Enabling factors that contribute to women reaching leadership positions in business organizations

Abstract

Structured abstractPurpose: While the number of women working in management accounting has increased, the percentage of female executives in this area remains low. Previous studies examining the underrepresentation of women in accounting leadership positions have analyzed factors that hinder women from reaching these positions. The aim of this paper, by contrast, is to identify factors that support the advancement of those female executives who have reached a leadership position. Further, this paper highlights the self-reported obstacles and difficulties faced by respondents in reaching their current positions.Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face with 10 female executives in the management accounting departments of Austrian firms. The interview transcripts were analyzed by using the general inductive approach. Findings:The results of the study show that most women classified their social skills and professional expertise as the key factors leading to their successful advancement; however, they also highlighted that ambition and luck played important roles. We found that support from both life partners and superiors was essential for these women in reaching their current positions and in handling difficulties when in a leadership position. Further difficulties include working time, work-life balance, and motherhood. Research limitations/implications:As the findings are based on interviews conducted with female Austrian executives in large (more than 250 employees) manufacturing-or servicesector firms, they are not readily generalizable. Practical implications:This study identifies factors that may help prospective female management accounting executives reach leadership positions. Furthermore, less senior female management accountants may learn from this paper that women who have already reached leadership positions in management accounting may have had to cope with problems similar to those that younger and less senior female management accountants currently experience.Originality/value: This article is among the first to address gender in the field of management accounting.

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“…Personal competency is related to self-evaluation, attitude to work, motivation, ambition and other aspects (Raudeliūnienė and Neimontas, 2012). Furthermore, Cimirotić et al (2017) emphasize the importance of ambition and the ability to defend personal opinion (Cimirotić, Duller, Feldbauer-Durstmüller, Gärtner, & Hiebl, 2017). Ambitious women leaders are able to identify possibilities even in risky situations and use it to prove their abilities (Hurley & Choudhary, 2016), although capabilities of identifying and assuming risks are assigned as masculine traits of leadership (Acar, 2015;Dambrin & Lamber, 2008;Evans, 2014).…”

“…Smith et al (2010) carried out the study in the countries of North Europe and found out that the time spent bringing up children had a direct impact to the pay gap and decrease women's possibilities to reach executive positions in companies (White & Smith, 2010). Therefore, the mobility of a workplace (Subramaniam et al, 2013) and flexible working hours (Cimirotić et al, 2017;Hurley & Choudhary, 2016) give possibilities to women leaders to balance their work and private life. Due to the fact that women usually face more obstacles than men in leader positions, the support of external environment is identified as an extremely significant factor of successful women's leadership.…”

“…Due to the fact that women usually face more obstacles than men in leader positions, the support of external environment is identified as an extremely significant factor of successful women's leadership. The support of family members and friends could be comprehensive and could be provided in different ways, such as helping to do housework, to take care of children or moral support by giving advice and sharing experiences (Cimirotić et al, 2017;Kemp & Zhao, 2016;McGowan et al, 2015;Zhou & Chang, 2015). In addition, the support of colleagues is also very significant (Barnes, 2017;Cimirotić et al, 2017;Hurley & Choudhary, 2016) because the establishment and development of business inevitably depend on formal and informal communities.…”

“…Visible and present at meetings (Kelly, Ammons, Chermack, & Moen, 2010), international working experience (Evans, 2014;Javidan et al, 2016;Stefanco, 2017), working experience (Cimirotić et al, 2017;Eagly, 2007), power (personal choice) (Kinsaul et al, 2014), living abroad (Stefanco, 2017), skills (Mahmud et al, 2012, long working hours (Coffman & Neuenfeldt, 2014), education (Setyaningsih et al, 2012;Subramaniam et al, 2013), competence (Evans, 2014;Raudeliūnienė, 2017), having a mentor (Bierema, 2016;McGowan et al, 2015), trainings (Setyaningsih et al, 2012), continual learning (Kemp & Zhao, 2016), orientation to results (Bullough et al, 2017), 24/7 availability (Coffman & Neuenfeldt, 2014), recognition of achievements (Setyaningsih et al, 2012), professional knowledge (Cimirotić et al, 2017;Javidan et al, 2016), specific knowledge (Cimirotić et al, 2017), freedom of decision-making (Subramaniam et al, 2013), hard work (Cimirotić et al, 2017), international internship (Stefanco, 2017), international business studies (Stefanco, 2017), technologysavvy (Stefanco, 2017), foreign languages (Stefanco, 2017), business savvy (Javidan et al, 2016).…”

“…Proactive in changing top leadership levels (from exclusive to inclusive) (Barnes, 2017;Evans, 2014), including others in democratic decision making and implementation (Bullough et al, 2017), team building for mutually agreed goals (Bullough et al, 2017), leadership in communities (Newberry, 2012), leadership style (Setyaningsih et al, 2012), empowering others to make decisions (Evans, 2014;Kimpah, Ibrahim, & Raudeliuniene, 2017), inspiring others (Bullough et al, 2017), listening to and energizing employees (Evans, 2014), ability to motivate (Bullough et al, 2017), recognizing achievements of other people (Evans, 2014), articulating vision and inspiring others to follow it (Evans, 2014). External factors Workplace mobility (Subramaniam et al, 2013), support of colleagues (Barnes, 2017;Cimirotić et al, 2017;Hurley & Choudhary, 2016), flexible working hours (Cimirotić et al, 2017;Hurley & Choudhary, 2016), gender inequality (Acker, 2009), luck (Cimirotić et al, 2017), family and friends support (Cimirotić et al, 2017;Kemp & Zhao, 2016;McGowan et al, 2015;Zhou & Chang, 2015), number of children (Hurley & Choudhary, 2016). Zhong et al (2011) claim that the "luck" factor does not play a vital role in climbing career ladders (Zhong, Couch, & Blum, 2011).…”