The aim of the thesis is to contribute to the CCT research field on social identity, by placing a focus on power from a customer perspective and studying how power can be accentuated within social identity. Theory from CCT with a focus on social identity has been used in combination with extensive literature on power and authority from a sociological perspective and literature from Fashion-Studies focusing on power-dressing, conspicuous consumption and luxury. The research question is: How is power-dressing and consumption of high-end luxury fashion brands used by female executives/senior managers in an attempt to accentuate power as a part of their social identity? In-depth semi-structured interviews where used as the main data collection method interviewing five female senior managers/female executives working in Stockholm; using the fashion consumption of female senior managers as its empirical sample. The main conclusion on this thesis is the creation of the concept of power-coded-dressing.This thesis implications are that it develops the CCT field slightly by adding a consumer-power perspective into the theoretical discourse. Its practical and social implications help women accentuate their power through, power-coded-dressing.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of female senior managers in technology organizations and understand how they feel about themselves, their roles and their technology organizations. The study highlights the issues faced by women working in a gendered role, a masculine industry and a non-western, strong patriarchal society. Methodology/Design: A qualitative research methodology was adopted for this study. Eleven semi-structured interviews were used to collect empirical data from women senior managers in Nigerian technology organizations, which was thematically analyzed. Findings: The findings from this study indicate that women in technology are no longer reluctant to progress in this gendered career. Women technology leaders are ambitious and driven to scale the semantic barriers to top management roles. They experience workplace discrimination, insecurities and work-family conflicts, but do not punish themselves for sometimes dropping the ball. Rather, they show up to take on daunting assignments that prove their competence and choose to lead assertively in order to align their core values with the expectations of their role. Research Implications: This thesis makes a contribution to the wider literature on women leaders in technology by providing new insights on the role of patriarchal institutions in technology leadership, from a developing country in Africa. Practical Implications: Practical contributions are to support aspiring women in technology to fine-tune their leadership strategies in order to succeed in this gendered career and become beneficiaries of the vast opportunities in this dynamic industry. For technology organizations, to understand the issues faced by women leaders so that they can support women’s career aspirations by implementing and managing policies that support skilled and high-potential women employees to fulfill their career aspirations, and become change agents at the top management level. These efforts will disrupt stereotypes, change the narrative of inequalities in this industry and improve firm performance. Originality: This study is the first of its kind to focus on the role of patriarchal structures on women leaders’ careers in the technology industry within the context of an African society, which is rare in the literature on women leaders in technology.

過往工作生活平衡措施皆著重在對於員工態度、行為或組織績效的影響，甚少從女性的管理階層層面探討，故本研究從董事長性別、工作生活平衡措施、工作生活平衡措施自由使用度三個面向予以探究對於女性高階經理人比例之影響，並以產業別、本國商/外商與公司成立時間作為控制變項，以組織為分析單位進行研究。 本研究針對不限產業的國內企業為抽樣對象，一家公司包含年資至少兩年的1位人資部門人員與3位不限部門的主管或員工協助填答問卷，共收集55家企業，有效問卷252份，並利用階層迴歸分析檢驗研究假說。研究結果歸納如下： 1.董事長性別與女性高階經理人比例呈正向關係。 2.工作生活平衡措施中，受撫養者的照顧服務措施與女性高階經理人比例呈正向關係。 3.工作生活平衡措施自由使用度中，受撫養者的照顧服務自由使用度與女性高階經理人比例呈正向關係。 / In the past, the study about work-life balance practices was focused on the influence on the employee attitudes, behavior or organizational performance, and it was rare to investigate from the perspective of the female management level. So this study is to investigate the effects of the gender of the chairman, work-life balance practices, and the freedom to use of work-life balance practices on the proportion of female senior mangers. The samples of this study are domestic companies from any industry, and each company included a two years of experience expert in human resource and three executives or employees from any department to answer the questionnaires.There are totally 55 companies with 252 valid questionnaires. And this study use hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses. Following are the results of this study: 1. The gender of chairman has a positive correlation with the proportion of female senior managers. 2. In the work-life balance practices, dependent care service has a positive correlation with the proportion of female senior managers. 3. In the freedom to use of work-life balance practices, dependent care service has a positive correlation with the proportion of female senior managers.