Women face barriers to advancement in male-dominated fields (Glass Ceiling) and in female-dominated fields (Glass Escalator). More research is needed to elucidate the causes of these barriers in order to reduce the negative effects on women’s advancement. This study attempted to broaden the literature through the experimental examination of the glass escalator to further understand the gender inequalities that are seen in female-dominated fields. It employed a factorial design to examine the impact of gender, gender make up of an occupation, and level of authority within that occupation on a supervisor’s evaluation of an employee and decision to offer promotion, mentoring, and increase income and vacation time. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and were just over half women, predominantly White and heterosexual, had a bachelor’s degree or higher, currently engaged in full-time employment, and half indicated their household income to be between $25,000 and $74,999. Each participant was presented with a single vignette of an employee file who was eligible for a promotion from a female-dominated (nurse), male-dominated (engineer), or gender neutral (accountant) occupation. They evaluated the employee’s performance and made recommendations for promotion, increasing raise and vacation days, and offered mentoring. Participants also completed the Gender Attitude Inventory (GAI; Ashmore, Del Boca, & Bilder, 1995) to better understand the role that gender attitudes play in gender bias in promotion decision-making. Multiple analysis of covariance was utilized to examine main effects and interaction effects of target employee gender, gender-type of occupation, and level of authority of the occupation. Hypotheses that men will be more likely to be promoted into positions with more authority, and women will be viewed as most competent in positions that are female-typed with the least amount of authority were not supported. Results showed that gender attitudes were weakly related to an employee’s performance evaluation, raise, and mentoring. Significant differences were found on the GAI where participants identifying as women, gay, and with a graduate degree had more liberal gender attitudes. Possible explanations for the predominantly insignificant results and future directions are discussed. Suggestions are provided for increasing the strength of the manipulation and factors that possibly decreased the salience of gender. Future experimental and continued qualitative studies in applied settings are recommended to identify causal influences of the glass escalator that examine factors of race, SES, and sexual orientation.

The subject of female leadership has been widely discussed during the last decades and previous studies has shown that the management is unequal in terms of gender. Previous studies regarding female leadership has often been compared to management administered by male leaders. In this study we want to eliminate the thoughts and norms about male leadership and instead focus on differences within a group of female leaders. Therefore, is the aim of this essay to examine how six female leaders experience their leadership and determine if age and former experiences have an effect. The method follows a qualitative research design based on six semi structured interviews. To unveil potential social differences and distinctions between diverse generations, we have compared responses form three older female leaders with at least 25 years of experience, with three younger leaders with less experience. The applied theories in this paper cover gender roles, leadership, habitus and different kinds of recruitment processes. The outcome shows that the differences between the two age groups are relative small. Despite this, the results shows that the perceived gender roles and its obstacles tend to diminish with increased age and experience. / Kvinnligt ledarskap har sedan flera årtionden tillbaka varit ett omtalat ämne där majoriteten av tidigare forskning studerat kvinnligt ledarskap i relation till det manliga. Eftersom samhället successivt förändras, i en riktning där allt fler kvinnliga ledare träder fram, har vi valt att inrikta oss på kvinnligt ledarskap. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka kvinnliga ledares upplevelser av hur det är att arbeta i en ledande position inom den privata sektorn. Vi har valt att jämföra äldre kvinnliga ledare med minst 25 års erfarenhet med yngre kvinnliga ledare med mindre erfarenhet av ledarskap. Anledningen till detta är för att undersöka om eventuella samhälls- och generationsskillnader har en inverkan. Studien tar utgångspunkt i ledarskapsteorier, genusteorier, Bourdieus habitusbegrepp samt olika rekryteringsstrategier. Då fokus har varit att studera kvinnornas upplevelser har vi valt en kvalitativ metod där vi genomfört sex stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer. Studien visade att det är en förvånansvärt liten skillnad i upplevelsen av ledarskap mellan yngre och äldre kvinnliga ledare. Det går dock att konstatera att ökad erfarenhet samt ökande ålder minskar upplevelsen av könsstrukturernas begränsningar.

Yes / Over the past 30 years, the term the ‘glass ceiling’ has come to be known as a metaphor for vertical segregation, symbolising an invisible barrier that prevents women from progressing in their careers. Increasingly women are found in higher level positions and mentoring has often been touted as an important way to help women break through the glass ceiling. This paper explores the continued relevance of the glass ceiling and the use of mentoring programs as a means to help women to overcome it. The findings suggest that although some women have penetrated the glass ceiling, further work is needed if a more equitable number of women are to advance to senior level positions. Whilst mentoring can play an important role in helping women to achieve more senior positions, mentoring is not a panacea but only one of many strategies that must be adopted to effectively address the phenomena of glass ceiling.

By the year 2000 women will constitute more than 50 percent of the workforce in the United States, yet their representation in top management and executive-level positions continues to hover in the single digits. This “glass ceiling,” which is conceptualized as limiting women's advancement into these roles, has been the subject of much debate and research over the last fifteen years. As both an equal rights and key competitive issue, the topic of women and leadership is gaining ever-increasing emphasis and momentum in American corporations. Although leadership skills have been advocated as a key human capital/person-centered variable leading to managerial ascendancy for women, the empirical research directly investigating this link is virtually non-existent. This longitudinal study proposed to measure the strength of this relationship using a matched sample of male and female managers. Eighty-five subjects, from the same U.S. based health-care products corporation, had previously participated in a multirater assessment process where seven different facets of their leadership skills were evaluated. Time two data were collected on four objective measures of ascendancy: percent change in salary, number of promotions (job moves) either offered or accepted, change in number of direct reports, and change in number of indirect reports. Multivariate analysis of covariance indicated that perceived leadership ability did lead to increased ascendancy, specifically in terms of percent salary change, for the female managers, but not for the males. Multiple regressions indicated that the female managers were not rewarded, necessarily, for gender congruent behavior in this organization, while male managers did appear to be rewarded more so on that particular dimension. Implications of these findings for female managers in the workplace were discussed.

Syfte: Stereotyper försvårar för kvinnor att nå ledande positioner, de kvinnor som når ledande positioner har tagit sig över barriärer för att ta sig till sin position. Vi vill ta reda på hur de lyckats ta sig över barriärerna. Syftet med vår studie är att öka förståelsen för hur kvinnliga ledamöter i aktiebolag upplever och hanterar barriären stereotyper. Syftet ska besvaras med hjälp av följande forskningsfrågor: På vilket sätt upplever kvinnor att barriären stereotyper påverkar möjligheterna att nå högre positioner? På vilket sätt kan kvinnorna påverka barriären stereotyper? Metod: Studien har utförts på ett kvalitativt vis och datan är insamlad genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Totalt har 10 kvinnliga ledamöter från svenska aktiebolag intervjuats, sex från Uppsala, tre från Bollnäs och en från Gävle. Den insamlade datan har sedan analyserats med hjälp av en tematisk analys. Resultat & slutsats: Studien visar att kvinnor upplever stereotyphot i form av barriärer men att de klarar av att ta sig igenom dessa. Barriärerna försvårar för kvinnorna att nå ledande positioner och kvinnorna hanterar dessa barriärer genom att läsa på mer och bevisa att dem kan, envishet är en viktig egenskap för att lyckas. Kvotering som är ett lagförslag från regeringen med syfte att få in fler kvinnor i styrelser är ingen bra idé. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Efter denna studie genomförts anser vi att det är nödvändigt att studera hur organisationer kan arbeta för att skapa en medvetenhet kring stereotyphot och hur de ska arbeta för att eliminera dem. Uppsatsens bidrag: Studiens bidrag till forskningen är att vi har kunnat namnge vissa av de barriärer som kvinnor möter i arbetslivet. Vi har undersökt hur kvinnorna upplevt dem och även bidragit med svar på hur de har hanterat barriären stereotyper. Studien har skapat en medvetenhet hos kvinnorna om stereotyper. / Aim: Stereotypes makes it difficult for women to reach senior positions, the women who does reach leadership positions have crossed barriers to get into that position. We want to find out how they managed to cross the barriers. The aim of this study is to create a greater understanding for the way female board members in registered companies perceives and manage the barrier stereotype. The purpose should be answered using the following research questions: In which way do women perceive that the barrier stereotypes affect their possibilities to reach higher positions? How can women affect the barrier stereotypes? Method: The study has been conducted in a qualitative way, and data is collected through semi-structured interviews. A total of 10 female members of Swedish companies was interviewed, six from Uppsala, three from Bollnas and one from Gavle. The collected data has been analyzed by a thematic analysis. Result & Conclusions: The study shows that women experience stereotype threat in the form of barriers, but they manage to get through these. The barriers make it difficult for women to achieve leadership positions and women deal with these barriers by reading more and prove that they can, persistence is an important characteristic for success. Affirmative is a draft law from the government in order to get more women on boards is not a good idea. Suggestions for future research: After this study carried out, we believe it is necessary to study how organizations can work to create awareness about the stereotype and how they should work to eliminate them. Contribution of the thesis: The study's contribution to research is that we have been able to name some of the barriers that women face in the workplace. We have investigated how women have experienced the barriers. We have also contributed with answers to how they handle the barrier stereotypes. The study has created an awareness among women about stereotypes.

Main goal of diploma thesis is to show what motivates women in their career, where they see the barriers. It also gives a look at the specific organizations, institutions and documents which focus on equal opportunities.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how mentorships can impact women’s career development. Previous research shows that there is an inequality gap between men and women on management positions and the aim for this research paper is to see if mentorships could help close this gap and make the top-level management more gender equal.   The Swedish banking industry is interesting to research due to its overall equality in the organisation, but extreme inequality in the top of the hierarchy. Sweden is one of the most equal countries in the EU but are still struggling to eliminate structural discrimination from their organisations. Mentorships has through previous studies shown to be a helpful tool for women to progress in their careers and increase gender balance in workplaces.   To be able to answer the research questions and fulfil the purpose of this research a qualitative research approach was applied. Five semi-structured interviews was held in order to gather empirical data. The participants were women in managerial positions within one of Sweden’s largest banks. Because of a confidentiality agreement, the name of the bank will not be revealed but rather be referred to as The Bank.   The findings of this research show that both formal and informal mentorships can be used as a tool for women to progress in their career. Mentorships give women the support they need to believe in their own worth, they also get access to new parts of organisations that before has been unattainable for them and get an insight in the political games within an organisation.

Background – This paper examined the literature on the concept of the glass ceiling in the management field, with an emphasis on Finnish and Swedish female leaders' perceptions of the barriers and facilitating factors of their career. Purpose – The purpose of this thesis was to explore the factors that affect the career development of women in the context of Nordic countries, namely in Finland and Sweden. Furthermore, this thesis tried to understand the welfare state paradox better and how the women in Finland and Sweden perceive it. Lastly, the purpose of this study was to find out if there are any differences between the perceptions of these countries due to the societal and cultural differences. Method – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 female leaders from different companies in Finland and in Sweden. The grounded analysis was used in the qualitative analysis of the coding. Conclusion – The research resulted that there are several barriers and facilitating factors that have affected the career of female leaders. Finnish and Swedish women highlighted their own individual factors such as motivation, self-esteem and courage as the major facilitating factor, and thereof lack of them a barrier. Based on this research, women’s perception of Nordic welfare policies is that they are beneficial to career development, providing an opportunity to focus on work more. Contrary to the expectations, there were relatively few differences in perceptions between Finnish and Swedish female leaders identified in this study. However, it seems that in Sweden the responsibilities about family are shared more equally and the overall social atmosphere is more encouraging for women's career success.

Women have a few managerial positions compared to men in audit and accounting firms. It said that large companies have intentions to increase the number of women accountants in managerial positions. The study is investigating the implementation of gender policies and diversity in auditing firm with a specific focus on how company size may impact how organizations come to work with issues of gender and diversity. A qualitative method has been implemented in this study, by conducting 17 semi-structured interviews with women auditors and accountants, working in 4 large firms and 5 small firms in Sweden. The study shows that the policies of the large companies are not fully implemented. While setting policies for small firms will just help women auditors/accountants to improve their career education.

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to determine the best methods for achieving key leadership roles in education. The problem was to define the qualities that are important in leadership positions and to determine how those qualities relate to the top-level positions in school systems across Tennessee. Nineteen female directors of schools were interviewed. Directors also completed the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (5X-Short). Characteristics of transformational and transactional leadership styles were included in the study. Most of the directors scored high on using the transformational factors (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration) of leadership and on using the contingent reward style of transactional leadership. The female directors of this study perceived communication skills, a caring attitude, honesty, being a visionary, and having people skills as important leadership characteristics. Other emergent themes included the qualities of males and females in the workplace, barriers to success, and the best practices that leaders are currently using in the workplace. The retention of top leaders in education is important. The perceptions of the 19 directors of Tennessee's public schools in this study are vital in understanding how women in leadership positions work. Mentoring, peer coaching, and providing time for directors to network, collaborate, and receive quality professional development are essential practices that should be promoted and continued to retain these leaders. The implication from this study is that higher education institutions should also consider best practices for preparing future administrators to be successful. Attention should be paid to the differences in which males and females work and to the difference of personality traits and characteristics of leaders that may affect success in top-level positions in education.