Barriers encountered by women in career development towards senior management positions in management industry

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the barriers encountered by women in career development towards senior management levels in management industry in organizations in Cape Town. To attempt to delve deeper into the possible reasons why there is less women in career development towards management/leadership positions. Why are the less women at the management levels in the country as whole, where when are in the majority? The researcher believed that women make better deals than men do. Women make more bills and get more support for those bills than male counterparts. This can also be reasoned to the way women operate in business, organization in the world as whole. This is also why the author wanted to identify women based factors that impede the progress of women in their effort to move to other higher levels. The rate of unemployment in South Africa is an ongoing issue, however this has made the South African government to an emphasis on women in career development. The objectives of this study were to identify factors that may contribute to the failure of woman success. In South Africa globally there is less representation of women than men at senior management levels. To address the issue of less representation of woman in organizations in Cape Town. To find a solution to the barriers encountered by women in their career advancement. A questionnaire was generated and used as tool to obtain contributions to fulfil the research questions. This study was based on material collected from Female employees in organizations in Cape Town. The findings are as follows: It seems to be absent is investment in understating the role of women managers ‘representation in organizations, where by organizations become proactive rather than reactive. This is as true for staff development as it is for retaining. Organisations could further capitalize in management industry to ensure that women are taken care of. The recommendations and conclusions were based on the researcher's understanding and interpretation of the meaning of the data that was collected. Based on findings, the results indicated that education has a significant relationship with career advancement is in consensus with findings; it has been shown that the majority of female employees are stuck as general staff support in the organization. Whereas the study indicated that only 3% of the female employees are in Head of operations, followed by 6% of Operations managers, followed by 7% of senior managers.