Author(s): Haidinger, Julia
Date: 2017
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/23172
Origin: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Subject(s): Tensions; Duality; Female leaders; Character traits; Appearance; Motherhood penalty; Corporate policies; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão
The qualitative research undertaken was set out to understand the challenges experienced by female leaders at the workplace. Therefore, semi-structured interviews with 12 female leaders in top management positions from different industries were conducted. As a consequence, a duality between tensions concerning 1) character traits, 2) beauty and 3) motherhood was confirmed through the experiences shared by the participants. Women identified these tensions as highly challenging and difficult to cope with, sometimes even slowing down their individual career progress. Moreover, the gender-pay gap was confirmed as a reality for women in most industries. In recent years, research on the issue of female leadership has become very popular. Nevertheless, very few publications can be found in the literature that discuss individual experiences within these tensions. Finally, the dualistic view used in the interpretation allowed to give implications for organisational change and a framework of coping mechanisms and corporate solutions is presented in order to resolve these tensions.
