1. 1
Beyond the Glass Ceiling: A
Phenomenological Study of Women
Managers in the Kenyan Banking
Industry
A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Management in Organizational Leadership
Title
2. Panel Introductions
Pamela Brown, Ph.D., Mentor
Michael E. Marrapodi, Ed.D., Committee Member
Joanne Kovacich, Ph.D., Committee Member
Naomi M. Mangatu, Doctoral Candidate
2
3. Outline
1. The problem statement
2. The purpose of the study
3. Theoretical framework
4. Research method and design
5. Research questions
6. Population and sample
7. Pilot study
8. Data collection
9. Findings
10. Significance of findings to leadership
11. Recommendations
12. Questions
3
4. 4
The Problem Statement
Despite a seemingly remarkable progress on
career advancement, women remain
underrepresented in the highest leadership
positions in Kenyan banks.
5. 5
Support for Problem Statement
•Insufficient knowledge about the experiences of women in
bank leadership in Kenya (Kiamba, 2008; Kobia, 2007).
•Ineffectiveness of affirmative action plans and policies in
Kenya (ILO, 2007; United Nations, 2008; World Bank, 2005).
•Exclusion of women from leadership roles impacts negatively
on productivity and militates against a diverse workforce (Noble
& Moore, 2006).
•Glass ceiling is costly in terms of turnover costs as qualified
women leave organizations (Mathur-Helm, 2006).
6. 6
Purpose Statement
The purpose of the qualitative phenomenological study was
to explore the lived experiences and perceptions of 24
women managers in Kenyan banks; to better understand
the factors they perceived to be contributors or barriers to
advancement to CEO positions.
7. 7
Theoretical Framework
•Social role theory
– gender determines what roles should be allocated to men and
women (Dunn, 2007; Eagly, 2006).
•Expectations state theory
– structural conditions rooted in feminist theory are responsible for
the second class status accorded women by society (Gold,
2008; Kalkhoff, & Thye, 2006).
•Leadership categorization theory
– equates certain personality traits and gender attributes with
leadership qualities (Weyer, 2007; Hilton, 2007).
8. 8
Research Method & Design
•The qualitative study applied a phenomenological design.
– The seven-step modified van Kaam process (Moustakas, 1994)
facilitated data analysis.
•Choice of design was influenced by:
– Inductive approach that emphasizes concern for the richness,
texture, and feeling for the raw data collected (Neuman, 2006).
•The qualitative method helped explain the how and why
– A quantitative method would have merely generated frequency
distributions with no in-depth information (Creswell, 2004).
9. 9
Research Questions
Two central research questions guided the study:
1. How do women in Kenyan banks perceive and
describe their experiences of the glass ceiling?, and
2. What strategies do women in senior and middle
management positions in Kenyan banks consider
necessary for advancing and staying in the CEO
position?
10. 10
Target Population & Sample
• Women employees in banks
in Nairobi, Kenya.
• Final sample was 24 women
who shared common
characteristics such as:
1. current employee of a bank
based in Nairobi
2. at least 2 years experience in
banking
3. be over the age of 18 years, and
4. held senior manager or middle
management level positions
11. Reasons for Population Choice
• Senior manager position marks the starting point for key
decision making in most banks (Cormier, 2007).
– Senior managers are candidates for CEO positions succession
planning in many organizations (Chovwen, 2007).
– As Head of Department, senior managers serve as role models
to junior employees.
• Most women in Kenyan banks tend to stagnate at the
middle and senior manager level positions (Kiamba,
2008).
11
13. Pilot Study
• A pilot test was done with two women, (senior
manager & manager) to
– test the procedures
– give information about response unpredictability, and
– test the flow of information prior to carrying out the full
study
• The responses aided in evaluating each
response’s alignment with the research
questions.
13
14. Data Collection- Participants Selection
• 48 purposively selected women received
invitation to participate.
– Purposive sampling allowed the use of cases that have the
required information with respect to the subject of the study
(Creswell, 2005).
• 27 replies were received, 3 were declines.
• Thus 24 women participated in the final study
– 12 senior managers, and
– 12 middle level managers
14
15. Data Collection- -Interviews
• Conducted a 45-60 minutes face to face interview
At an off-site venue.
•Interviewing process started with an ice-breaker
•Interviews were digitally audio-recorded
•Semi-structured open-ended questions allowed:
• A flexible approach that allowed for collection of subjective
viewpoints (Creswell, 2005) and a
• A procedural description of lived experiences and perceptions of
respondents (Creswell, 2004).
• Follow-up questions to clarify and probe interesting responses
that emerged (Creswell, 2005).
•Verbatim data was manually transcribed immediately after
every interview session.
•Memoing & observations captured non-verbal communication.
•Document review reinforced the participants’ verbal accounts
and triangulated data.
15
16. Data Management
•Transcribed verbatim data were input into NVivo8
software to allow for:
• Free & tree coding
• searching for specific words, and
• Matrix querying
•Nodes created two sets of attributes:
– Phrases consistent with and supporting the existence of a GC(14,
293 nodes; 93%).
– Expressions that did not support the existence of a GC (9,134
nodes; 7%).
17. Data Analysis
• Applied the van Kaam 7-step process (Moustakas,1994)
to achieve a systematic discovery of
• Patterns
• Themes
• constructs, and
• meanings in the participant’s responses (Creswell, 2004).
• Constituents were sorted & arranged in descending
order.
• Highest 57 constituents referenced by at least 12
participants (table 10) were clustered to form nine major
themes.
18. van Kaam 7-step process
(Full explanations on Pages 93-95 of dissertation)
20. 20
Findings cont…
• Determined that in comparison to men of similar qualifications and
experience, few women are breaking through the glass ceiling in
to attain CEO positions in Kenyan banks.
• Social pressures and cultural norms continue to suppress
women’s career advancement in Kenya.
• Discovered that compared to men, women are held to higher
expectations for resilience and competence.
• Kenyan career women are making concerted efforts to develop their
values beyond the academic, intellectual, and professional
capabilities.
• Informal social networks are essential sources of corporate power
in Kenya.
21. 21
Significance of Findings
•Facilitates more understanding why women are not
advancing as fast as men in Kenyan banks.
•Contributes to the body of literature
– fills the knowledge gap about GC experiences in Kenyan
banks.
•Provides women with further information on steps to
take and the pitfalls to avoid in career advancement (Lewis, 2006).
22. 22
Significance cont…
•Better planning by policy makers
… factors revealed may be vital in directing gender equity efforts to
relevant areas.
•Women CEOs may bring alternative leadership skills
…and contribute in enhancing corporate governance within Kenyan
banks.
•An environmental scanning tool by Leaders
…to identify cultural and structural forces working against their
organizations.
•Performance Comparison
– Kenyan bank leaders may weigh performance against other
organizations with women in decision-making.
23. Limitations/Delimitations
• Geographic area was the metropolitan city of Nairobi, limiting data
influenced by rural settings.
• Study method may have left room for personal influence and bias
– Both researcher & participants.
• In a few instances, some participants allocated inadequate time for
the interviews.
• The unique experiences of the 24 participants might not represent
all methods available to senior women in banking to overcome the
GC barriers.
• The findings may not be transferable to other situations or cases
(Neuman, 2006).
• Lack of male data for comparison limited the study findings as only
women in senior manager and manager positions participated.
23
24. Recommendations
• The Kenyan government should re-evaluate policies and
approach to gender issues.
• Kenyan women banker’s ability to understand the
industry’s structural dimensions of power is crucial.
• Kenyan banks should enact, implement, & enforce
policies to support women’s dual responsibilities.
• Importance for Kenyan women in banking to seek public
visibility and assertiveness.
24
25. Recommendations cont…
• Need for women to customize their leadership styles to
the Kenyan banking environment.
• Women should join and make time for formal and
informal career-related non-gender specific networks.
• Kenyan Media Houses and research firms should
spearhead gender equity by highlighting the best and
worst banks for women to work for.
• Kenyan society should recognize and accept the
changing status where the educated career woman is
making bold moves to deal with sexism.
• Bank’s clients are not homogeneous, hence Kenyan
banks should diversify their workforce by having women
CEOs.
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Notas del editor
Despite substantial investments on gender issues, social pressures and cultural norms continue to suppress women’s career advancement in Kenya. Kenyan career women are making concerted efforts to develop their values beyond the academic, intellectual, and professional capabilities. To access to power, Kenyan women must join mainstream networks, find right mentors, and seek demanding assignments. To broaden their access to power, Kenyan women must join co-educational and more mainstream networks, find right mentors, and seek demanding assignments. The GC is permeable but gains in education and access to professions have not translated into women achieving CEO positions in Kenyan banks.
The study results were germane to policy makers and organizational leaders in identifying growth barriers that lead women employees toward a glass ceiling.
To preserve credibility, innate biased perspectives, observations, and data interpretation were bracketed and interviews triangulated with documents review, field notes, and observations (Neuman, 2006).