female managers displayed non-transformational leadership behaviours. This occasional leadership style switch was part of behavioural flexibility that was required in a mixed age, mixed gender, mixed experience and mixed nationalities work environment. The key reason for the change in transformational leadership approach came as a reaction to subordinates’ attitude. In particular, the male-dominated work environment required behavioural adjustments (such as being more assertive and autocratic) to deal with masculine subordinates.

Research limitations/implications

A range of respondent perceptions were related to defining leadership. There was some overlapping between the tested determinants. For example, idealised influence and individualised consideration shared a degree of similarity in terms of how they were perceived.

Social implications

Socially dynamic environment should be seen as an opportunity for female transformational leadership development. Social dynamism may result in an evolved TLF that could be more appropriate for Qatari organisations. Hence, experience and problem sharing between Qatari female managers may help in developing a socially and culturally fitting transformational leadership model.

Originality/value

The study presented a perspective of a socially dynamic environment where women were practicing transformational leadership primarily through behavioural flexibility and change management. The study suggests an extended version of TLF that would be more suitable for female leadership within a socially dynamic environment.

Role context change and actionable career knowledge for practicing managers

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relevancy of traditional managerial role frameworks as perceived by practicing managers, and to identify emerging role requirements or skills required for career success.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed-methods approach was conducted including survey research, empirical analysis and semi-structured consensual qualitative research interviews with 259 managers from 200 organizations.

Findings

This study demonstrates a widening gap between entrenched organization role constructs and emerging practice-driven role skills. The empirical analysis indicated little to moderate relevancy of traditional role constructs by practicing managers while follow-up interviews revealed new role requirements driven by contemporary market realities and changing managerial motivations. The findings suggest that inclusion of new practice-driven role requirements or skills are likely to be mutually beneficial and influence career success.

Research limitations/implications

The findings may limit the ability to generalize without further comparative analysis in similar/dissimilar economies.

Practical implications

Individuals will benefit by the inclusion of revised role requirements and policies that are designed to support employee-driven needs and “employability” skills that are more consistent with a careerist orientation. The organization will also benefit by having a more highly skilled workforce in key areas of competitive advantage including networking, innovation and opportunity identification.

Originality/value

The value of this examination is twofold. First, it extends the understanding of the diminishing relevancy of traditional managerial roles within a context of major global and social transformation. Second, it underscores the growing importance of “employability” skill sets and capabilities for managerial career aspirants facing new market realities.

Barriers to Arab female academics’ career development

Purpose

Arab female academics struggle to advance within their universities in both academic and managerial ranks. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the factors hindering Arab women’s academic career development through studying the case of Jordanian academic women.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were gathered through document analysis (Jordan constitution, Jordanian Labour Law and its amendments, higher education and scientific research law, Jordanian universities’ law and universities’ HR policies and regulations), interviews with 20 female academics and a focus group with 13 female academics (members of the Association of Jordanian Female Academics).

Findings

The results indicate female academics as tokens facing many interconnected and interrelated barriers embodied in cultural, social, economic and legal factors. The findings support the general argument proposed in human resource management (HRM) literature regarding the influence of culture on HRM practices and also propose that the influence of culture extends to having an impact on HR policies’ formulation as well as the formal legal system.

Originality/value

The influence of culture on women’s career development and various HR practices is well established in HR literature. But the findings of this study present a further pressure of culture. HR policies and other regulations were found to be formulated in the crucible of national culture. Legalizing discriminatory issues deepens the stereotypical pictures of women, emphasizing the domestic role of women and making it harder to break the glass ceiling and old-boy network.

Saudi women’s work challenges and barriers to career advancement

Purpose

Few studies have explored the work challenges and career barriers faced by women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Drawing on Institutional Theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of employed Saudi women through in-depth interviews.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper employs a phenomenological qualitative approach drawing on 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Saudi women.

Findings

The findings reveal a significant number of prominent societal and organizational structural and attitudinal barriers to the advancement of Saudi women in paid employment. Among others, these barriers include a lack of mobility; the salience of gender stereotypes; gender discrimination in the workplace; limited opportunities for growth, development, and career advancement; excessive workload caused by a lack of family-work balance; and gender-based challenges related to dealing with pregnancy.

Research limitations/implications

Despite the contributions of this study, it also has limitations, particularly the convenience sampling approach and the focus on the KSA. The small sample size means that the findings cannot be generalized to all women employed in Saudi Arabia and should be generalized within Saudi Arabia and other Arab societies only with caution.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the understanding of work challenges and barriers of Saudi women in the workforce. It provides fresh insights to the issues surrounding women in Saudi Arabia and the need to address them in order to provide support for their career advancement.

The changing nature of managerial skills, mindsets and roles: Advancing theory and relevancy for contemporary managers

Management research has been challenged by the altering realities of organization life, job roles, and individual motivations that have long guided traditional theoretical thinking. The classical frameworks regarding managerial performance requirements have been largely based upon organizationally driven underpinnings. We propose a cognitive shift suggesting that individually driven roles and desires are impacting the relevancy of conventional job requirements. Our study analyzes the utilization of managerial skills, mindsets, and roles as perceived by 259 executives representing nine industries and ~200 organizations. The results reveal that the interpretation and application of managerial roles are primarily influenced by the individual’s intentions rather than adherence to the current organizationally based theoretical taxonomy as taught by many business schools. These findings illuminate the gap between the vast amount of effort researchers and educators have expended on taxonomic precision and its questionable relationship to organizational and individual learning and effectiveness. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed along with recommendations to extend the current research.

Women in business leadership

This scholarly study is the first to compare business leadership in the Arab Gulf states in terms of the presence of female managers in various positions. It documents the status of women leaders—senior executives and managers—through a quantitative gender analysis of 2805 private and publicly listed companies in the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The study details the positions women hold within organizations and analyzes and compares these by country, business classification, company size, and ownership. The contribution to cross-cultural management is that these data on gender composition in the workforce highlight the low participation of women in business leadership as an issue. Furthermore, the study provides knowledge for cross-cultural managers about cultural attitudes toward women’s economic participation in this geographical area. The research offers helpful insights and important implications for government leaders in these countries as well as for educators, practitioners, and scholars who work to help prepare and advance women to leadership within this region.

From female leadership advantage to female leadership deficit

Purpose

– This paper takes an institutional approach to identify cognitive, normative, and regulatory factors affecting women’s business leadership in an under-studied traditional society. The purpose of this paper is to assess how such forces work to create a case of female leadership deficit (FLD) in Lebanon.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors analyze interview data to identify themes linking women’s leadership with societal institutional forces. The qualitative analysis provides an understanding at the societal level of analysis which is only partially tempered through organizational structures.

Findings

– Misalignments among cognitive, normative, and regulative pillars inhibit real change. Organizational structures are not highly salient as the most important factors affecting women’s leadership. Rather, patriarchal structures, explicit favoring of males over females, and assignment of women to nurturing roles within the private sphere of the family are the major limiting factors impeding women’s ascension to leadership.

Research limitations/implications

– A promise of the institutional approach is enhancing the capacity to make meaningful comparisons between societies. This opens the door to uncovering whether documentable changes in regulations, cognitions, values, and norms regarding women in business leadership, will lead to observable changes in the size of FLD.

Originality/value

– This study presents a case of institutional pluralism where a positive force in one direction (regulatory) is sometimes opposed by other forces (cognitive and normative) limiting meaningful change. This study helps to explain why societies differ in the size of the FLD and to identify factors that predict within societal changes in the size of this deficit over time.

Karrierekonzepte: Eine Typisierung Individuellen Karrieredenkens und -handelns

Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden individuelle Vorstellungen von Karriere und karrierebezogenem Handeln analysiert und typisiert. Angeknüpft wird an die Diskussion, inwiefern „Einheitsmodelle” von Karriere ausgedient bzw. jemals umfassende Gültigkeit besessen haben. Im Zuge der Forschungsdiskussion traditioneller und moderner Karrieren wird deutlich, dass eine objektive und strukturelle Sicht auf Karrieren notwendigerweise um eine subjektive Sicht ergänzt werden muss, um dem Phänomen „Karriere” gerecht zu werden. Es scheint notwendig, den Verlauf von Karrieren sowohl als Ergebnis des Denkens und Handelns des Einzelnen als auch eingebettet in und beeinflusst von einem sozialen Kontext zu verstehen. In der qualitativen Studie wird auf der Datenbasis von 83 narrativen Interviews analysiert, wie der Einzelne sein persönliches „Karriere-Projekt” konzipiert und durchläuft. Die Ergebnisse werden zu fünf Idealtypen des Karrieredenkens und -handelns verdichtet, charakterisierend beschrieben und entlang der Modi Orientierung, Entscheidung, Selbsteinschätzung und Steuerung differenziert.

Women managers in the United Arab Emirates: successful careers or what?

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore the career success of women in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The paper examines the interplay of some of the macro-national and meso-organizational factors in explaining the micro-individual experiences of career success.

Design/methodology/approach

– The paper draws on in-depth interviews with 26 women managers in large private organizations in the UAE to explore whether they experienced their careers as successful or not and the measures they used to operationalize their career success.

Findings

– The findings presented in the paper support the use of a multi-level research design to capture the complexity of women's experience of career success. The findings illustrate how local cultural values, societal expectations, and organizational attitudinal and structural factors influence the experiences and the conceptualizations of career success of women in this research context.

Originality/value

– The originality of the paper is threefold. First, the value added of this research lies in exploring whether the women experienced career success or not and the reasons underscoring their experiences, before looking into how they measured that success. Second, the originality of the paper lies in adapting a relational multi-level framework that is commonly used in diversity management studies, to capture the multiple factors that impact the experiences and operationalization of career success of women. Third, the paper contributes to the limited research on the career experience of women in the UAE and the Arab Middle East in general.