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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19187 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Odoh, Anne N. |
| Contributors | Branney, Peter, Rifet, Saima |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, Faculty of Management, Law and Social Sciences |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, DBA |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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