Impact of indigenous culture of Pakistan on female leadership

Impact of Indigenous Culture on

women leadership in Pakistan

How does indigenous culture of Pakistan restricts

career progress and leadership abilities of females

of Pakistan

Master thesis

Author: Shafta Manzoor

Supervisor: Pr.Dr. Philippe

Daudi

Examiner: Pr.Dr.Björn Bjroke

Date: 15.05.2015

Subject: Business

Administration

Program:Leadership and

Management in International

Context

Level: Masters

Course code: EALM1

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Abstract

Although the subject of female leadership is very well documented on international level,

Pakistan still lacks enough research in this area. This scarcity of research gave rise to a

commonly held belief that gender equality has been achieved in Pakistan which hides the

gender stereotypes and discrimination practices prevailing in the country.

Digging in the experiences of thirty working women this study examined the effect

indigenous culture of Pakistan had in shaping their life experiences as well as career

success. The study followed a qualitative research approach with phenomenological

theoretical framework. Fifteen females were interviewed from urban areas and fifteen

from rural areas to draw a holistic picture of the indigenous culture and underlying values

in Pakistan.

Females were interviewed on skype and data gathered was analysed using thematic

analysis approach. Interviews were taken in Urdu and transcriptions were prepared in

English to conduct analysis for the study. Findings of the study indicate that indigenous

culture strongly effects the career success of working women in Pakistan.

Indigenous culture brings mobility issues for women which restricts the possibility to get

better jobs at other places instead of their home town and it also restricts entrepreneurs to

the small cities they live in. Apart from social mobility, culture restricts the decision

making power of females which effects their self-recognition and vision development and

other skills necessary to become a better leader.

Females also face difficulty managing work and family life because of the uneven

domestic work burden on females and the concept that women is the caretaker of house

no matter how tough her job gets. Single females don’t face the problem of managing

house work and family life however they face issues such as social mobility, preference

of male colleagues over them because of their perceived short work life, lack of decision

making power and lack of self-confidence.

The participants were of the view that despite of all the challenges brought by culture,

they are still struggling for their career and fighting against the taboos put by culture.

The study indicates that there is a need to change the mind-set that female is a creature

who has to be agreeable and caretaker of family and who is responsible for saving

relationships. Although efforts have been done to give women equal rights in Pakistan,

these efforts will become more meaningful if general perception of society about women

and their role starts to change which will require awareness programmes and cooperation

from academic institutions and policy makers.

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Keywords

Indigenous culture

Female Leadership

Decision making power

Social immobility issues

Patriarchal Culture

Cultural taboos

Leadership skills

Role expectancy of females

Work and family life balance

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Thanks

“Glory to Lord who gave me courage to get the best out of my time in Sweden and stay

resilient despite of all the hardships I faced.

This study could never been possible without assistance of some important people.

I wish to express my heartiest gratitude to Linnaeus University which offered me

opportunity to study in such a competitive, multi-cultural and open environment full of

learning and motivation.

Special thanks to my supervisor, Associate professor Philippe Daudi who has not only

been a professional guider and invaluable advisor but a fatherly figure for me throughout

this programme and has taught me how to look at life from a different perspective. I

appreciate his efforts in me and all the trust he always puts in me as a student and the

potential he sees in me. He helped me hone my skills in the most effective way and

encourages me through the times I was about to give up and it is his constant struggle in

me that I am here today submitting this research successfully. ”

Special thanks to all authorities who reviewed my thesis during submission sessions and

gave me important feedback.

I am thankful to all the participants who are also my friends for sharing their valuable and

personal stories with me. I appreciate the fact that they trusted me enough to share all the

private and personal stuff with me which is not an easy job.

To my future husband Waleed and my family I am deeply indebted for all the support and

encouragement. Waleed, you have always trusted in me and told me I can make it and

this is one very reason that I am here today despite of all the hard times we have seen.

Thank you for always believing in me. My family, you have made sacrifices for me and

have always encouraged me to get the best out of my life. I am grateful for all the love,

care and for everything you have done to help me become who I am.

Special thanks to Philippe Daudi, My family and Waleed once again.

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Contents

1 INTRODUCTION __________________________________________________ 1 1.1 Leadership studies and Women: My inspiration _________________________ 1 1.2 Introduction _____________________________________________________ 3

1.3 Context of the study _______________________________________________ 5 1.4 Statistics of Pakistan ______________________________________________ 6 1.5 Statement of the study _____________________________________________ 8

1.6 Research questions ________________________________________________ 9 1.7 Significance of this study ___________________________________________ 9

2 LITERATUR REVIEW _____________________________________________ 11 2.1 Introduction to section ____________________________________________ 11 2.2 Literature study _________________________________________________ 12

2.2.1: Working women in Asia _______________________________________ 12

2.2.2: Indigenous Culture and its impact _______________________________ 13

2.2.3: Literature summary table ______________________________________ 29

2.3 Literature conclusion and deduction__________________________________ 38

2.4 Major concepts for this study _______________________________________ 38

3 RESEARCH DESIGN ______________________________________________ 40 3,1 Methodology ___________________________________________________ 40

3.1.1 Qualitative research __________________________________________ 40

3.1.2 Phenomenology ______________________________________________ 41

3.2 Research approach _______________________________________________ 42 3.2.1 Interviews __________________________________________________ 42

3.2.2 Validity and trustworthiness ____________________________________ 43

3.3 Data analysis strategy _____________________________________________ 45

3.4 Research Process ________________________________________________ 46 3.4.1 Thematic analysis ____________________________________________ 46

3.5 Research design _________________________________________________ 47

3.5.1 Research approach ___________________________________________ 48

3.5.2 Selecting the participants ______________________________________ 48

3.5.3 Conducting the interviews ______________________________________ 49

3.5.4 Preparing the transcripts ______________________________________ 50

3.6 Data analysis ___________________________________________________ 50

4 FINDINGS ________________________________________________________ 52 4.1 Introduction to the section _________________________________________ 52

4.2 Participants of the study ___________________________________________ 52 4.3 Theme of the study: Indigenous culture _______________________________ 58

4.3.1 Indigenous Culture and Decision making power _____________________ 58

4.3.2 Indigenous culture and Social immobility issues _____________________ 59

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4.3.3 Indigenous culture and Role expectancy for females __________________ 60

4.3.4 Indigenous culture and Female Subordination ______________________ 61

4.3.5 Indigenous Culture and status of females __________________________ 62

4.3.6 Indigeous culture, Family and work life balance ____________________ 63

4.3.7 Indigenous culture’s effect on skills of females ______________________ 64

4.4 Summary ______________________________________________________ 67

5 DISCUSSION _____________________________________________________ 69 5.1 Introduction to the section _________________________________________ 69

5.1.1 Indigenous culture____________________________________________ 70

5.2 Summary ______________________________________________________ 75

6 CONCLUSION ____________________________________________________ 77 6.1 Introduction ____________________________________________________ 77 6.2 Recommendations _______________________________________________ 78

6.3 Limitations _____________________________________________________ 79 6.4 Future research implications _______________________________________ 79 6.5 Conclusion _____________________________________________________ 80

References__________________________________________________________ 81 Methodology literature _______________________________________________ 92

Appendices __________________________________________________________ I Appendix A Interview Sheet ___________________________________________ I

Appendix 2 Consent Form _____________________________________________II Appendix 3 Interview questions ________________________________________ III Appedix 4 Statistics of Pakistan ________________________________________ IV

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1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Leadership studies and Women: My inspiration

I was born in France and spent ten years of my early age in French culture. At the age of

eleven, I shifted to Pakistan with my family and this brought a new dimension to my life.

I lived in Pakistan for fourteen years and shifted to Sweden for my Masters in 2014.

Having experienced two different cultures, I have always had difficult times

understanding the role culture plays in our life and if that role works in our betterment.

Cultural shift I witnessed during my life often left me in chaos when it came to differing

practices in Pakistan and France. Gender discrimination is one such cultural shift I

witnessed in my life which left me upset sometimes.

I never believed in gender inequality in different nations until I started witnessing it

around. I grew up in a culture where females were treated equal to women, from doing

groceries to washing clothes and working females had the same opportunities as men and

they were as safe as any man walking down the street. Being in the culture of equal gender

opportunities, I assumed the whole world works this way but my perception didn’t remain

the same when I moved back to Pakistan in 2000.

My time in Pakistan became a life changing journey for me because of the culture I

witnessed and the gender inequality I saw in Pakistan. Although on Women’s day

television shows used to be full of females who were entrepreneurs, who achieved

something in life and statistics which showed how the country has overcome gender

discrimination and gives equal opportunities to females I used to wonder why the real

world is so different from the TV shows.

Although Pakistan passed equal women rights law in (1958) which ensures that females

get equal opportunities of employment as men do, I witnessed the inapplicability of this

law in Pakistan. However, truth is that females although are progressing in businesses and

making professional careers, they have to face many social taboos and cultural dogmas

throughout their career.

Everything we face in our life effects our consciousness and sometimes our

unconsciousness and defines our actions in short as well as long term as the great

Newton’s law says “every action has a reaction”. I witnessed the reaction in Pakistani

females in the form of either retaliation or a stubborn attitude towards their career where

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they were ready to give up on everything for their dreams or a life of struggle for couple

of years and giving up later because they realized they cannot take the society anymore.

While I was doing my Bachelors from Lahore School of Economics which is one of the

best business schools in Pakistan and it had greater percentage of female teachers as

compared to male teachers, I felt the difference in my grooming as compared to my earlier

life. Seeing my teachers getting equal opportunities and being judged on basis of their

skills rather than gender, I felt attracted to the institution as a female and I dreamed of a

day when all the institutions in Pakistan will treat females the same way. However, this

is not easy because even if the evident cultural values change, females have to face glass

ceilings which are still ignored and strongly rooted in the culture.

The urge to work on female’s development increased in me when I got admitted in

Masters Programme in Sweden and had to face obstacles due to closed culture. I was

questioned by people if I was married, if an unmarried girl can travel this much for just a

master’s degree, if a girl needs this much of education in her life and this is the time when

I realized that our society takes the value of education different for girls and boys. For

boys, education is important to make their life but for girls education serves the purpose

of getting knowledge about the world, being able to communicate and that’s why females

are restricted to certain fields of education.

In Pakistan, females are associated to few professions and those who don’t adopt the

professions are not considered a “Marriage material” because they are assumed to be

spoiled girls. I faced this situation when I choose Business studies as my career and all of

a sudden I was the bad girl of my family, someone all kids were asked to refrain from.

However, I saw the other side of my parents who have lived a very religious yet liberal

life and they supported me throughout my life to accomplish my dreams.

I remember when people told me my religion restricts me from travelling abroad, I went

to my father who is a role model for me and asked him if that was the case and he was all

like “you know what kid, your religion emphasized on getting education and without

discriminating females from males. Your religion never had any saying which benefited

males over females, the things people say are culture, it’s not religion, it’s the closed

culture, and the one we have inherited being part of Asia.” He told me that in my religion

and in every true religion, females are equal to males and they are asked to rule their life

instead of sacrificing for others and choosing wrong over right for the sake of their family.

This is where I realized that culture plays a strong role in life of Asian people and in

everyone’s life and for us gender discrimination is a culture not religion.

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Being part of two different communities and having witnessed different situations of

gender discrimination I feel my personal responsibility to conduct an in depth study on

why females are not given equal opportunities and how facing inequalities effects females

attitude towards their professional as well as personal life. As I have myself experienced

different events of gender discrimination, I feel I can unveil hidden aspects of gender

discrimination in Pakistan and compare it to countries with more equality like France,

Sweden and Finland.

As I have been part of international class in my Masters I had the chance to interact with

females from different cultures and I feel this experience will help me adding crisp to my

study. Being part of Pakistan for 14 years, I have witnessed that Pakistani Females are

capable enough and sometimes more capable and hardworking than males. However, the

cultural values and societal norms restrain them from progressing in different fields.

This study will uncover these hidden aspects and try to explain way to break the glass

ceilings faced by females and therefore will contribute to widening paths for female’s

development in Pakistan as well as other countries with almost similar culture like India,

China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc.

1.2 Introduction

“Women, who make up half of society, suffer from discrimination and inequality in all

societies, especially in the developing world. They are disadvantaged, marginalised and

invisible in many aspects of life; and their poor representation in leadership positions is

one form of such discrimination.”

(Ngan Thi ,2011,Pg.2)

It won’t be wrong to say that females now days constitute half of the population of any

country and in most of the developing countries they face inequality and gender

discrimination. It’s not an exaggeration to say either that women have evolved to

contribute half of the potential human capital that can be availed in any economy founding

the basis for competitiveness. In such situation it is impossible to eliminate the

phenomena of gender parity because in the current competitive world one cannot afford

to leave any resource unutilized and women workforce is the very prominent one of them

(Tran, 2001).

President of World Bank Robert Zoellick pointed out that “the empowerment of women

is smart economics”. As Ambassador Verveer highlights, “[Women] are significantly

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outnumbered in the chambers of parliaments, provincial councils, and more often than

not missing from the negotiating tables where conflicts are to be resolved. All too often

decisions that affect women, their families, and societies are made without women having

a voice”.

Despite of the societal and economic merits of non-partial employment of women in

organization and despite of the globalization bringing all the businesses to one economic

forum, it is generally evident that the enrolment of women in entrepreneurial activities

and upper level leadership hierarchy is deteriorated under influence of various social,

cultural and ethnic norms.

Studies suggest there is lesser number of female entrepreneurs in Asia or the less

developed countries of the world. Asian societies have male dominant culture where

females are disadvantaged, and are not allowed to participate in many aspects of life. Poor

representation of females in entrepreneurial positions and professional life is one form of

this discrimination.

Discrimination in Asian societies is a consequence of masculine culture which is based

on patriarchal ideology. Patriarchal ideology is defined by Chesney-Lind (2006) is an

ideology of “Seeing the world through men’s lens”. This ideology exists in the form of

class and gender privilege and it increases dominance of males because of their authority

and role as family owners and capital owners of the family.

Walby (1990) identifies six patriarchal structures which prevail in the society and effect

females of the society at personal as well as professional level. These levels are:

patriarchal mode of production, patriarchal relations in paid work, patriarchy relation in

the state, and male violence, patriarchal relation in sexuality and patriarchal relation in

cultural institutions including religions, media, and education.

Anita Weiss (2002) explains patriarchy as a system of social interaction between males

and females based on inequality and gender prejudices which are evident through male

violence and lesser economic opportunities for females of the society.

Patriarchy prevails in two forms, Classical which is total domination of women by man

and Bargaining which is more about cooperation and conflict between roles. Walby

(1990) describes this aspect as a system of social values and structure which brings male

domination, oppresses females and exploits their basic rights to take decisions and decide

their life.

Pakistan follows a system of classical patriarchy in which females are married at a very

early age, are made subordinate to their husband, his family especially the elder females

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of the family and are rarely given any part in inheritance. Males earn and they spend,

females have no role in family except upbringing of children and husbands family.

All over the world, females are indulged in a continuous fight to get equal rights and

opportunities and be judged on the basis of their capabilities instead of gender. At the

same time, many researchers have been contributing to this effort of increasing gender

equality by digging deep in the topic and showing the hidden walls of the concept.

However, very little documentation has focused on indigenous culture and the underlying

beliefs of societies like Pakistan and the reason of existence of this culture.

This chapter provides an overview of the situation of females in Pakistan especially

working women.

1.3 Context of the study

Gender is one of the most important aspects of culture. The culture we follow determines

our understanding of different gender roles and presumed responsibilities. At the same

time, gender relations which are the way genders interact also play an important part in

shaping culture (Moller Okin, 2003).

In Patriarchal societies, women are treated as powerful symbols of Collective unity, have

to follow strict cultural codes and are not treated equal to men because they are dependent

on men for power and resources. Gender roles are traditionally defined, with females

being associated to reproductive and sexual capacity and this gives them inferior position

and no power to influence culture in any way. Therefore, patriarchal culture sustains male

power and their interests and maintains inequality and subordination in society (A Phillips

2003).

All over the world, struggles of women empowerment have gained importance since 1911

and it’s since the time that females have been fighting for equal rights and opportunities.

There has been constant effort by females and different women empowerment institutions

to help females get higher position in society and getting their abilities recognized.

One of the main resources females are using to empower themselves is by networking

and changing perception of other females and male members of the society. Being a topic

of great attention, female development has been researched for quite a while now and

most of the research has contributed to elimination of female discrimination from the

world.

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Although efforts have been done to give females equal status, different regions across the

world have different levels of success in this regard.

The world has witnessed a very positive progress in European region where few countries

like Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden are the top ones with almost no gender

discrimination. While these countries have overcome the problem of female

empowerment, there are those at other extreme like Mali, Syria, Chad, Pakistan and

Yemen which are on lowest ranks of gender parity as per World Economic Forum’s report

(2014).

This being said, Pakistan has been ranked on the second last position (141 out of 142) in

gender parity and this is one of the major reasons I find ambitious to conduct this research.

Although in Pakistan, there are many organizations working on female development, few

have been able to solve the problem and bring significant difference to the situation.

Research conducted on this issue also focuses on the different conditions females have to

face in everyday life and how culture and society restricts their career progress. However,

there is very little research on the effect of culture on potential female leaders of tomorrow

and very little study is conducted on the effects current culture has on female leadership

skills and their view about life and career development.

This is why I feel the need to conduct an in depth study on the experience of different

female leaders, both in top positions and in middle positions and their effect on female’s

self-recognition and resilience towards achieving their goals. Through this study I aim at

uncovering the glass ceilings, also known as hidden, unknown forces (Hallinger &

Leithwood, 1998) currently faced by females of Pakistan and will examine their impact

on women’s perception about leadership and their behaviour towards career development.

1.4 Statistics of Pakistan

This section provides brief overview of Pakistan and current situation of gender parity in

the country, particularly in labour force.

Pakistan is a developed country in South Asia, with a population of more than 190 million

people it is the world’s sixth most populous country. Women make 52.3% of the total

population and most of them i.e. 71.5% of these are young ranging from 15-35 years age.

Figure 1 (Appendix 1) describes the current world economic forum statistics for Pakistan.

According to these statistics, Pakistan scores 0.552 in Gender Gap Index, Female labour

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force participation rate is 39%, literacy rate of 0.63, 26% female presence in parliament

and 5 years of female leadership in state out of the last 50 years.

Apart from these significant figures, Pakistan occupies 141th position out of 142 in

female participation to economic development, 132nd in equal educational attainment,

119th in health and survival of females and 85 in political empowerment thus scoring a

total of 141 out of 142 countries which is very worrying and upsetting despite of the

efforts being done by institutions and foreign agencies like United Nations, World bank,

Asian development bank etc.

Pakistan accepted Benazir Bhutto as first female prime minister of Pakistan and 11th

prime minister of the country after independence in 1988. So far she is the only elected

female prime minister in Pakistan. Although females like Hina Rubani Khar, Reham

Khan, Shereen Mizare are members of different political parties, most of them joined

politics because of their family circumstances and because the male members either died

or were unable to fill the position (Roomi, 2010). Since 1945, the status of females in

Pakistan has varied considerably and although females today enjoy better status in

society, the situation of females is still “gender subordination”.

Pakistan follows patriarchal culture that is a culture where males are the “primary

authority figures” and females have to be the subordinates. Females are usually given the

“Reproductive role” only which means they are the mothers and wives and are supposed

to stay at home, take care of men and children.

The role of females as economic contributors has long been denied and this is why

females lack social as well as economic value and status. The tradition is to give male

members better education and equip them with skills necessary to compete in professional

life while female members are imparted the domestic skills which can help them play the

role of mother and wife better. In Pakistan, good woman is the one who is unselfish,

selfless, calm, tolerant to all violence, compromising and who is able to maintain and

sacrifice for her relationships.

Females of Pakistan are usually not allowed to have a say in one of the most important

decisions of their life such as marriage, education, career etc. Because of prevalence of

high gender role division, Pakistani females have to face the problems of limits

opportunities in job market, social mobility restrictions, cultural barriers and lack of

necessary education which restricts their progress in professional life.

Pakistani people according to Gallup Pakistan (2014) believe that females and males have

different role for society and females have to stay house wife throughout her life thus

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prioritizing males in politics, employment, educated and other walks of life. This being

said, such closed culture affects females in a very negative way with most females

demotivated and unaware of their dreams and even if they are aware, most females don’t

feel the need to struggle enough to accomplish their goals.

Females in Pakistan grow up in closed cultural walls and glass ceilings which restrict their

progress and development of a successful career. Most of the females grow up with

dreams of becoming successful with their life, achieving high standard of education and

high positions in their career but they are restricted because of the cultural taboos.

Overtime, growing up facing all these restrictions females either give up on their dreams

and totally submit themselves to their families or they go against their relationships and

choose career over family.

1.5 Statement of the study

Females in Pakistan constitute more than half of the population, yet because of cultural

taboos and societal restrictions, they constitute only twenty five percent of the total labour

force of the country. This is an alarm that a massive amount of human resource in yet

untapped in Pakistan which is neither contributing to economic development nor helping

enhances the overall status of the society because of lack of education and necessary

grooming.

Pakistan is among few nations in which labour force participation (LFP) of females is

among the lowest in the world and is less than world average of 52% (Pakistan’s is 26 -

30%). In the same region as Pakistan, there are countries like China who has overcomes

this problem and their LFP is now as high as 67%. LFP denotes the total amount of female

working right now to the total amount of females who are capable of working and have

the necessary skills.

The ratio for Pakistan denotes that females are capable of working, yet they are unable to

and that is primarily because of cultural and societal barriers they have to face. Apart

from labour force participation problem, inequality also exists in the form of access to

education, financial resources and entrepreneurial opportunities where females are unable

to raise capital for their entrepreneurial ventures because their business plans are not

“Taken seriously” by most of banks and therefore they have to raise capital on their own,

from their family and sometimes start up at a very small scale because of capital raising

issues.

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Even though more and more females are part of higher education, there is no guarantee

that these females will become part of the main stream because most of them get married

at an early age and are not allowed to join professional life and this increases the education

and employment gap. It is clear by now that females of Pakistan don’t lack necessary

education and abilities to work rather the major thing which restricts them are the “unseen

barriers from society and prevalent gender discrimination in labour market”.

The purpose of this study is therefore to explore the conditions faced by females of

Pakistan which restrict their contribution to Labour force participation. This study will

focus on cultural conditions specifically including societal norms and values and their

impact on female evolution as females. Culture is chosen because culture covers all the

day to day beliefs, norms, hidden values and practices which shape our lives and in

Pakistan “Closed culture” is one of the major barriers to development of females in

professional life as leaders and successful managers.

This study will rely on different female stories and see how their culture and underlying

glass ceilings have affected their personality and their struggle against cultural barriers.

Bennis (2011) highlights that leader needs to possess a vision, be able to convey that

vision to fight with resilience and patience. Through this study, I aim to explore how

cultural barriers faced by females have effected their leadership skills; development of

vision, self-recognition, self-confidence and resilience towards their vision.

1.6 Research questions

To unveil the objectives discussed above, following research questions will be addressed

through this study.

1. What are general norms in indigenous culture of Pakistan?

2. How does indigenous culture effects career success of Pakistani women?

1.7 Significance of this study

This study is conducted on the female leaders of Pakistan with a focus on the constraints

they face during their development as leaders. Looking through the lens of a country

where 52.3% are females and most of them i.e. 71.5% of these are young ranging from

15-35 years age, I find this research a glimpse of a future where females should be treated

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equal in professional life as they can turn into a future human capital that can’t be

neglected.

I expect this study to be a good contribution towards the current efforts of bringing gender

equality in the countries with highest ratio of gender inequality by providing a clear

current picture of female leadership situation.

Firstly this research will be useful for different institutional authorities currently working

all over the world to help females fight with gender discrimination. This study will help

the authorities understand the “glass ceilings” that females encounter and which are

invisible from above.

Secondly, this study will help future researchers conducting research on Asia and

especially countries with high gender inequality. This study will help them explore the

underlying barriers which females face and what steps need to be taken to change the

mind-set of people in these countries in order to be successful in bringing gender equality.

This study will be very useful contribution because so far, literature on condition of

Pakistani females is very less and therefore this literature will be an addition to the country

specific research.

Lastly, this study will help the young, bright females by increasing their awareness of real

issue they have to fight for and help them get inspired of the females around them who

faced similar barriers yet they were successful in achieving their goals.

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2 LITERATUR REVIEW

2.1 Introduction to section

Times have come when women have started to proliferate in almost every kind of

business occupation from entrepreneurship to management and leadership jobs and that

too in almost every sector of business. This proliferation has increased researchers interest

in studying various aspects of women leadership and work life from their leadership styles

to employee satisfaction, work life balance and challenges faced by females to evolve in

societies used to see men at top positions.

There are authors who have studied leadership styles of females intensively (Eagly &

Schmidt, 2001; Hall, 1996; Grogan & Brunner, 2005; Morris, Low & Coleman, 1999)

and others who have focused more attention on the experience of females as leaders and

response of society towards them (Acker & Feuerverger,1996; Cooper & Strachan, 2006;

Court, 1997; Davis & Johansson, 2005; Lyman, Athanasoula-Reppa & Lazaridou, 2009;

Neville, 1988; Strachan et al., 2010).

There are still other growing number of researches which have focused on studying the

barriers women face in accessing higher leadership positions at work (Brown, 1997;

Cubillo & Brown, 2003; Shakeshaft, 1987; Weyer, 2007; White, 2003). These thematic

studies however doesn’t fully encompass all the issues on women leadership and leave a

room for more insight and study in this area. This section summarizes the past literature

consulted so far for this study.

Literature studied for this research is used for two purposes: First is to dig deep in the

theory on the particular issue being studied in this research that is effect of culture of

development of female business leaders. Secondly the methodologies of all the studies

consulted gives a background to develop methodology for this research.

Literature consulted for this research paints a picture of current situation of females in

Asian countries especially Pakistan. Along with current situation of females in Pakistan,

this literature constructs the variables existent that lead to the current situation and helps

dig deeper in those variables. The variables extracted from this literature are digged

further in the methodology section.

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2.2 Literature study

2.2.1: Working women in Asia

Significant efforts have been done so far to explain why females are left behind in

different leadership positions and most of the studies conducted till date mostly focus on

the barriers faced by females in accessing leadership and climbing the ladder of higher

position in organizations. These barriers are identified as either internal/external

(Brown, 1997; Sperandio & Kagoda, 2008), or vertical/horizontal (Weyer, 2007) or

cultural and societal (Norris & Ingleghart, 2000) and they are believed to impact females

leadership skills development in positive as well as negative ways (Pounder & Coleman,

2002).

Among these barriers, culture is believed to be the most important once because culture

shapes life of people, their beliefs, the system and structure of a society which impacts

female development in personal as well as professional life (Shakeshaft, 1987).

Along with culture, another important dimension which affects the proportion of females

in higher levels of hierarchy is their approach towards life. Tate and Yang (2014) argue

that payroll plays great role on employee’s motivation and therefore it is very important

to make sure employees feel they are getting the right amount of payment.

However in Asia, females are not only very less in number in upper levels of corporate

hierarchy but they receive 22% lower wage as compared to their fellow men. Evidence

also shows that organizations in which females are on top positions have less discrepancy

in wages and have more equity in payroll of new members as well.

Tate and Yang (2014) believe that part of the reason for this discrepancy is the assumption

of employers that “Nature of females” is different from males and “their way of doing

things is different” too therefore restricting them to only few managerial positions which

are not very well paid. Also, females have a very short work life in Asia with most of the

females working either at the age of 20’s or after 50’s. In between these two ages, females

mostly stay at home and look after their family.

This shorter expected work life of females makes companies in these countries reluctant

to invest capital in their training and skill building. Also a general believe in Asian

countries is that females need flexible hours at work because of uneven distribution of

family burden and they avoid risk due to their upbringing of protection and safety. Males

on the other hand prefer to take risks and therefore they occupy higher positions and are

13

more in number in risky industries such as investment banking as compared to females.

These habits of females are because of their upbringing which shapes them in a way that

they are significantly different from males and are not given higher positions in

corporations.

2.2.2: Indigenous Culture and its impact

Culture comprises of the different beliefs people from a particular community hold which

shapes their behaviour and approach towards life. Liu (2014) in her research studies the

impact of Chinese culture on perception as well as behaviour of females of the society

and determines how the perception restricts or helps in their journey at work place.

Global economic downturn in the recent years has brought a significant increase in

number of females at top management positions across various countries. In an attempt

to inspire and encourage females of China to contribute in economic development,

Chinese government started “Mulan in business” since 2009 awards which give 30

awards to female entrepreneurs. This effort was introduced keeping Mulan as a role

model who was a legendary heroine from 5th century and fought for twenty years in army.

Although this initiated many new women entrepreneurs in China who contributed

significantly to the economic development, women managers are still facing many

barriers which hold them from reaching higher levels of hierarchy.

The authors highlight that there are three barriers to female success; the concrete wall,

glass ceiling and labyrinth. Concrete wall consists of the explicit rules in society which

restricts female actions such as their participation in various industries and working hours.

Glass ceiling on the other hand includes all the invisible barriers which cannot be seen

from the society’s eyes but are prevalent largely and restrict female’s access to top

management levels. Third barrier is labyrinth which consists of the reasons glass ceilings

exist strongly in the society. These barriers exist in Social, Organizational as well as

individual context.

In social context, they take the form of gender role stereotypes such as assuming that

females cannot work for long hours, they cannot work in manufacturing industries etc.

Social norms and stereotypes affect the way organizations operate and therefore have

significant impact on organization’s culture. In China, because of female stereotypes,

male dominant organizational culture exists where HR practices are mostly in male’s

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hands and females are not seen as suitable for leadership in organizations thus not been

given the chance to excel in high levels of management.

Organizational culture shapes the way individuals thinks of themselves as well as their

surroundings and has an impact on their actions. In male dominant cultures, females face

inequality which demotivates them when it comes to career development and reduces

their efforts to become successful.

Females from these countries feel themselves as weak creatures that have to obey and

take care of their family and therefore they perceive themselves as care takers not bread

earners. This decreases their efforts to have a successful career and usually females who

are working in companies retire at an early age.

Therefore, In China and Asia, the prevalence of concrete male dominancy walls keeps

females from emerging to top levels of management and leading the companies. Although

government has been making efforts to encourage entrepreneurship in females of China,

the underlying “individual perception” designed because of male dominance keeps them

from availing the opportunities they are being given.

Another important addition to the current literature is the study conducted by Chou et al

(2005) on Taiwan and how Taiwanese culture puts glass ceiling on emerging female

leaders. Taiwan is a country which has undergone significant changes in women right

during 2001 when the country approved Gender equality in Employment Law. This law

aims at ensuring equal opportunities at work for both males and females to increase

women ratio in labour force and their positions in top management. However since its

approval this law has been criticized by society as well as employers who don’t consider

it while recruiting people at their companies.

In Taiwan, female’s role is still seen as family care takers and they are allowed to work

only when there is a need to supplement family income. As females are the family care

takers, single females are not preferred for job because employers think they will get

married and leave the job while for married females the perception is that they would not

be loyal to the organization because of being occupied in family care and upbringing.

Another important aspect is the restriction of females to few sectors such as food,

education, nursing, consulting etc. According to the researcher, in Taiwan, as per 2002,

number of male managers was 361951 while that of female managers was only 69399

and these were also restricted to few sectors and didn’t occupy positions in agriculture,

manufacturing and engineering sectors. Authors interviewed 14 female managers in

15

Taiwan and asked them about the opportunity to climb management hierarchy in their

organizations.

All the females were of the view that there has always been existence of an invisible

ceiling culturally and socially which prevents them from succeeding and achieving their

goals. Also, because of these ceilings female face hard time proving their abilities at job

and therefore they have to be more obedient and agreeable to their bosses which affects

their self-leadership as well as motivation.

Overtime, females get the feeling of being used and therefore they usually resign from

the job. The females of Taiwan also believed that ceiling exists in few sectors more than

other. For example, in Hotel industry there are fewer ceilings for females as compared to

automobile industry. Interviewees believe that Taiwanese cultural values play strong role

in female subordination and restriction to become successful in professional life. They

believe the culture plays big role in bringing family and Work conflict which has strong

impact on women’s career patterns and females usually are left with low level of career

ambitions.

Culture assigns role to females and the ones who try to overcome the barriers and excel

in their career usually face number of difficulties and 80% give up due to the difficult

times and tensions of family and work. Females are assumed to be the relationship

builders and savers, therefore they are expected to make sacrifices to keep the relationship

stronger and most of the times the sacrifice is of their work and career.

In another research, Wirth (2001) highlights that gender gap in countries increases as

females start to progress through management levels. Females in the lower levels of

management are more likely to face less gender gap as compared to those moving in

higher levels of hierarchy. Women have to face invisible bars which keep them from

climbing higher levels of management in organizations and very less females try to fight

against these glass ceilings.

In Pakistan, the share of females in upper level management showed a slight increase of

only 2% from 1988 till 1995 which is very less as compared to European countries for

example Norway which should 30% increase and Republic of Korea which showed 40%

increase in female managers.

The reason for this small increase in Pakistan is according to author because of presence

of strict glass ceilings in the form of norms and values which restrict the activities of

females and restricts their journey in managerial positions. One of the major barriers to

female appointment at managerial roles is the lack of sufficient education and skills. In

16

Asian countries, girls are usually preferred to take certain areas of education and business

studies are considered more of boy’s subject.

Since 1994, however the ratio of female students in business studies has started increasing

but still the taboo of “Girls don’t need to work” exists in Pakistan. In Pakistan, role of

boys and girls are divided at an early age; females are given the role of family care takers

and therefore they study the courses which bring empathy, patience and skills related to

house work in them while boys are more interested in business studies and professional

life development. Although females represent 40% of labour force in many countries they

still occupy 20% of top management positions in these countries.

Even in multinationals, females make only 2% of top managerial positions. One of the

reason of this low percentage is the disproportionate division of family roles where

females are given strict child care roles and therefore they cannot give as much time to

managerial work as it demands. Females usually have to leave early because their kids

are home and therefore they are considered not suitable for managerial jobs because

managerial jobs demand long hours stay at office.

Females are restricted to work for long hours, travel to far places and relocate their

resources. The research highlights that females usually get so stressed by work and family

balance that they give up on their work and they don’t show motivation to reach top

positions which is why more men can be seen in these positions as compared to women.

I find the study conducted by M Azam Roomi & Guy Parrott (2008) very useful for my

research because the authors cover the real barriers faced currently by females of Pakistan

both invisible and visible ones. According to the authors, one of the reason females lack

in top management positions is because they are not encouraged enough because of

prevalence of a number of “Deeply rooted discriminatory social and cultural values as

well as traditions”.

In Pakistan, females have to face social and familial control and are therefore not allowed

to take decisions on their own. Most of the females accept decisions made by others for

them. Females have to accept the societal norm of being dependent on males

economically.

Females are given the impression that males are their controllers and owners of their fate

therefore they have to accept their rules as well as decisions. Males prefer to be the bread

earners and therefore don’t like females to work and have a contribution in family income

because it’s considered “Being coward” and “eating your wife’s money”.

17

Females also face restrictions on their mobility and they are not allowed to move freely

and travel freely without any male member. In bigger cities of Pakistan, the trend is

changing, however staying out for long hours is still considered a social taboo and females

who don’t stay at home for long hours are culturally unacceptable.

Mobility problem determines the differential access that males and females have to

education as well as other services which are necessary to build a managerial career.

Roomi points out the presence of strong patriarchal culture in Pakistan which brings the

norm of “Systemic subordination” and the belief that females are Izzat “Honor” of the

family and therefore they have to stay at home so family doesn’t have to face anything

disrespectful because of them. In Pakistan, Pardah “Veil” is used to secularize females

from certain roles, to keep them at home, within the family and restrict their social

activities which are the reason why females are very less at managerial positions.

Because of the restricted society and culture, female’s mind-set about life changes and

their interests become highly family oriented. Females accept the fact that they are to be

blamed for everything wrong that happens to their family and they are made to sacrifice

their wishes and career for family and husband. This underlying though affects female

leadership and entrepreneurial ventures in Pakistan.

Most of the entrepreneurs and females in managerial positions occupy the position

because of some unforeseen event such as death of their family breeder and earner which

leaves the responsibility on them.

As they are compelled by circumstances to occupy a certain position females are usually

not motivated enough to bring creativity and diversity in their business and therefore

restrict it to the amount of growth which gives them sufficient money to carry family’s

living. Therefore, in the study Roomi and Parrott (2008) highlight social mobility issues,

cultural norms, given roles and structurally enforced inferior status of females as the

barriers to evolution of female leaders in various sectors.

Valerie Keller (2012) writes that females are usually outnumbered in parliament

chambers, councils and they are more often than not missing from negotiating tables.

More important is the fact that in everyday life, often the decisions that affect women,

their life are made by society and culture without females having a voice.

In another study Saadia & Klaus (2009) found out after a survey on 600 employees that

in females are concentrated in entry or middle level positions and are very less in number

in the higher leadership positions. The authors highlighted few barriers to leadership of

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females being culture and norms of the particular country, lack of role models, lack of

political voice of females and roles assumed by society.

According to Runcan & Ielics (2012), since 2010 there has been significant increase in

number of women occupying leadership positions in Romania. In Romania, only one third

of the active and newly created firms had females in their management teams in 2010.

Although the country is improving and measures are being taken to ensure gender

equality, there is strong evidence that female managers are discriminated against male

managers and have to face many difficulties associated to assumed gender roles created

by society.

Authors tried to compile a profile of successful female managers in Romania to observe

obstacles faced by these females and how they overcame those obstacles during their

career. According to the researchers, females struggling to reach top positions have to

face greater number of challenged because they have to prove constantly that they are

more capable as compared to the male counterparts. Females have to prove to their family

that they can manage both family and work and have to prove to employers that they can

work late hours and ensure effectiveness at work.

Due to this constant struggle, females mostly appear in management positions at an age

from 45-60 years when their kids are usually grownups and have their own life and their

husbands have a stable job. Females choose to work only because they are bored at home

and therefore they need a life and the best way is to join an organization. Many females

give up after years of effort because of the cultural difficulties such as assumption that

they are emotional as leaders and are unable to take rational decisions.

Also many females don’t have anyone to look up to as a role model and all they see is

suffering struggling females around them who have broken relationships or are tired of

their life which keeps them demotivated to join profession of their choice.

Females in Romania have tried to struggle through adopting mentors, appealing to

personal relations and overcoming the cultural obstacles as much as they can. Authors

conducted research on 1500 subjects who were interviewed to study the necessary

characteristics they have. The study reported that females have most of the characteristics

which they are blamed of not having.

Most of the females had excellent professionalism, self-confidence, communication

skills, and diplomacy and negotiation skills while a few had empathy which they are

blamed to highly possess. Therefore, the study concluded that the fault is not in female

managers, It is in the fact that "women managers have to adapt in the world of male

19

managers, therefore, we can say we are dealing with a tendency of women managers

becoming more masculine in order to achieve success in their chosen career".

Cheung, F. M., & Halpern, D. F. (2010) write that it is for the first time since 2000 in

American history that females are surpassing the number of males in workforce. The

reason however is not that females are more in jobs but it is because in recent recession,

most jobs were lost in manufacturing, engineering and fields where males were employed.

The number of females in middle management is increasing to great extent however the

bad news is that only few females make it to higher levels of management including CEO,

CFO, CMO etc. and higher political positions.

In US, females make 49% of workforce however 2% of females are in fortune list which

shows how males surpass females in higher positions. Although males and females have

almost similar style of leadership, Eagly and Carli (2007) observe that females are more

Collaborative, Democratic and use Participative style of leadership.

Females have a high sense of conviction and self-worth and they use family roles as

metaphors in their leadership thus keeping their feminist role in leadership. Most of the

females in China and Asia believe in leading as “grandmothers” and “mothers”. For most

of the females, leadership is all about “being serious about their work, maintaining the

highest personal standards, promoting communication, and being considerate and

respectful of their staffs” and Asians consider leader to be someone who acts as a role

model for others.

In females leaders of Asian culture, competition and power rarely mean anything.

Therefore, Asian female’s leadership style can be defined as “transformational

leadership” which is “engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise

one another to higher levels of motivation and morality” (Burns 1978, p. 20).

Most of the females climb their career by hard work and working smart and they usually

don’t have big dreams of achievement which is why they usually restrict themselves to

be small sized entrepreneurs or lead small companies. One of the most important thing

which helped females emerge as leaders was their higher education as compared to other

females of their age.

These females had to face social barriers however they kept fighting and therefore they

had to work hard for their education and skill development and at the same time they had

to fight with their societal values and cultural norms. Female’s development as leaders

and their leadership skills also depends upon their cultural context (Avolio, 2007).

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Females in individualistic society grow up as free, independent and the only responsibility

they hold is towards their immediate family which includes their spouse and children.

And there are collective cultures like Asia which are based on collectivism. In these

cultures, females have to follow extended family concept and they are supposed to stay

loyal to their family and this is why they have to sacrifice their aims for their family. This

is why most females don’t strive for high positions and bigger businesses instead they

struggle enough to make a living of their own. Cultural settings therefore affect self-

esteem and self-efficacy of females, their level of motivation and definition of successful

business.

Albertyn (2009) explain the situation of patriarchal culture in South Africa and its effects

on female empowerment. According to the author, in South Africa and similar countries,

although laws of equality have already been passed to secure equal rights of females, yet

these laws are not applicable in public and private life. Males have power over most of

the land, property and community despite of equal property rights. Culture is a positive

recognition and helps in making sense of the world by raising important questions about

nature of and relationship between our norms and practices.

Culture shapes the way we treat people around us which builds their view point about

life. In South Africa and most Asian societies, there is prevalence of patriarchal culture

in which females are defined in terms of their reproductive and sexual role and they are

seen as objects and status symbol for men, instead of equal human beings with equal

rights and dignity.

Although democracy prevails in these societies and their constitution is based on equal

women rights and equality of gender, these aspects of constitution are overlooked and

hardly followed because of prevalence of strict male dominant society which doesn’t

allow authorities to interfere between a male and female’s relationship. Culture is defined

as the particular way of life of people which encompasses the values these people hold.

Culture is given high importance and is embedded in people of a particular group; it is a

way of making sense of the world, a frame of reference for people of particular group.

Chandra Mohanty (1991) believes that women in third world are not agents of their own

destiny but they are victims, their destiny is pre-decided by their family members and

they are not allowed to refuse the decisions taken for them. Females in third world are

considered domestic, victimized, tradition bound, poor, ignorant and family oriented and

they are supposed to be agreeable to the norms and values already prevailing in society.

21

Authors of the research examine “Women movements” in third world countries and their

impact on female development and betterment in these countries. The way females are

treated changes their view about themselves, their needs, desires which affects their

identity as an individual and their approach towards life. Despite many women

movements trying to fight for women rights in third world, females in the third world

countries are still deprived of their rights to make their own decisions, decide their life,

choose the career they want and build a vision.

Another research (M Azam Roomi & Guy Parrott, 2008) examines effects of patriarchal

culture of Pakistan on female’s domestic life as well as work life. The study starts with

a general introduction of the term patriarchy and describes purpose of the research which

is to demonstrate societal values and culture of Pakistan and its effects on female

subordination and male superiority in the country.

Moving on author introduces the term patriarchy by using different literature from past

researches. This study analyses the experiences of inequality and discrimination that most

Pakistani women face within the household and society as a result of unequal gender

power relations. In South Asian societies, of which Pakistan is part, there are different

social controls applied to control women’s social and economic behaviour at every level

of society.

A central and systematic form of control is patriarchy, which, as argued in this study, is

the main cause of women’s subordination. With regard to women’s position and status in

Pakistani society, women still find themselves struggling to be treated as gender equals.

Despite the acknowledgement of women’s productive potential and their different

economic roles, Pakistani women still face seclusion and exclusion due to socio-cultural

norms based on patriarchy which deny them access to the benefits of development.

Therefore, the analysis of patriarchy and its repercussions on the various aspects of

women’s lives informs the analysis of the study.

Female labour force participation is highest in Barani areas because males in these areas

don’t like to work, they usually stay at home beat their females and females have to do

most of the work. In these areas, patriarchy prevails in male dominance, violence towards

females and their justification to treat females the way they want however it doesn’t affect

the labour force participation of females. Therefore patriarchy as a whole prevails in

Pakistani culture; however it takes different forms depending on the type of male

dominance.

22

In Pakistan, age of female also affects her mobility and access to work. Older females are

free to go out, work and they can have access to rights which most of males enjoy while

younger ladies are prohibited from going out and are not allowed to participate in labour

force. Vlassoff: 1992, Caldwell et al: 1982 cited in Sathar and Kazi: 2000. Structure of

family also affects the access of females to liberty and their equal status, females in

nuclear families are freer while those living in collectivist societies are restricted and not

allowed to take their decisions.

Lim 1997 points out that societal relations and patriarchal institutions are entirely

responsible for secondary and inferior status of females in countries. Patriarchy is seen as

class and race privilege not just gender privilege (Chesney-Lind: 2006).

Rosaldo (1974) describes female’s subordination as a historical phenomenon. Since old

times, female inferiority has been prominent in the societies where there is a clear split

between private and public life and where females are restricted to house.

Boserup (1970) believes that females used to be discriminated in agricultural societies

where males used to do all the land plowing work while females were allowed to do

plucking and cleaning work only. In societies like Pakistan, women lacks education and

training which effects their skills development and also creates a hierarchy of male

dominance because females are not considered capable enough to occupy certain

positions in the work force.

Walby (1990) identifies six patriarchal structures which prevail in the society and effect

females of the society at personal as well as professional level. These levels are:

patriarchal mode of production, patriarchal relations in paid work, patriarchy relation in

the state, and male violence, patriarchal relation in sexuality and patriarchal relation in

cultural institutions including religions, media, and education.

Anita Weiss (2002) explains patriarchy as a system of social interaction between males

and females based on inequality and gender prejudices which are evident through male

violence and lesser economic opportunities for females of the society. Patriarchy prevails

in two forms, Classical which is total domination of women by man and Bargaining which

is more about cooperation and conflict between roles.

Walby (1990) describes this aspect as a system of social values and structure which brings

male domination, oppresses females and exploits their basic rights to take decisions and

decide their life. Pakistan follows a system of classical patriarchy in which females are

married at a very early age, are made subordinate to their husband, his family especially

the elder females of the family and are rarely given any part in inheritance. Males earn

23

and they spend, females have no role in family except upbringing of children and

husbands family.

Levent et al, 2003) through their research investigated the phenomenon of ethnic female

entrepreneurship in urban economic life. The focus of the research is on the attitude and

behaviour of Turkish female entrepreneurs in Amsterdam. The main fascinating question

is: Are ethnic female entrepreneurs’ special ethnic entrepreneurs or special female

entrepreneurs? This paper provides an answer to this question on the basis of field

surveys.

The results of the case study research on Turkish female entrepreneurs in Amsterdam

show that the “ethnic female profile” is a “special female profile” and those Turkish

female entrepreneurs are “special female entrepreneurs”, particularly in terms of personal

and business characteristics, driving forces and motivations. They appear to combine their

ethnic opportunities with their personal characteristics (and other opportunities) in the

urban market, and to have a successful performance. This is also caused by the fact that

they have become service providers not only for their own ethnic groups, but also for

other groups in the city.

In another study conducted by Xavier Giné, Ghazala Mansuri (2014), the authors argue

that almost 40 % female entrepreneurs in Asia report that their (male) spouses hold the

responsibility to take the major business decisions from joint ventures to budgeting,

marketing activities and planning etc. Women are only allowed to be involved in minor

decisions and they spend less time in managerial decisions than their male counterparts.

Females perform the informal work which is not major to the company and therefore they

usually are not employed full time, but are usually employed part time.

The reason for low decision making power of females is the culture of Asia which

promotes female subordination and submission to males. The culture emphasizes that

females are owned by males and therefore they should not be on main stream rather they

should stay in easy work because they cannot do main stream work. Males ensure that

their female subordinates are not praised more than them and don’t get higher wages than

them because of closed culture in these countries. Males are reluctant to let females make

decisions and come on main stream because they try to make sure their power is not

divided with another gender.

According to Gelfand and her colleagues, cultural tightness comprises of two key

components. The first aspect deals with the extent to which norms within societies are

clear and pervasive – the second concerns the strength of sanctioning (i.e., how much

24

tolerance societies have for deviance from commonly held norms; Gelfand et al., 2006).

Tight cultures are “rigid in requiring that in group members behaves according to in group

norms” (Triandis, 1989: 511).

Norms are clear and reliably imposed with severe sanctions administered to those who

deviate. Loose cultures, on the other hand, have unclear norms, and are more tolerant of

deviance from the norms (Triandis, 1989). Out of the 33 countries studied by Gelfand and

her colleagues, Pakistan, Malaysia, Norway, and Japan score high on tightness, whereas

Ukraine, Israel, Netherlands, and Australia score low (Gelfand et al., 2011). Countries

with cultural tightness believe that leadership is masculine because they believe that

leaders should be physically strong to lead and therefore they usually have greater number

of male leaders.

In tight cultures, men and women continue to view masculinity more than femininity as

leader-like. In tight cultures, men and women are likely to share the view that effective

leaders are men, causing men to less likely elect women as leaders and women less willing

to take on leadership positions in organizations (e.g., Japan, China, and Malaysia).

Consequently, women are less likely to emerge as leaders in tight cultures.

Elmuti, Jia and Davis (2009) emphasize the face that females are not able to get enough

representation and this can be justified by the fact that females contribute 1.8% of the

total CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Authors believe that female presence in different

business sectors is gender specific. Females usually choose specific fields of education

which effects their presence in different business sectors.

The reason for the low representation identified by this research are the existing glass

ceilings which as defined by the research are “The glass ceiling effect is defined as an

unofficial barrier to opportunities within an organization or company preventing a

protected classes of workers, particularly women, from advancing to higher positions

(Glass Cliff, 2008; Olin, et al., 2000).” Glass ceilings act as a societal blocker which

effects organizational culture and brings organizational barriers to female progress in

different managerial positions.

Another research conducted by Claudia Peus, Susanne Braun and Kristin Knipfer (2013)

is very useful to build frame of reference for this study as it categorizes barriers faced by

female managers at four levels and identifies gender stereotypes faced by females at each

level. The categories these authors have developed help reader see the real picture clearly

and identify glass ceilings which have not been identified in many researches. Identifying

25

the current barriers as well as stereotypes regarding female participation in management,

the study draws a comparison between America and Asia.

According to authors, females face specific conditions which sometimes act in their

benefit and other times act as barriers to become successful managers. These conditions

appear in four categories; Individual level which is the female’s personality, her aims,

vision etc. Interpersonal level which is relationship with peers, subordinates,

organizational level which is where organizational policies play its part and social level

which is where society comes and plays its role.

In a nutshell, society is the outermost circle which influences all the circles inside and

therefore glass ceilings appear from females in conservative societies such as India,

China, Pakistan etc. Gender stereotypes start at the level of society which is the biggest

level and build their roots at every proceeding level. According to the authors, Gender

stereotypes are “Attributes about females and males which prevail in a particular society

and are composed of both descriptive and prescriptive components thus determining how

different genders are and how they should behave.”

Stereotypes play more positive role for males in Asian societies because all the attributes

and skills needed to be a successful manager and leader are associated to male personality.

Therefore females are believed not to possess enough qualities to be appointed at higher

position of management. Authors conducted a qualitative study because they believe

quantitative study was not able to capture true picture of reality.

The study was conducted on 76 female leaders across three countries India, China and

Singapore. After interviewing 76 females, authors conducted cross cultural inductive

analysis of the data collected and concluded that females in Asia don’t encounter quite

different values and problems at work as compared to females is US. Difference mainly

lies in their leadership style, definition of themselves and their interpersonal skills

however at organizational and social level, females faced almost the same challenges.

The study also concluded that females of India and China are more similar to each other

as compared to females of Singapore and US. The reason is high social awareness and

cultural similarity is these countries. According to the study, barriers emerge at two major

levels:

Personal level and societal level and according to most of the interviewees personal

determination is very important to overcome barriers at social level. If females are

motivated enough, they will have to stand by and fight against the barriers however if

they are not determined they will give up their vision to society’s challenges. This study

26

is very useful because of two reasons; Firstly it uses qualitative approach to dig deeper

into personal lives as well as professional life cross-culturally and secondly because it

identifies barriers at personal level and sees how self-recognition and various leadership

skills (Bennis, 2009) are used by successful managers to overcome social barriers and

constraints.

One of the researches very relevant to this study has been conducted by Pathan,

Moinuddin and Rashidi (2012), three locals of Pakistan who have highlighted the deeper

issues faced by entrepreneurs in Sindh. The authors are highly valuable to my study

because of the fact that they are part of Sindh and being there they have pictured reality

in a very different way highlighting issues overlooked and ignored by some researches.

These authors highlight that females make 3€ of total entrepreneurs in Pakistan and these

3% are restricted to some specific fields such as Fashion designing, Garments, Food and

Make-up business. The reason is because females are preferred to adopt professions in

which potential customers are usually females as culture of Pakistan doesn’t find it

appropriate that a female has to deal with males all the time at work.

According to the authors, business environment for women in Pakistan constitutes of two

categories. First category is social, cultural and traditional elements and this category is

engraved in society for centuries. Second category consists of the constitution, structure,

policy and institutional mechanisms and this category is shaped rigidly by first category

which is why businesses in different cultures have different approaches towards women

managers and women empowerment. As first category is traditional and rigid, it poses

difficulties for females in the form of social restrictions, restricted funding opportunities,

lack of information and infrastructure, low level of education and insufficient skills, and

low level of networking.

The research used questionnaire approach to collect data from different areas of Pakistan

regarding female managerial experiences as well as their entrepreneurial experiences.

From the data collected, authors conducted regression analysis to find out causal

relationship between constraint to females as dependent variable and other factors

mentioned above as independent. From the regression analysis, authors found out that

there is significant relationship between culture and the challenges faced by female

entrepreneurs. This study recommends that government should design policies which

favor female leadership.

Güney, Gohar, Akıncı & Akıncı (2013) conducted a comparative study between Pakistan

and Turkey to see how those two countries differ when it comes to female leadership.

27

According to the authors, although industrialization has increased the need to have

females in top managerial positions, however stereotypes still exist which restrict women

from holding executive positions as men are always seen as more suitable for executive

positions as compared to females. The reason for this difference is that ambition,

objectivity and authority are considered necessary for leadership and these characteristics

are considered suitable to males and masculinity only.

Females are universally seen different from men, and therefore stereotypes still exist

regarding their suitability to work. These stereotypes prevail in many societies and they

play a role in restricting females to reach top managerial positions and also effect the

progress of females in organizational hierarchy.

According to an attitude survey conducted in 1965, 54% of males and 50% of females

perceive that females don’t expect a position of authority and they don’t expect higher

positions. According to this study, the surprising factor in Pakistan and turkey is that

females show a more negative response towards female presence in top managerial

positions as compared to males.

In Pakistan, there are two views prevailing about women one is conservative and second

is liberal. According to conservative view, females stay home and are not allowed to take

part in anything where society interaction occurs while in liberal view females are allowed

to work, they can take part in labour force as well as society’s different activities.

Therefore, in Pakistan majority categorizes females are mothers and wives while men are

categorized as owners of the faith of whole family both their females as well as their kids.

Pakistan is the society where “A majority of women live in a world structured around

strict religious, family and tribal customs and they are subjected to discrimination and

violence due to cultural and religious norms. In organizations and educational institutions

people are still facing difficulty in accepting women as an asset toward development.”

(pg.3)

Females make 43% of total work force however only 3% occupy top managerial positions

which is of serious concern. Authors conducted the study in universities as they have

usually greater number of female employees as compared to males. The study was

conducted on 200 academicians, MATWES was used to collect data about attitude of

females in universities.

From the analysis conducted, authors conclude that female managers in Pakistan and

turkey have negative perception regarding female leadership and their contribution in

economy and this is a very significant reason that females lack is the existence of

28

situational and cultural constraints which build overall negative beliefs and emotions in

the society.

In another study, Karelaia and Guillén (2013) write that

“Women leaders have to navigate between the requirements of their work and personal

roles, which at times may be neither easy nor pleasant” (pg.5)

This is what brings the concept of integration of leader personality and profession is very

crucial as emphasized by Bennis (2009) and DePree (2005). Although research has been

done on development of leaders, there is little literature on how female leaders see

themselves and how leadership concepts in society effects their success as

leader/manager. According to the authors, positive gender identities and leadership

performance of females is effected by the identity conflict faced by females which

according to the authors “occurs when women leaders perceive an incongruity between

being a leader and being a woman”.

The conflict between leadership performance and gender prevents women from reaching

higher in ladder of leadership. In societies where identity conflict is resolved and there

are positive perceived gender roles females find it easy to represent diverse range of

industries and organizations as leaders. Authors conducted three studies to test the effect

of identity conflict on female leadership performance. The study concludes that

“Positive gender identity may reduce perceived conflict between being a woman and

being a leader and thereby increase women’s well-being and cause them to construe

leading as an attractive goal as opposed to a duty”. (pg.11)

Conducting a regression analysis on women who currently are leaders and those who are

about to be leaders, authors conclude that although women’s access o leadership positions

is increasing, very little is known regarding the impact of identity processes of leaders on

women’s motivation to lead in their personal as well as professional life. According to

this study, most of the respondents feel that;

‘‘It seems to me that to stand out in a man’s world, women have to compensate for their

gender with outstanding performance every single time. It is good in the sense that

women get better and better [in] what they do, but, on the other hand, it is extremely

tiring . . .’’ (pg. 4)

29

Therefore, there is a need of positive gender identity to increase female participation in

professions and their success as leaders.

2.2.3: Literature summary table

The following table provides a summary of the literature consulted for this study and

categorizes factors as identified by authors.

Name

of

author

/s

Date Name

of study

Factors

identified

Methodolog

y used

Conclusion

Room

i, M.

A., &

Parrot

t, G

2008 Barriers

to

Develo

pment

and

Progres

s of

Women

Entrepr

eneurs

in

Pakista

n

Gender neutral

as well as gender

related issues:

Gender neutral

include: Access

to capital, lack of

business

management

skills, and

restrictive

government

regulations

Gender related

issues include:

Structural

immobility

issues, Pardah

and Izzat

restrictions

The method

used to

collecting

primary

information

was a series

of in-depth;

one to one

semi-

structured

interviews

conducted

with a

sample of

256 women

entrepreneu

rs

(individuall

y) in the five

major

metropolita

n cities of

Pakistan.

As a consequence of mobility

restrictions women

entrepreneurs are forced to

operate in specific businesses

sectors including, education,

health and beauty, where they

can provide the vast majority

of their services to female

customers. The research

suggests that many of the

problems/challenges faced by

Pakistani women

entrepreneurs originate from

the structurally enforced

inferior status of women.

Female entrepreneurs have to

overcome the significant

challenges they face in respect

to the mores of “Pardah” and

“Izzat”, both of which place

severe restrictions on their

mobility and their interaction

with men at work, as

traditionally doubts could be

cast on their good reputations

30

and even reduce their

marriage prospects in some

quarters of society (Shabbir,

1996; Shah, 1986; Hibri,

1982).

Tate,

G., &

Yang,

L.

2014 Female

leaders

hip and

gender

equity:

Eviden

ce from

plant

closure

Asian females

work on lower

pay roll as

compared to

males. Females

have a short

work life due to

unequal family

burden in Asia.

Used

worker-,

firm-, and

plant-level

data from

the US

Census

Bureau to

estimate the

impact of

gender and

female

leadership

on wages.

Improving the ability of

women to break through the

glass ceiling and attain top

leadership positions has

positive externalities on other

women. In particular, it

improves the opportunities of

women lower in the corporate

hierarchy. Thus, changing

leadership could be a

mechanism to change the

culture of the firm in a

direction that is friendlier to

female workers (or other

workers impacted by labour

market discrimination). And,

recent gains by women in

representation on corporate

boards could have important

spill overs to other women in

those firms.

Chou,

W. C.

G.,

Fosh,

P., &

Foster

, D

2005 Female

manage

rs in

Taiwan

:

Opport

unities

and

Work family

conflict and the

cultural values

associated with

that area of

women’s lives

Interviewed

a total of 14

female

managers in

Taiwan. Of

the 14

female

managers,

Work–family conflict and

Taiwanese cultural values

contribute to the barriers

female employees encounter

in their climb up the

organizational hierarchy and

may lead to the depression of

their career ambitions.

31

barriers

in

changin

g times

11 were

established

in their

managerial

careers and

3 were

beginning

their careers

(all were

graduates).

Wirth,

L

2001 Women

in

manage

ment:

Closer

to

breakin

g

through

the

glass

ceiling?

Wome

n,

gender

and

work

Education and

skills are an

important factor

for female

progression to

upper levels of

management.

Negative social

attitude effects

women’s

education and

qualification as

well as skill

development,

Disproportionat

e family

responsibility

Collected

data from

ILO,

analysed

statistics

available.

Conducted a

statistical

analysis

over time

for different

countries.

Females have been doing

enormous progress in Asian

countries for decades to obtain

greater share of professional

and managerial positions.

Education has played great

role in bringing gender equity

however unbreakable glass

ceilings still exist and effect

female’s progress in

professional life. The higher

the position of management,

more glaring the gap becomes

and lesser becomes the

chances of females getting

successful in higher positions.

Ielics,

B., &

Runca

n, P.

L.

2012 The

profile

of the

success

ful

woman

manage

Prove constantly

they are more

capable as

compared to the

male

counterparts.

Females have to

Authors

conducted

research on

1500

subjects

who were

interviewed

The study reported that

females have most of the

characteristics which they are

blamed of not having. Most of

the females had excellent

professionalism, self-

confidence, communication

32

r in

Romani

a

prove to their

family that they

can manage both

family and work

and have to

prove to

employers that

they can work

late hours and

ensure

effectiveness at

work.

to study the

necessary

characteristi

cs they

have.

skills, and diplomacy and

negotiation skills while a few

had empathy which they are

blamed to highly possess.

Therefore, the study

concluded that the fault is not

in female managers, It is in the

fact that "women managers

have to adapt in the world of

male managers, therefore, we

can say we are dealing with a

tendency of women managers

becoming more masculine in

order to achieve success in

their chosen career".

Cheun

g,

Fanny

M.,

and

Diane

F.

Halpe

rn

2010 Women

at the

top:

powerf

ul

leaders

define

success

as

work+

family

in a

culture

of

gender

Women’s

concern majorly

include: Work–

family balance,

No family and

spousal support,

Females grown

up as family care

takers while

males as earners,

Concept that

females work

only if the

family needs

money,

Underlying

thought that

females lead in

different way

Used semi-

structured

open-ended

interviews

approach,

conducted

study on 62

women who

either were

or had been

married and

who had

significant

family care

responsibilit

ies.

Conducted

comparative

study on

A very important factor that

leads to women success is

Education and skills

development. Although

culture prescribes the

expectations for gender roles

and behaviours, there are

differences within the culture

in the way in which

individuals play out these

roles. We recognize that there

are also ethnic, regional, and

class differences within the

larger cultural group.

33

than males

therefore they

are suitable to

only limited

areas of

business.

three

countries

China,

Hong Kong,

and the

United

States to get

comparison

in terms of

cultural

context and

socioecono

mic milieu.

Vecch

io, R.

P.

2002 Leaders

hip and

gender

advanta

ge

Perception that

females lead

differently than

men, making

them unsuitable

for certain

positions.

Used a mix

approach,

compared

different

studies and

concluded

based on all

studies.

Females and males are

perceived to possess different

leadership abilities which

leads to gender advantage in

some cases while in others it

leads to gender

discrimination.

Patha

n, Z.

H.,

Moin

uddin,

Q. M.,

&

Rashi

di, R.

S

2012 Proble

ms

Faced

by

Female

Entrepr

eneurs

of

Sindh

Lack of

Technology;

Social Capital,

Low

Government

Support and

Financing

The analysis

was based

on primary

data

collection

through

structured

questionnair

e. The total

sample size

(29) twenty

nine female

entrepreneu

This study conveys the

message that if the female

entrepreneurs of Sindh are

provided appropriate training,

technical knowledge, local

administrative support from

public institutions, free

collateral loans, social

security, protection and

encouragement from their

families, flexible business

environment etc. they will

enter in to the entrepreneurial

34

rs of 04

districts of

Sind i.e. are

(Karachi,

Hyderabad,

Sukkur &

Matiari).

occupation in a large number

and will prove their worth to

contribute to the economy of

the country.

Peus,

C.,

Braun

, S., &

Knipf

er, K

2014 On

becomi

ng a

leader

in Asia

and

Americ

a:

Empiric

al

evidenc

e from

women

manage

rs

Achievement

orientation,

learning

orientation, and

role models

emerged

In-depth

interviews

with 76

mid- to

upper-level

female

managers in

Asia (China,

India, and

Singapore)

and the U.S.

were

conducted.

Significant differences exist

between females of Asia and

Europe when it comes to

understanding the concept of

leadership. Females of these

regions perceive meaning of

life, family and relationships

differently and also perceive

relationships at job

differently. These regions

however face almost the same

glass ceilings and barriers

when it comes to

advancement of females to

upper levels of management.

Karel

aia,

N., &

Guillé

n, L.

2014 Me, a

woman

and a

leader:

Positive

social

identity

and

identity

conflict

Gender identity

and self-concept

play crucial role

in development

of women as

leaders and their

success.

Hypothesis

testing by

conducting

three studies

with three

different

audiences

Women with a more positive

gender identity reported less

identity conflict, which

consequently improved their

psychological well-being and

made it more likely that they

construe leadership as a

pleasant activity

35

Güne

y, S.,

Gohar

, R.,

Akınc

ı, S.

K., &

Akınc

ı, M.

M.

2013 attitude

s

toward

women

manage

rs in

Turkey

and

Pakista

n

Cultural barriers

, Societal

barriers

This paper

examines

managerial

attitudes

toward

women

managers in

Turkey and

Pakistan by

using

“Managerial

Attitudes

toward

Women

Executives

Scale

(MATWES)

” and draws

a cross-

cultural

comparison

between

these two

countries’

respondents

.

For years the role that a

woman played as a citizen, a

member of the family or a

homemaker in Pakistan has

been highly undermined and

today it has turned into a

tradition to degrade a

woman’s abilities. However,

over the years this scenario

has begun to change, and the

awareness of women’s

abilities, rights and status

pervades popular

consciousness in almost all

parts of Pakistan.

Shaht

alebi,

S., &

Yarm

oham

madia

n, M.

H.

2012 Barriers

to

women

manage

rs climb

the

peaks

The negative

attitudes of

authorities about

women,

Authorities

preference to

choose men for

key positions

Qualitative

in nature,

descriptive

phenomenol

ogy. Seven

steps

Colizzi

method was

Obstacles in the way of

university female managers'

success can be classified 3

components include

Organizational Elements,

Social Elements and

Individual Elements.

Organizational Elements has 3

36

of

success

because men are

the final decision

makers in

society, Social

difficulties and

complications

also used for

data

analysing

subcomponents include high

rank managers' outlook

(include 7 subcomponents) ,

negative condition & situation

(Include 6 subcomponents)

and university laws &

procedures (include 6

subcomponents). Social

Elements has 2

subcomponents include Social

miseries & problems (include

7 subcomponents) and

Negative society outlook

(Include 8 subcomponents).

Individual Elements has 2

subcomponents include

individual problems (include

12

subcomponents), family

problems (include 3

subcomponents ) and job

problems

Hoqu

e, M.

J.,

Rahm

an, M.

A., &

Razia,

S..

2014 Women

Entrepr

eneursh

ip

Develo

pment

under

Islamic

Perspec

tive-A

Study

on

One’s own

family, their

society, their

business

enterprises,

administrative

inferiority,

financing,

political and

religious culture

The study

through

extensive

survey from

two

important

cities of

Bangladesh

involved

qualitative

research

It is found that there are no

religious barriers for women

to choose entrepreneurship

which is permitted in Islam.

The study found that of the

various critical factors for

success of women

entrepreneurship namely,

sharing success/profit with

employees, hard labour,

sincerity and honesty,

37

Some

Selecte

d

Muslim

Women

Entrepr

eneurs

of

Bangla

desh

using

Questionnai

re Survey by

using both

open and

close end

questions.

The total

sample size

is 350

women

entrepreneu

rs of

Bangladesh

pleasant behaviour,

availability of sufficient start-

up capital, entrepreneurship

skill, experience and quality of

products and services have

been recognized as the most

significant factors.

Norris

, P., &

Ingle

hart,

R.

2001 Cultura

l

obstacl

es to

equal

represe

ntation

structural and

institutional

barriers

Levels of

socioeconomic

development

and the

proportion of

women in

professional and

managerial

occupations,

cultural factors

include the

predominance of

traditional

attitudes toward

gender roles

Data

analysis

38

2.3 Literature conclusion and deduction

The research studies consulted for this study helped me develop a background on the

native culture of developing countries especially Pakistan and how this culture effects

equal gender treatment and equal opportunities. From the literature studied so far,

developed categories ad their relationships to dig deeper in this research using primary

research techniques mentioned in section below.

The categories identified so far are; relationship between gender and culture,

relationship between gender and leadership and relationship between culture and

leadership skills.

The results of the literature review in the field of “female leadership in Asian countries”

has concluded that females are usually given inferior status in developing countries, are

excluded from higher positions and restricted from getting involved in society and

economic development because of societal and cultural barriers.

Females face barriers at three levels, Personal level, Family level and societal level which

includes organizations as well as rest of environment outside home. Literature emphasizes

the fact that despite of continuous and increased efforts of gender equality, many nations

still couldn’t bring 100% gender equality and this shows a general negative attitude of

society towards females.

The literature also highlights an important fact that current situation of females in Islamic

countries especially Pakistan and Bangladesh are confused with Shariah law and

restrictions while the restrictions are solely cultural and societal. Moreover, literature on

these countries also shows that Islam as a matter of fact promotes entrepreneurship in

females and therefore the only thing happening is men using religion because of low

education of women in this field.

Females are taught subordination through culture and therefore they don’t question men’s

attitude and barriers imposed on them by family as well as spouse.

2.4 Major concepts for this study

This study aims at exploring the condition of current Pakistani females and their evolution

in leadership positions. The major themes extracted from the theoretical framework are

listed below:

1. Effect of Indigenous culture on:

a. Social immobility problems (Pipp Norris & Ronald Inglehart, 2001), (M

Azam Roomi & Guy Parrott, 2008)

39

b. Gender assumed roles: Role expectancy for females (Gross & Linehan,

2006)

c. Structurally enforced inferior status of females (Xavier, Gine & Mansuri,

2014), (M. Azaam Roomi & Inglehart, 2001)

d. Decision Making power of females (M Azam Roomi & Guy Parrott, 2008)

e. Female subordination to males (Gelfand, 2006)

2. Leadership

a. Leader’s qualities (Bennis, 2009)

i. Vision development

1. Dedication to transform vision into reality Eikenberry, K.

& Harris, G. (2011).

ii. Self-recognition

From the empirical research conducted so far, I have tried to grasp, have a painting to

describe the landscape of potential female leader condition within Pakistan hierarchy. The

research conducted so far has given me a good idea of the major constraints faced by

females and helped me design our research questions which I am digging into.

Next section describes the methodology used to conduct this study to dig further deeper

into the facts gathered by literature consulted.

40

3 RESEARCH DESIGN

3.1 Methodology

Every research is a creation of knowledge, every methodology is “Me” as emphasized by

Philippe Daudi (Lecture: 2014). Aim of every researcher is to create something new, a

new form of knowledge and this is the very reason why research should not just be

confined in terms of data collection and theory development.

The first part of this chapter illustrates various research approaches and justifies the

approach used for this research as well as research methods this study is based upon. As

this study explores the effect of culture of Pakistani female leadership experiences,

qualitative research approach in a phenomenological framework is considered

appropriate for this study.

Semi-structured interviewing is considered as an effective method to dig deeper in the

various aspects of female’s lives. To ensure high quality of the research, validity,

trustworthiness and ethics are highly considered since the first step of research. In final

section, thematic analysis is conducted with an illustration of research process.

3.1.1 Qualitative research

Abnor & Bjerke (2009) argues that “Methodology is a language, a language which is

determined by one’s attitude towards the particular research and a tool used to build

knowledge through the creator.”

The purpose of qualitative research is to explore “unique lived experiences of participants

in order to enhance the understanding of particular phenomena” as argued by Mutch

(2005).

Researcher of qualitative study acts as “Research instrument” too because he/she does

data collection and analysis at the same time (Tolich & Davidson, 2003, p. 98).

Mutch (2005) strongly opposes the general belief that qualitative studies are generalized

and argues that “It is important to bear in mind that generalisation is not the ultimate aim

of qualitative research, rather elucidating “the experience or understanding for others” is

(Mutch, 2005, p. 43).

According to Strauss, A., & Corbin, J (1990), open methods such as case study,

observation, interviews and documentation used in this study approach allow rich data

41

collection and analysis. There are three basic components of qualitative research; data,

procedures and written reports. Data is the first component and can come from various

sources such as interviews, observations, documents, records, and films. Second, there

are the procedures that researchers can use to interpret and organize the data.

These usually consist of conceptualizing and reducing data, elaborating categories in

terms of their properties and dimensions, and relating through a series of prepositional

statements. Written and verbal reports make up the third component. These may be

presented as articles in scientific journals, in talks (e.g., conferences), or in books.

While conducting a qualitative research, the most important concern a researcher has is

how to gather data, and how to use this data to get something out of the research. Data is

kept descriptive in this research approach and is analysed thematically. The open and

thematic analysis of data results in emergence of a theory later which makes qualitative

research interpretive and inductive Strauss, A., & Corbin, J (1990).

According to (Burns, 2000) qualitative research enables the researcher to picture

participants’ view about their world and to get a better understanding of the ongoing

situation by their viewpoint because the investigator “stands in the shoes of those being

studied” (Davidson & Tolich, p. 103).

The following characteristics of qualitative research methodology makes it the most

suitable approach for this research which aims to uncover the effect of culture on

Pakistani female leadership experiences.

3.1.2 Phenomenology

Burns (2000) argues that qualitative investigator base the research upon thorough

understanding the audience and recognizes the value of the participants real experiences

which makes phenomenology a fundamental aspect of this approach. Phenomenology is

about the “lived experience” of a person (Giorgi, 1997), which is “the consciousness that

emerges from personal participation in events” (Foss & Foss, 1994, p. 39).

“Phenomenology is a theoretical point of view that advocates the study of direct

experience taken at face value; and one which sees behaviours as determined by the

phenomena of experience rather than by external, objective and physically described

reality”

(Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007, p. 22)

42

The focus of phenomenological study is to observe and understand the personal meaning

derived from direct experimentation of participants and reality is “perceived and

interpreted in correlation to the “meaning derived from these structures” (Burns, 2000, p.

11).

Johnson and Christensen (2008) argue that in order for phenomenology to happen,

investigator must enter in the world of the subject to experience their own perspective

therefore leaving no room for self-interpretation and categorization.

As this study aims to study female leaders of Pakistan by understanding the effect of

culture on their experiences, behaviours and attitudes, phenomenological framework is

considered the most suitable for this study.

3.2 Research approach

3.2.1 Interviews

Using a phenomenological approach, the investigator understands and describes the

subjects’ experiences to ensure that the data is “as valid, ethical and faithful as possible”

(Giorgi, 1997, para. 27) and to obtain such data, semi-structured interviewing is the most

appropriate approach and this approach is used as a central data gathering technique

academic studies for years (Tierney & Dilley, 2002).

Kvale (1996, p.2) defines interviewing as “An interchange of views between two persons

conversing about a theme of mutual interest” and according to Walford (2001)

interviewing allows subjects to express perspectives on various issues.

Data collected through this approach is very rich because interviewing is assumed to

“reach the parts which other research methods don’t reach” (Wellington, 2000, p. 73).

Also, interviewing is known as an approach which is “flexible” because of the use of

multiple channels including verbal and non-verbal channels (Cohen et al., 2007, p. 349).

Of the various types if interviews that can be conducted, the approach most appropriate

for this study is in depth semi-structures interviews.

To conduct a semi-structured interview, a set of structured and planned questions are

asked in an open ended pattern (Mutch, 2005) letting the partici3.1.pant express their

viewpoint in many different ways possible providing the investigator “a sufficient

opportunity to understand and observe reality from different viewpoints extensively”

(Giorgi, 1997).

43

As questions in interview guide are kept open and sometimes unstructured too and the

investigator has to cleverly “improvise follow-up questions” sometimes to dig deep in

hidden terms and achieve clarification in the areas of interest (Arskey & Knight, 1999, p.

7).

Though interviews is a useful approach especially in qualitative research, there are still

few shortcomings of this approach: Firstly, there is a high probability of getting biased

responses because interviewer’s perception and interpretation cannot be fully neutralized

(Wellington, 2000, p. 73). Secondly, as the interviewer has better knowledge than the

interviewee, interviewer can take powerful position sometimes and can “attempt to define

and control the situation” (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009, p. 3). Thirdly, respondents might

not give honest and true information because of the fact that keeping anonymity of

respondents in interview approach is highly impossible (Cohen et al., 2007). Fourthly,

interviewer might find it tough to get participants because people usually don’t like to

talk to strangers, especially about their personal thoughts and beliefs (Wellington, 2000,

p. 73).

One way to overcome the barriers discussed above is by “establishing trust and good

rapport” with the interviewee (Johnson, 2002, pg.11).

Despite of the challenges discussed above, interviewing is still considered a very

important instrument by many qualitative researchers and as a matter of fact “many

qualitative methods rely heavily or solely on them as the primary mechanism for data

collection” (Knox and Burkard, 2009, p. 571).

As this approach is especially considered powerful when researcher wants to investigate

the “true opinion of participants and their experiences”, therefore it is considered the most

suitable data generation method for this particular study.

3.2.2 Validity and trustworthiness

Validity and trustworthiness throughout all the stages of an interview research project

ensure the quality of the research (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). According to Wellingten

(2000) validity is “extent to which what we investigate reflects what it is supposed to

investigate” (Wellington, 2000, pg.36) while Mutch (2005) define trustworthiness as the

condition when “the research decisions, research design, data collection and analysis

strategies have been clearly documented and the study is ethically conducted” (Mutch,

2005, pg. 71).

44

In order to ensure validity and trustworthiness at every stage of this research, this study

was carefully designed at every step. While thematising, it was made sure that the

theoretical presuppositions of the study are sound and research questions were logically

derived as emphasized by (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009).

After carefully reviewing literature, research questions and major concepts of the study

were redesigned and made more focused and clear. In next stage, it was made sure that

the research design and research methods fit purpose of the study and as described below,

qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews were chosen as the most suitable

approach to this study.

To ensure quality of interview research, participants were chosen very carefully, making

sure they are “interested in becoming part of the research, open to the topic, experienced

and knowledgeable” (Rubin & Rubin, 2005, p. 64-70).

Purposeful sampling was done for this study which allowed me as a creator of knowledge

to select the participants intentionally and carefully (Creswell, 2002).

While conducting interview, validity and trustworthiness depends on the subjects and the

interview structure as well (Kvale, 1996). According to Walford (2001) there can be

situations where “respondents may lie or withhold information because they have little to

gain from telling an interviewer their innermost secrets” (p. 90).

To avoid such situation, it is important to build a good relation with the interviewee by

creating a relaxed environment and stress free discussion. This can be achieved by careful

pre-planning, good communication skills, keeping the questions simple, modifiable yet

open and careful preparation (Johnson, 2002).

After collecting rich data from interviews, interviewer needs to do careful transcribing of

the interviews. According to Wengraf (2001) “The only point of doing the slow work of

transcription is to force the delivery to your conscious mind of as many thoughts and

memories as you can…while your mind has time to think fast and widely about the

material and the event in which the material was gathered” (p. 209).

After finishing transcribing successfully, next step is to analyse the data. In data analysis

stage, investigator has to make sure that data interpretation is sound and unbiased

therefore bringing the need to treat the data collected with considerable scepticism as

emphasized by Walford (2001).

Lastly, communicating findings with integrity brings trustworthiness in last stage of the

research. In this stage, investigator must be able to integrate the research aim with

45

respondents’ responses and must answer underlying research questions (Williams and

Morrow, 2009).

3.3 Data analysis strategy

According to Rubin and Rubin (2005) “data analysis is the process of moving from raw

interviews to evidence-based interpretations that are the foundation for published reports”

(p. 201) and therefore it is essential to consider data analysis at a very early stage of

research design.

As this research is qualitative in nature, it is based on a thematic analysis approach to

analyse descriptive data gathered from interviews. Thematic analysis can be defined as

“a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data (Braun

& Clarke, 2006, pg.34) and according to Mutch (2005) thematic analysis is named as

grounded theory because “it develops the theory inductively” (pg.177).

Grounded theory is a thematic approach which “employs theoretical sampling in which

emerging analysis guides the collection of further data” (Ezzy, 2002, p. 87).

In order to be a grounded theorist, one need to have the ability to step back and critically

analyse the situation, recognize the tendency towards bias, think abstractly, be flexible,

open to criticism and be sensitive to the respondents (Strauss, A., & Corbin, J, 1990).

For data analysis “Data familiarization” is the first step a researcher takes in order to

engage in the process. Data familiarization starts with transcribing the verbal interviews

which although is a very lengthy and frustrating sometimes (Wengraf, 2001) but it “ is an

excellent way to start familiarizing with the data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 87).

Once transcription is done, the next stage is developing codes from the data (Strauss, A.,

& Corbin, J, 1990) which Kerlinger (1970) defines “as the translation of question

responses and respondent information to specific categories” (cited in Cohen et al., 2007,

p.369). Categories and concepts are predetermined through literature and by consulting

the initial interview scripts (Rubin & Rubin, 2005).

The second stage is to modify and redefine the categories developed through initial stage

and this is why grounded theory uses three types of coding techniques; open, axial and

selective (Strauss, A., & Corbin, J, 1990).

Open coding starts at the initial stage when investigator looks for themes in open literature

and categorizes the literature. Once open coding has been done and interviews are

46

transcribed, next step is axial coding in which investigator tries to retrieve themes out of

the data.

According to Rubin and Rubin (2005), data should be organized systematically, grouping

data and comparing it and looking for patterns and linkages in data. Once themes are

retrieved, selective coding is done in which according to Braun & Clarke, (2006) themes

are refined, redesigned and reviewed carefully.

In this phase, researcher ensures that the entire data set answers research questions and

data is not being missed out. In cases where research misses on some points, further

recoding is done and analysis is done again to obtain a satisfactory thematic map (Strauss,

A., & Corbin, J, 1990).

3.4 Research Process

This section talks about the research process of this particular study. As this study focuses

on exploring the effect of culture of Pakistani female’s leadership success stories, the

research started with carefully identifying and selecting subjects for this study. The next

sections’ describe selection of participants, interviews and data analysis process for this

research.

3.4.1 Thematic analysis

As a researcher, I did not begin with a theory already developed, instead I started by

gathering information on current situation of females in Pakistan focusing on the barriers

they currently face and how culture challenges success of females. This research started

by conceptualizing facts and in order to do so open coding has been done by developing

categories and information gathered from secondary sources as well as primary

interviews.

Categories were developed in literature framework development and the next thing was

to further information about the categories and to do so, sampling was to be done very

carefully and data collection was organized and based on the categories already defined.

From the data gathered, axial coding is done to create sub categories of the categories

already developed and linking both of them.

After axial coding, the next thing done in this research analysis is dig deeper into the

categories and sub-categories developed through selective coding. This phase integrates

all the categories along their dimensional levels to create a theory out of my research,

47

validate the statements made already through open and axial coding and the relationships

made and fill in categories which need to be worked upon.

Sampling was done very deliberate at this point and as a researcher I looked for events,

incidents instead of focusing on people. This phase lead me to the development of theory

on development of female business leaders. For this approach, data was gathered through

many sources including people, sites, and related documents.

Sampling changed from the start of the study till the development of a theory based on

the mode of coding starting from random and becoming more purposeful and focused as

the research would progress.

From the research conducted, I developed a framework and a theory which will is left

open for further research and study. Therefore, as a grounded theorist I used the general

information on gender related leadership and made a theory emerge out of the data I

collected throughout the research.

3.5 Research design

With an aim to explore the conditions effecting females of Pakistan to evolve as leaders

in their professional life, I started digging in the study by consulting various sources. For

a grounded theory, the underlying assumption is that data collection and analysis process

are not separate but rather are connected and guide each other.

The research problem didn’t begin with just coming up with a situation instead I started

with consulting various sources to collect relevant data on female leadership in Pakistan

and digged deep in the researches to come up with my research questions.

I consulted official reports on World economic forum, World Bank and Lnu Portal which

gave me some statistics on current situation of Pakistan and helped me draw a trend of

female leadership in Pakistan. The data collected was quantitative and was used to build

background of the study and justification for the study.

This research is based on exploratory philosophy with an aim to highlight the conditions

effecting females of Pakistan to evolve as leaders. As the research is being conducted for

one point of time (cross sectional) the multi data collection method i.e. qualitative and

quantitative approach is being used to get the reliable data.

48

3.5.1 Research approach

Since quantitative approaches are insufficient to capture and paint the particular picture

of this study, I have chosen a qualitative approach fir this study. Qualitative analysis as

Strauss and Corbin (1990) defines it is "a non-mathematical process of interpretation,

carried out for the purpose of discovering concepts and relationships in raw data and then

organizing these into a theoretical explanatory scheme".

3.5.2 Selecting the participants

Choosing right participants is an essential step to make the study credible (Rubin &

Rubin, 2005). Keeping this statement in mind, I started selection of my research

participants very carefully. Since the research aims to explore effect of culture on

women’s situation and experiences, I chose participants from rural and urban areas in

order to draw a picture of the effect of culture in these two areas.

Participants for this study were working women with a minimum of two year experience

in their current job. Shortly for this study participants were chosen who were experienced

enough in their profession so that the data collected from them could be meaningful,

thoughtful, rich and full of experiences.

Additionally, I contacted people I have known for years and who are now pursuing

professional life. This helped me gather data which was deep and personal and sensitive

to some people too and which wouldn’t be possible to get from strangers because

Pakistani culture is closed and people don’t prefer to share their experiences to strangers

openly. Therefore, I knew most of the people I interviewed and the rest were referred by

my friends so they didn’t have any confidentiality issues either.

I chose a sample size of thirty working women, fifteen from rural areas and fifteen from

urban area. As I knew these people, I had the benefit of conducting interview in the form

of a discussion which helped me dig deeper in my research and examine the situation with

more open mind. The procedure used to invite participants was to phone them, explain

the situation briefly and ask for their permission to conduct an interview.

The ones who agreed were emailed the research aim sheet (Appendix 1, Figure 2) which

helped them understand the questions before the interview so they don’t become blank

during the interview. The sheet also ensured the information would be kept confidential,

highlighted how information will be used to ensure participants know their information

49

is protected and not misused in any aspect. In the email I asked them about the date and

time of interview.

As I was in Sweden, the interviews were conducted through skype and recorded using

voice recorder. The response of my respondents was surprisingly very positive, they were

very open and clear about the information they were sharing and very happy about

becoming part of a research which can help other brilliant females to develop their career.

3.5.3 Conducting the interviews

For this study, interviews were designed to explore how culture has effected the personal,

interpersonal and external development of females. The interview script included open

questions covering general information, stories of career development and how culture

affected their skills and career opportunities.

Interviews were conducted through skype and time was set up to the convenience of

participants. Females were told at the start of interview that the participation was

voluntary and not forced and meant no harm to them or their information in any way what

so ever. Participants were allowed to feel free to decline any interview question and

discussion they didn’t feel comfortable talking about.

It was made sure that females don’t become upset talking about their personal life and it

was made sure that no offensive language is used against anyone. Each participant was

interviewed individually for approximately 30 minutes and some interviews took 40

minutes too.

To generate a conversation and discussion instead of structured interviews, order of

questions was changed and questions were asked not exactly as written but were melded

in different ways to extract information from different participants. Moreover, follow-up

questions were added wherever needed in order to keep the conversation going and to

avoid ambiguous and short responses.

While conducting the interviews, I took notes as some respondents didn’t agree to record

their voice, therefore I made careful memos and took notes for everyone so I can listen to

audios again and compare transcriptions to my memos and notes. All the interviews took

two month time to be conducted.

50

3.5.4 Preparing the transcripts

Once interview data is obtained, the next step is to transcribe the material gathered from

interviews (Wengraf, 2001). Once I had the verbal data in recorded form, next step I took

was sitting down and transcribing the data. Although it was time consuming and grew

frustrating sometimes, it helped me revolve my research while I was transcribing and

rethink on the discussion with subjects.

One interview took four to five hours to transcribe. While transcribing, I looked back at

my notes and memos I had prepared and tried to relate the events when I was taking notes

and the tone of my subject. Transcription of every interview was done right after the

interview was conducted and this helped me reflect on my work with more depth and

clarification.

Transcription was in English and Urdu mixed because most of the women interviewed

used a mix of both languages and later it was translated into English. I took care of the

fact that wrong translation will affect my research quality and therefore selection of words

was done very carefully and accurately.

3.6 Data analysis

Once transcribing was done, next phase was to analyse the data collected and for this

research analysis, thematic approach was used. As the study aims at uncovering the effect

of culture on women’s experiences and career development, analysis was not conducted

in one stage rather it was conducted in many different stages to ensure validity and

trustworthiness of the results.

This study is based on analysis model proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006). In the first

step, transcripts were read many times to familiarize myself with data and to refine the

concepts emerging out of the data. In second step, information was searched for and coded

in a systematic way to ensure it matches the themes discussed in literature review.

This saved my time by helping me extract useful information out of the interviews. In

third step I moved on to rereading the transcripts carefully and the notes and memos I

took earlier. This helped me ponder upon the themes and codes already developed and

look for new themes if any.

In fourth stage, I matched the themes emerging to my research questions in order to

ensure that my research is valid and is measuring what it is supposed to measure. In this

51

step, I also built relations between my themes, sub-themes and came up with a thematic

map. In fifth and last stage, I reported the findings and began with discussion of my data

analysis.

52

4 FINDINGS

4.1 Introduction to the section

This section illustrates the findings of my study. The ultimate goal of this research was to

examine the effect of culture on Pakistan working women lives and their experiences both

at work as well as at home. The study focused on two crucial factors including hidden

cultural values and social taboos.

The research questions for this study are:

1. What are general norms in indigenous culture of Pakistan?

2. How does indigenous culture effects career success of Pakistani women?

The research analysis begins with general background information of the participants

continuing to the results of interviews with regards to cultural taboos and societal values

effect on these females. The first section includes the ages, current occupations, beliefs

and perceptions of females interviewed and second section includes the experience of

these females and effect of culture on their career experiences as well as personal life.

4.2 Participants of the study

Thirty women participated in this study where fifteen were from major cities while fifteen

were from smaller cities. Fifteen females interviewed were from Gujranwala,

Sheikhupura, Sialkot, Multan and Bhawalpur while rest of fifteen females were from

Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Faisalabad. Participants ranged from an age of 26 years

to 42 years. They have been working in different organizations both small and large for

atleast two years. The table below describes the degrees held by participants.

Name of

participant

Age Occupation Marital

status

City Years of

experience

Education

Aqsa Khan 29 y Department

head at

National

Model

College

Sheikhupura

Engaged Sheikhupura 4 Masters in

Commerce,

Punjab

College,

Sheikhupura

Maryam

Virk

32 y Faculty

Administrator

Married Sheikhupura 3.5 Masters in

Commerce,

53

at National

Model School

Sheikhupura

University of

South Asia

Lahore

Fatima

Ahmad

Virk

28 y Trade

marketing

executive at

RedBull

Pakistan

Single Lahore 2.2 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Lahore

Pakistan

Aamna

Sattar

30 y Corporate

social

responsibility

manager at

HSY (Hassan

Sheharyar

Yasin

Fashion

designer)

Married Lahore 3.8 Masters in

Business

Administration,

LUMS

Pakistan

Anum

Sheikh

34 y Associate

manager at

Fauji

fertilizer

Pakistan

Married Multan 3.1 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Maiha

Ammar

36 y Research

supervisor at

AC Nielson

Pakistan

Married Lahore 5.2 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Rabbiya

Khan

28 y Senior

lecturer at

Punjab

University

Fashion

Designing

Married Lahore 2.1 Masters in

Consumer

Psychology,

University of

Manchester,

London

54

campus

Pakistan

Momina

Mohsin

26 y Faculty

administrator

at

Sheikhupura

college of

commerce

Single Sheikhupura 2.2 Bachelors in

Business

Commerce

Amina

Arshad

26 y Operations

manager at

Silk Bank

Sheikhupura

Branch

Single Sheikhupura 2.1 Bachelors,

BSC(Honours)

Double Majors

in economics

and Finance,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Farkhanda

Jabeen

39 y Owner of

school ICI

learning

Sheikhupura

Pakistan

Married Sheikhupura 8 Master’s in

Business

Psychology,

University of

Gujrat

Komal

Malik

31 y Accounts

manager at

Summit Bank

Lahore

Branch

Married Lahore 2.7 Masters in

Accounting,

LUMS,

Pakistan

Hajira

Imtiaz

28 y Student

counsellor at

University of

South Asia

Sheikhupurs

branch

Married Sheikhupura 3.2 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

Virtual

University,

Pakistan

Junnat

Imran

28 y Marketing

executive at

RedBull

Pakistan

Engaged Islamabad 2.4 Masters in

Marketing and

Strategic

Management,

Warwick

55

Business

School, UK

Amina

Tallat

36 y Human

resource

manager at

Karma

Fashion

designer

Married Faisalabad 6 Masters in

Human

Resource

Management,

University of

Strathclyde,

Scotland

Maryum

Fatima

27 y Administrator

at Heritage

International

College

Multan

branch

Single Multan 2.3 Masters in

Commerce

studies, Punjab

college, Multan

Zubeda

Harris

37 y Owner at

Hina beauty

saloon

Gujranwala

Married Gujranwala 5 Masters in

Commerce,

University of

Gujrat

Maryum

Amer

36 y Assistant

manager at

Khaadi

Pakistan

Married Lahore 4.3 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Sana

Ahmad

36 y Sales

executive at

Engro foods

Pakistan

Married Islamabad 3.8 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

FAST Pakistan

Maida

Khan

30 y Marketing

executive at

Porshe

Pakistan

Married Lahore 2.1 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

NUST,

Pakistan

Hira

Chaudhary

32 y Sales

manager at

Married Multan 5 Masters in

Economics,

University of

56

Telenor

Pakistan

Education,

Multan

Umaema

Aslam

32 y Operations

manager at

Bank Al-

Falah Multan

branch

Married Multan 3.1 Masters in

Finance,

University of

Education,

Multan

Zara

Shahrukh

29 y Owner at

Learning

languages

Sialkot

Single Sialkot 2.4 Bachelors in

Economics and

Finance,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Hira Fazal 31 y Head of

marketing

department at

Junaid

Jamshed

Fashion

designer

Pakistan

Married Karachi 3.5 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Ayesha

Ahtasham

28 y Marketing

executive at

Nestle

Meethay

Pakistan

Single Karachi 2.4 Master’s in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Komal

Javed

26 y Marketing

executive at

Emco tiles

Pakistan

Single Lahore 2.7 Masters in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Anum

Ahmad

Khan

30 y Human

resource

manager at

Married Lahore 2.6 Masters in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

57

Emco Tiles

Pakistan

of Economics,

Pakistan

Arooj

Aslam

32 y Owner at

Rooj

Boutique

Gujranwala

Married Gujranwala 3.8 Masters in

Commerce,

Punjab

College,

Gujranwala

Sania

Moazzam

29 y Marketing

executive at

Service Shoes

Pakistan

Single Sialkot 2.3 Masters in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Aimen

Wali

28 y Accounts

manager at

Citibank

Lahore

Branch

Single Lahore 3.1 Masters in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Shama

Rizwan

34 y Product

manager at

Mitchell’s

Pakistan

Married Gujranwala 5.4 Masters in

Business

Administration,

Lahore School

of Economics,

Pakistan

Almost all the women held significant positions in their teams and were performing

significant leadership responsibilities in the team. Of the females interviewed, six were

holding different positions in academic institutions and were working in different

academic institutions, four were entrepreneurs and had businesses of their own while the

rest twenty were working in different fast moving consumer goods companies (FMCG’s).

Out of the thirty participants, eighteen were married, three were engaged and nine were

single. In general all these females held business degrees (Bachelors, Masters) from

different business schools of Pakistan and three held Master’s degree from London.

The section below presents theme that emerged out of the study.

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4.3 Theme of the study: Indigenous culture

4.3.1 Indigenous Culture and Decision making power

All the participants for this study agreed that culture at their home had a very significant

impact on their activities, choices and life as a whole. Umaema Arslan is currently

working as operations manager at Bank-Al-Falah Multan Branch and living with her

husband in Multan. She admits the fact that her family has great impact on her every day

decisions as well as most important decisions of her life. She believes that she always

gets the feeling of being controlled by first her primary family and now her secondary

family (her husband and his family) and the fact that she has to give arguments for every

step she takes demotivates her sometimes and she gives up on many important decisions.

She regarded “inability to take decisions on her own” as a very common thing at her home

and explained:

“I always feel like I hardly lived my life… At home we share a culture where my parents

get to do all my decisions and I am not allowed to say no to them. In my teen age used to

become rebellious but after certain number of years I became okay with this thing and

started accepting their decisions. They have always decided everything for me. They

decided that I cannot go to a bigger city for getting my university degree and therefore I

had to join University of Education for my Masters although I got admission in Punjab

University, Lahore. After my education, they didn’t let go for a job instead they had

planned to get me married and I had to accept their decision. When I was getting married,

no one asked me what kind of guy I want to spend my life with instead my parents decided

my groom for me and when everything was decided for me, I was still expected to be

happy on my wedding day. I hoped things might change after my marriage but they are

still the same. My husband wants me to report everything to him and do everything from

his consent and his consent doesn’t only means him but includes his whole family. So,

when I was offered a position at Bank al-falah my mother in law got mad because I didn’t

tell her I was looking for a job and it became an issue in our families but finally I decided

to go for the job and my husband was angry at me for some time. But later, he started

facing some financial troubles and that’s when he realized that we needed my job. As a

couple, I feel he gets to do the decision and I get to accept them. Not only him, through

all my life have had this feeling that although I have everything yet I never lived my life

59

and this is because of our culture which restricted me from doing anything on my own

and anything I wanted to do.”

Along with Umaema, Shama Rizwan shared the same opinion and so did Hira Fazal and

Zara Shahrukh. These ladies pointed out that their major as well as minor life decisions

are effected by their families and in fact these decisions are made by families mostly and

they are informed once the decision is taken.

4.3.2 Indigenous culture and Social immobility issues

Participants were asked if social immobility was a taboo existing in Pakistan and all the

participants agreed to this stance. Most of the participants told that they were not allowed

to move freely in fact they always have to give a reason for leaving house.

All the participants believed that the conservativeness of Pakistani culture restricts their

free movement in society. They are not allowed to go out after sunset usually and it is

preferred that females take a family member along when they go out. Most females also

associated the social immobility issues with security issues in Pakistan too as kidnapping

is common in Pakistan and this is why families feel reluctance in letting females hang

around freely.

But security problems are not as influensive as conservative culture is because this culture

brings the rituals of “covering head after sunset, not going out alone after sunset, taking

family members along because they cannot protect themselves. Females from rural areas

claimed the existence of more social immobility problems than those from urban areas.

According to most of the participants the immobility issues restricts their career growth

and opportunities of expansion as an entrepreneur. Here are some comments of the

participants which describe how social immobility issues effect their personal as well as

professional development.

Maryam Fatima said:

“My family is from Multan and they didn’t let me move to Lahore for better job at a

multinational corporation. I am not allowed to go out without permission from my family

and I always have to take someone along especially if I am going for shopping or would

be staying out for long time. Our culture is very conservative, everyone stares at girls

walking down the streets and that’s why parents feel they shouldn’t let their girls go out

alone. I had three job opportunities in Lahore but no allowed me to live alone and I had

to restrict myself to job of administrator at nearby university.”

Komal malik also told:

60

“In Pakistan, it’s impossible for a girl to stay out without work. We have to tell everyone

where are we going and why and most of the times we are not allowed to go alone

especially to other cities. I live in Lahore and I can go out during the day but at night I

cannot go out alone and I cannot move across cities alone. I had a dream of opening my

own Candy shop however I realized I won’t be able to expand my business outside Lahore

because of immobility issues and I had to give up on my dream. I think culture is more to

blame instead of terrorism and kidnapping because if we talk about terrorism, males are

equally prone to it. However females face a specific type of restriction to mobility for

years and this is because of over protective and conservative culture of Pakistan”

Farkhanda Jabeen said:

“ In Pakistan it is very difficult to go out alone, even if family permits us, women of a

certain age, above 40 years usually can only go out and feel safe because when we go out

we are stared at, checked out and we have to face groups of males chanting at us and

staring us like we aliens.”

Four participants told they couldn’t go for a managerial job because it was offered in

Lahore while they were not residing in Lahore at that time.

The responses of participants made it clear that conservative culture of Pakistan restricts

females from going out and working in different cities which acts as a barrier in their

career growth. Aqsa Khan said:

“I am 29 years old and I cannot imagine staying one night alone because in Pakistan no

one can imagine a girl living alone. I cannot go out freely, cannot look for a job in a bigger

city where I can have more opportunities and this effects my career as well as my self-

confidence. I cannot walk freely outside because of the conservative culture and staring

eyes everywhere. Males have dominated our society and have caused females the trouble

of not being able to go out freely.”

4.3.3 Indigenous culture and Role expectancy for females

Participants were asked if they believe the society has assumed roles for females and if

these roles restrict career growth and success and almost all the participants shared the

same answers. Respondents were of the view that females are given the role of house

keeper and family server. Females are seen as caring, loving and emotional creatures and

therefore their decisions are doubted in rational level.

As females are expected to be caring and emotionally attached to their family, rational

decisions are not expected from them and this is why they are excluded from major

61

decisions concerning their own life sometimes. Participants explained that the roles

attached to females effect the way their behaviour is perceived and interpreted even at

work and this restricts their career progress sometimes.

Rabia Khan who is currently a lecturer at Punjab University told us that as she was a

female lecturer, students always expected her to behave differently from their male

teachers. Students always expected her to be calm and patient because she was a female

and these are two reactions people expect from perfect females, they have to be calm and

patient no matter what. Hira Chaudhary who is currently working at Telenor Pakistan told

that she was not appointed as a human resource manager at Gul Ahmad textiles because

the management thought a female HR manager will evaluate candidates on emotional

basis and will favour candidates who are going through hard times.

Amina Tallat also shared her experience at work and told that her decisions were always

evaluated from an emotional aspect and it was assumed that she took decisions on

emotional basis rather than rational basis.

Momina said that the culture of Pakistan sees females as a soft and kind hearted creature

who has to take care of the family and relationships and this role effects decisions making

power as well as the ability to progress in career because females have to prefer

relationships on career always and are expected to be agreeable to decisions taken by

relatives for them.

Farkhanda Jabeen added that the mind-set of “owning females” is very common in

Pakistani culture which means that everyone in family thinks they own their females and

therefore they are in control of their lives. Females are expected to be agreeable and polite

and to put the family on the top level and therefore many females sacrifice their career

for family.

The findings revealed that females are seen different from their male colleagues who are

seen as more rational and thoughtful while females are assumed to be more kind and

polite and this sometimes effected their progress and appointment in certain fields where

males were preferred over females.

4.3.4 Indigenous culture and Female Subordination

All the participants agreed that the culture at their home promotes female subordination

and ownership. Anum Sheikh complained that her family and husband believe that they

own her and therefore they are free to control her life. Maryam Fatima also said the same

thing:

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“Our society promotes female ownership, first by family and later by husband. Females

are expected to agree to all the decisions made for them”

Farkhanda jabeen added that people in Pakistan consider female the honour of the family

and therefore females are expected to be very careful, kind and pious and they are

expected to submit themselves to the family.

One of the reason females are not allowed to work is because of the Pious status given to

them and the thought that they are the honour of the family and if they do anything wrong,

society won’t let the family live anymore. This mentality makes families more careful

and against female career development.

Sana Ahmad said:

“As a female, I have had to accept that my life is owned by my family and they have all

the rights to control me. I have to listen to them and accept their decisions because they

make me feel they are responsible for me therefore they have all the right to take decisions

for me. I cannot even imagine taking a decision without their consent and control effecting

me.”

Junnat Imran was a very important addition because she compared her experience in

United Kingdom to that of Pakistan saying:

“Life is different in UK, you can take all your decisions freely and you are not owned by

anybody. Here in Pakistan it’s different. We have to start our career by fighting with

society, family and the taboos which always restrict our career growth and this makes our

life so complicated and tough that giving up seems easy way out rather than fighting. See

the thing is, we are very hardworking but the problem is, we have to face society and

culture which drains our energy and therefore we don’t reach the top levels because by

that time we are too tired to fight for our rights and the females in UK don’t have to go

through all this trouble which is why they have good careers at a very young age.”

Almost all the females in the study agreed that they feel owned and answerable to their

family and this restricts them from progressing where they make sacrifices for the sake

of saving relationship and family honour.

4.3.5 Indigenous Culture and status of females

Aqsa Khan also believed that the society is very conservative as a whole and this has

turned culture at homes conservative too. Maryam Virk also believed the same thing and

she added that females grow up in an environment where they are not allowed to live on

their own but their family takes all their decisions. Aamna Sattar added that the family

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usually thinks it is their responsibility to keep females safe from the society and from bad

experiences because females are considered emotional and weak creature and therefore

in an attempt to protect them from harm caused by outside world, family members feel

the responsibility to make their important decisions for them. Rabbiya Khan also believed

in the same thing and she explained:

“My culture makes me feel that I am owned by my parents and they get to do all my

decisions because I am not good enough to take care of myself. My culture didn’t let me

make my decisions and explore my life and I think this is happening to most of the girls

out there”

Hajira Imtiaz also said almost the same thing:

“Absolutely I feel owned by my husband, he expects me to dress up the way he wants,

talk to people him like, do what he wants and this is one of the reasons that I am working

at a college instead of any company although I had opportunities. My husband didn’t let

me work in a bank and the only justification he gave was that he owns me and knows

what’s better for me so I should be a good wife and listen to him”.

Anum Sheikh, Maiha Ammar, Momina Mohsin believed they have never felt independent

and this is one of the reasons that they don’t feel confident about themselves and they feel

like they cannot take any decision anymore. All the participants mentioned that they have

the feeling of “Being controlled” and their decisions are “made for them”. They also

believed that the ability of not taking their decisions at early age effects their self-reliance

and the ability to take decisions once they grow up and this is why most of the females

don’t feel confident about the choices they make.

Most of the participants believed that the inability to take their decisions is because of

conservative culture of Pakistan which assumes that females are not intellectual enough

and they don’t know enough to take their decisions and therefore others have to take the

decisions for them.

4.3.6 Indigenous culture, Family and work life balance

The findings of this study showed that balancing work life and family life is one of the

biggest challenges faced by most of the participants. Most of the participants told that

although their families were supportive, they had tough times because of unequal

distribution of family work. Farkhanda told:

“I run a school and as a working women the biggest disadvantage is my family. I have to

manage everything at home. I have to work, do house work, take care of my children as

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well as my husband and be perfect at almost everything I do. It’s very tough for me

because I get too tired to be able to perform well at work as well as take care of my

family.”

Umaema said:

“Balancing work and family is the biggest challenge for me and I am still unable to

balance both things effectively. I have to work at home including cooking food, taking

care of house and my family and at the same time perform well at job and I find these two

things impossible.”

Zara said:

“My male colleagues are so lucky, they work, go home and everything is ready for them.

They get enough time to sleep because they don’t have to checks their kids, don’t have to

cook dinner or do any house work and therefore they come to work always fresh and

healthy. On the other hand, I come home, do house work, sleep late and wake up early

which is why I don’t feel fresh may time and my performance at work gets effected.”

Almost all the participants of this study felt the difficulty of balancing work and family

and believed they could perform better at work if their family shared work with them.

Single females didn’t feel this problem as seriously as married ones did because single

females had their mothers taking care of their food and house work and therefore they

didn’t have to do anything at home.

Sana believed this is one of the reasons girls quit jobs when they get married because

when single they don’t have to balance work and family life as they have mother and

maids to take care of house work and their needs. However when they get married, they

have to take care of family which is difficult and this is why most of the females resign

from jobs when they get married. Amina tallat who is a human resource manager told that

most of the girls working in her department resigned from the job when they got married

and therefore all the investment done in their training was wasted and this is why her

company preferred to hire males because they don’t quit jobs easily.

4.3.7 Indigenous culture’s effect on skills of females

4.3.7.1 Vision development

The participants of this study were asked if cultural taboos mentioned by them effect their

skills necessary to become a leader and the responses were quite different. Almost twenty

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respondents thought their vision of life has been effected by conservative culture and

family restrictions while the rest five said it didn’t. Aqsa Khan said:

“I think my vision development skill has not been effected by the cultural taboos I face

and restrictions put on my behaviour. I have always believed in myself and have shaped

my vision.”

Farkhanda said:

“I believe my vision has been effected by the culture and restrictions I faced throughout

my life. I had the dream of becoming a lawyer but I couldn’t pursue my dream because I

wasn’t supported by my family and culture. Although I am working right now but it’s not

what I really wanted to do and that’s why I don’t feel authentic towards my work

sometimes.”

Maryam Fatima added:

“I believe our culture shapes us and it has shaped my vision in a way different from what

it would be if I didn’t belong to this culture. I see most of my friends have no vision and

that’s because they know they will not be allowed to accomplish that vision.”

Maida said:

“Our culture gives us the feeling that we cannot make our decisions and we are controlled

which is why most of females don’t have a vision today. They know it’s useless to have

a vision when they will need a pile of arguments and justification to start working on it.

As we are not given equal treatment, we doubt ourselves and our decisions too and that

is why most of us don’t have any vision or mission for life.”

Amina Arshad said:

“I don’t think I have a pure vision for life because I know I am not supported enough and

I have to face cultural barriers. The conservative culture around me has never let me be

confident enough to have a vision and fight for it.”

Zubeda Harris explained:

“The feeling of being controlled by others has not let me have any solid vision for myself

because I have not really known myself. All I know is that I am someone supposed to

take care of family and relationships and be good to everyone and in playing these roles

I have lost my vision somewhere. I would say yes females of Pakistan can achieve a lot

in life if the culture let them do so.”

Almost all the respondents agreed that the conservative culture and taboos they have to

face have effected their vision for life and achievements in a negative way. Four

respondents Maiha Ammar, Fatima, Rabbiya and Sana however believed that the

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development of vision is totally dependent on females and how strong they are willing to

fight against hardships. Maiha said that everyone has to fight for their beliefs and vision

and therefore females too have to fight against culture and society. So she believed that

if she is truly passionate about herself and her vision, she would be ready to stand against

anything and any cultural taboo. Rabbiya believed the same thing however she said that

the role of family is very important. According to her, if family is supportive females can

stand against society and cultural taboos but when relationships stand against us, visions

have to be sacrificed to save relationships and family. Fatima agreed to rabbiya and she

added that almost everyone has a vision but overtime this visions gets effected by

circumstances which are not very positive for females in Pakistan. Fatima said that

standing against culture is possible if family back up is there however if family stands

against us too, it’s very unlikely to hold onto ones vision and sacrifice all the relationships

because females avoid risking relationships and breaking them for their own wishes.

Overall, all the participants were of the view point that their vision was shaped negatively

because of conservative culture and they had to give up on their vision too because of the

restrictions imposed by culture. One very important aspect out of this discussion was the

role family plays in the life of females as all the participants said they could accomplish

their vision and have one if their family was on their side which in most cases is not.

Therefore, although cultural taboos effect female’s mission and vision development in a

negative manner, Pakistani females place a high value to their family which is why they

give up when family opposes their decisions and approach towards life.

4.3.7.2 Self-recognition

When asked if culture effects the self-confidence of females almost all participants said

that their confidence was negatively affected and broken down by culture. This is because

culture of Pakistan doesn’t let females take important decision, be free about their life and

mission and restricts them to defined roles which doesn’t let self-development and

integration and therefore effects self- recognition. Fatima told:

“I don’t exactly know who I am and what my beliefs are because the person I am right

now is not myself, it is a mix of society and culture and their values. I don’t know exactly

who I am and what I really want in my life and I believe this is because my culture didn’t

let me be myself and didn’t give me enough freedom to think and know myself.”

Sana said:

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“I know myself and I recognize the true individual in me however over time that

individual is shaped by culture and its taboos and that has left me no more the same sana

I used to be.”

Hajira said:

“Self-recognition is very important however it is very difficult to have in a society where

you are not allowed to be yourself and this is what my society is, it never allowed me to

become myself and effected my self-recognition negatively.”

Farkhanda said:

“We females are expected to behave in a certain way since the very first day of our life

and this doesn’t leave much room to recognize ourselves except in cases where we

become rebellious to the culture and its beliefs.”

Komal javed said:

“I am seen as a caring and kind person who is responsible for her family and relationships

which doesn’t let me be myself and doesn’t give me enough freedom to recognize myself.

I choose to work because my family was facing financial issues. It is not something I

really love to do and therefore I am not very motivated towards it. The way our society

treats females and controls them doesn’t let them recognize the real self and be who they

actually want to be.”

Zubeda said:

“I run a saloon and therefore I see myself as an entrepreneur however I feel my culture

effect my entrepreneurial abilities. I cannot move freely, cannot think have expanding

internationally and I find it difficult to deal with males on my own because of their

mentality about working women and the negative perception they hold.”

4.4 Summary

This chapter reported the findings of twenty five female participants of this study. The

conversations revealed that conservative culture of Pakistan imposes many taboos on

female’s personal as well as professional life, effects their vision and perception about

themselves.

The categories emerged out of the study were categorized in two themes; Cultural taboos

and Leadership abilities. Findings from the interviews indicated that culture of Pakistan

is a big barrier to the development of career of females in Pakistan. Females face the issue

of social immobility which is why most of the entrepreneurial ventures remain small scale

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and under developed and most of the females give up on better job opportunities in bigger

cities.

Culture imposes the tradition of females being answerable for everything they do and

complying with all the decisions made for them. It appeared that females are not able to

make their decisions and instead they have to rely on decisions already made for them

which restricts their career development.

Females are considered the honour of house and therefore they are expected to behave in

a very careful manner so no one can point a figure on them. It also appeared that females

are expected to behave in a certain way which effects their progress. Females are expected

to be loving and caring and therefore their rationality is doubted. As people assume that

females are loving, their decisions are doubted on rational basis and this is why most of

the companies give them positions which involve more emotional and less rational

decisions.

Females believe that culture imposes strict taboos on them which restricts their mission

and vision development as well as important leadership skills. Females adopt the roles

given to them by society which is why there is a lack of self-recognition in them and self-

confidence is low as compared to their male colleagues.

Also, females are not allowed to pursue their dreams and take their own decisions which

is why they don’t have any vision of their own and they don’t stick to their dreams.

Females are expected to submit themselves to their family and therefore have to be

agreeable to all the decisions made for them which leaves the little freedom to fulfil their

own dreams and be who they really want to be. Females are expected to make sacrifices

and save relationships from breaking and this is why they have to sacrifice themselves to

keep relationship strong and living.

Females find it very challenging to balance work and family life because of the uneven

distribution of house work. Most of the females feel extra tired and are unable to manage

their house work as well as job. Single working girls however don’t face this problem so

intensely because they are usually taken care of by their mothers and have maids for their

work. This is one of the reasons that females prefer to work when they are unmarried but

as soon as they get married they find it very tough to balance responsibilities at home and

work.

Lastly, Culture has a very strong negative impact on success of females in their

professional life because of the role expectation, social immobility issues, decision

making power and restrictions it imposes on females.

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5 DISCUSSION

5.1 Introduction to the section

This research examined the effect of cultural taboos on women leadership and

entrepreneurship abilities in Pakistan. Findings of the study indicated that the overall

native culture influences female’s abilities to excel in their career and is the main reason

of poor representation of women in organizations especially at senior positions.

Indigenous culture of Pakistan gives rise to conservative organizational culture which

effects career progress of females in their respective fields.

While women equity and leadership is very well researched internationally, research in

this field is less in Pakistan especially focusing on the rural areas which contribute 64%

(World economic forum, 2015) of the total population out of which 41% (Tahir Hussain,

2014) are females. However little focus on circumstances of females in these areas and

scarcity of research in this dimension gives rise to the commonly held belief that equity

has been achieved in Pakistan and therefore no specific steps are taken. This gives rise to

the ongoing gender discrimination and social injustice because of inferior status of

females.

It is expected that this particular research will contribute effectively to the small amount

of literature currently available on female leadership in Pakistan and will give rise to more

scholars in this field.

From a cultural perspective, this study has very important implications for newly made

cross cultural approach on women leadership development. Cheng (1995) emphasizes the

role played by cultural elements in determining future of nations. Culture shapes

behaviour and effects the behaviour as well as thinking process of individuals (Hallinger

& Leithwood, 1996) and this is one reason it is very essential to understand culture in

order to understand concepts of leadership prevailing in a particular society and to

understand “how and why leaders in different cultures do what they do” (Walker &

Dimmock, 2002, p. 1).

This chapter provides a discussion about how indigenous culture of Pakistan effects

women’s experiences and their leadership skills.

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5.1.1 Indigenous culture

5.1.1.1 Decision making power

Evidence from the research conducted suggests that female leaders face difficulty in

taking important decisions because they are not used to take decisions on their own.

Females in Pakistan comply with decisions taken by their family for them and this is why

most women interviewed believed they didn’t really know how to take effective decisions

which effected their career progress and performance at work. The cultural taboo of

“Decision making” is also present in India (Jejeebhoy, S. J. 2000), China (Tang, C. S. K.,

1999) and Bangladesh (Kabeer, N. 2005) and have been causing troubles at personal as

well as professional level for females in these regions for years now (Roomi, 2009). The

females of this study shared their experiences which showed that most of them felt like

they had to comply with decisions already taken for them and this is why they lacked the

power of taking impulsive, quick and major decisions which effected their success at

work as compared to male members at work. In Pakistan, culture dictates that females

should be obedient and accept decisions of their family without doubting anything and

without questioning anything. Therefore, common culture of obedience and

agreeableness effects decision making power of females in a negative way. If females

behave contrary to culture and start standing against decisions taken for them and

questioning things, their behaviour is not accepted and they are judged negatively

affecting their reputation in a negative way.

The culture of obedience by females can have important consequences for female

leadership and entrepreneurial abilities. Firstly, a leader as written by DePree (2011)

needs to be able to take important decisions for herself as well as for followers and be

confident at the decisions once she has taken them and the same thing applies for

entrepreneurs too who according to Sarasvathy (2001) need to be able to trust their

decisions and take quick and major decisions.

Secondly, if a leader/ entrepreneur doesn’t trust her own decision, she will not be able to

defend it and fight for it which will affect her credibility in a negative way. The females

of this study agreed that the inability to make decisions for themselves lowered their self-

confidence and ability to handle situations on their own.

5.1.1.2 Social immobility issues

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Findings of this study indicated that immobility issues constrained women’s success as

entrepreneurs and better job opportunities. These findings are not surprising as females

in India (Law, R. 1999), Malaysia, China, Bangladesh and Melanesia (Strathern, M.,

1988).

As mentioned earlier, participants of this study were not allowed to go out without

permission from family members and it was preferred that they take someone along

instead of going alone. Therefore, jobs with night work hours were not suitable to females

and this restricted their job opportunities as compared to males in Pakistan.

Social immobility is associated to the ongoing terrorism and security threats in Pakistan.

However females who participated in this study didn’t agree and they were of the view

point that if terrorism caused this restriction, then males should be equally restricted as

females because they are equally prone to danger as females. However, this is not the

case and females have more restrictions as compared to males.

Social immobility has taken many forms in the country and has been shaped by culture

in different ways. Firstly, females are not allowed to go out without permission from the

elder family members. In order to take permission they have to explain the activities they

will do, places they will visit and justify that going out is important.

However getting permission is not very easy especially for females of rural areas where

doing a job is not appreciated and is considered as something which effects one’s family

respect in a negative way. Secondly, females are expected to be home after sunset and it

is considered unacceptable to stay out after sunset.

If there is an important work, they are expected to take someone from the family alone.

This restricts their options to work in evening. For females who are entrepreneurs, this

restrictions acts as a constraint to expansion of operations because females have to make

sure they have a business which they can run only during day time. Thirdly, females are

not allowed to move across cities alone and are expected to have anyone from the family

along. This is especially prevalent is rural areas where parents accompany their daughters

for work across cities.

This adds a huge restriction because females cannot look for opportunities is different

towns and have to stay in their own city which might not have high opportunities for

them. In case of entrepreneurs, this adds the restriction of staying in a niche, small market

and not being able to expand on national level.

Females who expand on national level have male partners working in other cities and it

is very unlikely that they visit across cities to keep an eye on performance and business

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situation. Fourthly, females are not allowed to live alone in a different city. If a female

get a job in a bigger city, she cannot take that opportunity because she is not allowed to

live alone. If there are relatives living in that city, it becomes possible for them to avail

the opportunity otherwise it’s very impossible.

This immobility issue brings a great challenge for females as most of the females living

in smaller cities have to restrict themselves to the low growth jobs where rules are not

very defined and getting promotion as a female is tough. In Pakistan, most of the

multinational have their offices in bigger cities which makes it tough for females from

smaller cities to join these multinationals thus restricting their career success. This is one

of the reasons that most of the females in bigger cities go for higher degree and better

universities while females in smaller cities go for education which is not in demand and

they restrict to job with no specific growth and no desirable culture for females to work

happily.

Although culture is changing in Pakistan and female work force is increasing, however

issues like social immobility still prevail very strictly and constraint females from

progressing in their career both at job and as entrepreneur. Not being able to move freely

is one of the reasons that most females in Pakistan go for entrepreneurship in restricted

fields such as fashion, education, nursing, food, beauty etc. and it is also one of the

significant reasons that fewer females emerge on international level as entrepreneurs and

they restrict their activities and business expansion on national level.

5.1.1.3 Female subordination

This study’s findings indicate that females of Pakistan are given a specific role and they

have to behave in that particular code of conduct. This code of conduct effects their role

at job, leadership skills and their career development as well. Traditional gender

stereotypes exist in Pakistani culture which influence the behaviour of society towards

females and the expectations from females.

Most of the participants highlighted that being a female in Pakistan brought lots of

expectations for their behaviour which effected their career and entrepreneurial abilities.

Firstly, they are expected to be obedient and agreeable because they are females and

because of the inferior status they are given which assumes that females agree to all the

decisions made for them.

This notion of being agreeable made it very tough for females to go against the prevalent

society norms which favour males. Also, most of the females are expected to be obedient

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to the male members at work and they are expected to take care of the relationship they

hold to male members at work. Female participants believed that this effects the way

people look at them as leaders and as managers. People believe that females will be easily

affected by emotions and sensitivity of other people and their decisions would include

high degree of emotionality rather than rationality which is why females are not preferred

as leaders in the organizations.

Similar beliefs exist in China and Turkey (Celikten, 2005), (Qiang et al., 2009) where

females are seen as inferior to men because they are more emotional and therefore are not

considered suitable for higher leadership positions. In China too, females are seen as

emotional, weak, careful, responsible and prudent which makes them incompetent for

administrator jobs and leadership positions.

The concept of female subordination and role expected from females by the society

therefore acts as a big constraint to emergence and selection of females in leadership

positions and high management positions which involve big decisions. It is a general

belief that females are negatively trapped by their emotions and therefore they are not as

good as males in tackling problems at work.

It is assumed that females are more people oriented as leaders instead of being task

oriented and therefore they can effect performance in a negative way. It is also assumed

that females will favour people and relationships over work and therefor would quit work

when they face family issues such as marriage, trouble with family related to job etc. and

therefore management feels reluctant to invest in their training for higher positions. Most

of the females believed that the roles expected from them makes it very impossible for

them to be selected for higher positions.

5.1.1.4 Family and work life balance

Findings of this study indicated that all the participants find it very tough to balance work

and family life and they believe that the imbalance of these two roles constraints their

career advancements. This finding is not very surprising as females across the world

complain that work life balance is a major barrier to their job life success (Akao, 2008;

Court, 2004; Davis & Johansson, 2005; Dean et al., 2009; Nguyen, 2007; Qiang et al.,

2009; Truong, 2008; Vali, 2010).

Participants of this study felt overwhelmed with workloads and domestic responsibilities

and believed that the imbalance can be a reason to quit their jobs. This traces back to the

Pakistani culture and its norms which put all house hold responsibilities of females and

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leave male as bread earner and family owner. Therefore females who work have to

shoulder double burden of workplace responsibilities and deadlines and work at home

where they had to comply with all norms, taking care of their kids, husband, siblings and

this is why most females had no time to take care of themselves.

The burden of work life and family is more suited to married females who have a husband

and kids to take care of or to females from rural areas who cannot afford a maid to work

for them. For single females in urban areas however this was not a big issue because they

had maids taking care of their food, cleanliness and work at home.

This is one the reasons most females give up on jobs when they get married and consider

house work as an unpaid job. Most females thought their male colleagues performed

better at work because they didn’t have a pressure of family and house work and therefore

they were more active and healthy at work.

Pakistan is effected by Confucianism aspect of culture which sees women as “Creatures

who work hard for family, have chastity, proper behaviour, are family oriented and play

their role as daughters, mother, wives and sisters and be obedient to their family” (Schuler

et al., 2006, p. 386).

This concept assigns females for all the domestic duties such as taking care of children,

breast feeding them, teaching them good values, and taking care of husband and his

family and it assigns husbands the role of bread earner for the family and care taker of

the family (Truong, 2008, p. 19).

Social media of Pakistan also praises and promotes these feminine roles and therefore

females have to comply with these roles if they want to become acceptable in society and

be known in good terms. Any female who values her work on family is considered

inappropriate and therefore females sacrifice work for family matters.

The challenge of balancing work and family life discourages most of the females to

continue work after marriage and therefore restricts the work life of females to only few

years of youth and few years after 40 when their kids are grown up, married and can take

care of themselves.

This is one of the reason why females work for lesser hours, demand flexible job hours,

don’t stay late for their job and they prefer fields such as teaching, fashion, saloon etc.

where they can work for few hours and do rest of work from home.

Although culture has started changing and so have perceptions of society about females,

there are still some constraints highly prevalent especially in rural areas where females

have to subordinate, have to be obedient and cannot speak for their rights.

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The challenges faced by females due to conservative culture of Pakistan and a culture

which favours males over females effect their leadership abilities and entrepreneurial

opportunities. Female participants of this study felt that they lack self-confidence because

of not been able to take their decisions and be themselves.

Self-confidence as argued by Bennis (2009) is the essence of becoming a leader because

a leader has to be sure about who she is and what she is doing in order to be able to

convince her followers to trust her and her vision. If a leader lacks self-confidence she

will give up in tougher situations when disagreements increase and therefore will divert

from her mission which is unacceptable as a leader.

Most of the females in this study agreed that they didn’t have a clear vision for life and

they always see themselves as creatures responsible for family work and happiness of

their relationships. They never dreamed of anything big because they knew their dreams

could not be accomplished.

Therefore most of the participants felt they didn’t have a vision because of the cultural

restrictions and they agreed that they will sacrifice their vision for family which effects

their career as well as leadership abilities. Overall, participants believed that their current

culture is a barrier to their career advancement and equal representation of females in

parliament as well as organizations.

Participants agreed that they lack focus as compared to their male members and are more

occupied because of their domestic duties however they believed that things need to be

changed and females need to be given more confidence in themselves.

Participants suggested that in order to polish the leadership abilities of females, there is

need to teach equality and need to make them feel that they can stand up for their rights,

can dream and can have a life where their male members share equal domestic

responsibilities with them. However this is a slow process and the need is to change the

mind-set which promotes female ownership by males and family and leaves females in

inferior status as compared to other males of the society.

5.2 Summary

This chapter provided a discussion of the results of this study. The discussion emerged

out of this research was theoretically and practically in line with most of the literature

consulted on women leadership. Specifically, women’s career growth and leadership

skills were strongly restricted due to cultural barriers such as social immobility, family

76

and work life balance, role expectancy from females, lack of decision making power and

inability to have an independent life of their own.

This study examined women’s leadership from cultural perspective and therefore its

findings are believed to have significant contribution to existing literature body and to the

development efforts in countries like Bangladesh, India, china etc. where gender equity

is still in question especially at professional level.

Culture is a very unique practice and therefore impact of every nation’s culture on their

women is very unique and varies from country to country. A unique finding of this study

was that women are disadvantaged in many aspects of life because of the perceptions

society holds about them and because of the roles they are given since their early

childhood.

They suffer from gender stereotypes which are a result of prevalence of Confucianism

concept in society. Although Pakistan had a female prime minister and it is encouraging

participation of females both in politics as well as professions, females are still seen from

the traditional culture’s eyes which restricts their progress and success.

The study indicated that indigenous culture of Pakistan has a very significant impact on

women’s leadership skills including their vision development, self-confidence,

perception about themselves and self-recognition and this impact effected their growth in

organizations and their success at work.

Socio-cultural norms with traditional gender roles, and male dominance influence

female’s leadership practices and career success and contribute to under-representation

of females in most of the work positions.

77

6 CONCLUSION

6.1 Introduction

This research examined how culture effected Pakistani women’s career progress and

leadership skills. The research was conducted qualitatively using a phenomenological

theoretical framework. Twenty five women from rural and urban areas of Pakistan

participated in this study and all the participants were interviewed using skype and most

of the interviews were in national language Urdu.

From the interviews, transcripts were developed and translated into English afterwards

and thematic approach was employed to conduct analysis of the material transcribed.

Experiences of these females showed that Pakistani culture has a strongly negative impact

on career development of females and their leadership abilities. Culture effects the

mobility of females and therefore puts them in low preference as compared to males who

are free to move and live alone.

This chapter summarises the findings of this study, proceeding to some recommendations

for improving the current situation. Lastly, suggestions on future research are given and

limitations are presented closing with concluding words.

This study used a cultural canvas to uncover the obstacles faced by working women of

Pakistan. Firstly, the study examines that females are lesser in number in organizations

hierarchy because of the strongly male dominant culture which restricts females from

certain activities that are important to have better career.

Most of the companies are dominated by men because males are thought to be more

rational at decision making and more responsible while females are considered more

emotional and therefore their decisions are not trusted.

Females face a much closed culture and a closed canvas in which they are seen as the

agreeable creatures owned by family and husband. Although women’s values, respect and

good attitude towards females is widely prevalent in Pakistani society, females are still

constantly faced by traditional values and norms which restrict their innovation and

entrepreneurial abilities and they still face great degree of gender discrimination.

Traditional male dominant attitude and beliefs held about females are still wide spread in

most of the areas of Pakistan especially the rural areas where education and awareness is

too less and males are too dominant and commanding. Males are still preferred on jobs

with high ranks because of the underlying stereotypes existing about females and the

emotional aspect of their personality.

78

Males are still considered bread earners and females are expected to always prefer their

family and house work on their job because their core responsibility is still to manage the

domestic responsibilities.

Job is considered something extra and therefore females always give up on job when it

comes to managing work and family. Females who enter work sphere face great challenge

in managing their family role and work life and this is one the reasons that most of the

females don’t work after marriage.

Females find themselves less self-confident with no clear vision and little or no self-

recognition and they believe these things lack in them because culture keeps them very

closed and dependent from the early childhood.

Although Pakistani society is facing a huge shift with more and more females emerging

as entrepreneurs and more females working in big multinationals, the cultural shift is

slower as compared to globalization and development of females in rest of the world.

Females are trapped by indigenous culture which restricts their lives to merely their

family and friends and doesn’t let them dream something of their own.

The findings of this study have very important implications in the area of improvement

of female’s representation in leadership positions and job market.

6.2 Recommendations

Significant efforts have already been made and are currently being made in Pakistan in

order to improve women’s representation in leadership positions and organizations. To

improve the current situation, however more efforts need to be done keeping a focus on

following things.

Firstly, females should be encouraged to be independent and take their own decisions.

The culture of obedience should be changed to fighting for their own rights and arguing

for the things which they consider right. Females are generally not allowed to speak for

themselves and are expected to be obedient towards all the decisions which is why they

lack decision making power and are not preferred for higher positions at job.

This approach should be changed and females should be encouraged to take decisions and

should be given training programs to make them better understand what is the right way

of doing things and fighting for themselves.

Secondly, organizations should try to mentor women by giving them different

management tasks and duties where their rationality can be tested and they can be taught

how to overcome emotional aspects of their personality and make more rational decisions.

79

Thirdly, efforts should be made to change the general mind set about females which is

“females are the family keepers”.

There is a need to conduct awareness programmes aimed at changing the current mind

set about females and their role in the society. Females are heavily influenced by their

family and the decisions taken by family for them therefore until family doesn’t change

its perception about females, there is very low probability of women advancement in jobs

and leadership positions.

Therefore, to bring more females in better positions, the general mentality needs to be

worked upon and family’s mentality should be changed to support them in taking

decisions for themselves instead of forcing decisions on them.

6.3 Limitations

As this study was conducted on a small scale and focused on few areas of Pakistan, there

are certain limitations attached to it.

Firstly, the sample size was small and cannot be attributed as a representative of the whole

of Pakistan. This study was conducted in Punjab which is one of the most developed

provinces of Pakistan.

However situation of females in other provinces is worse where religious extremism and

ownership of females is very high and females are killed for any disobedience against

family. Punjab is the most developed region of Pakistan with all the bigger and developed

cities and therefore this study didn’t bring all the in depth prevailing taboos against

females of tropical areas.

Secondly, interviews were conducted in Urdu and translated in English. Although efforts

were done to do the best translation, however there is still possibility of some ideas being

misinterpreted.

6.4 Future research implications

For future researchers, it is recommended that research should be conducted on a large

scale and in the tropical areas of Pakistan in order to get a better picture of these areas.

Moreover, comparison should be drawn between Punjab and the rest provinces so that

improvements can be made more effective and it can be known which areas need what

kind of methods to improve situation of females.

Moreover it is generalized that the current situation of females and restriction on them is

due to religion. However, a study needs to be conducted to study religious roots and

80

historical roots of Pakistan and compare the religious doctrine to current situation of

females. This would help many females know what exactly religion offers for them and

if these restrictions are merely cultural or have any association to religion too.

6.5 Conclusion

This study examined that females career progress in Pakistan is highly effected by culture

of Pakistan. While culture is a social practice and it should be respected, there are many

aspects of culture which needs to be questioned and changed.

In order to change anything at organizational level, there is a need to change the

underlying perceptions about females and need to change the indigenous culture.

This study has important implications for bringing gender equity in societies like Pakistan

where females are still not a big part of labour force and don’t play a significant role in

economic development.

81

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I

Appendices

Appendix A Interview Sheet

Respectable Participants,

I am studying Master of Leadership and Management in International Context at Linnaeus

University, Sweden. This research is part of my Masters degree and it aims to examine

the impact of native culture on working women’s leadership experiences. To conduct my

research I need to conduct interviews from females working in different areas and this is

where I need your help. If you are willing to help me and become a participant of this

study, please read these two questions on which I will need information from you during

interview:

1)How native culture does effects your career success?

2)What norms prevail in our culture and how do they affect your personality?

As a working lady, I would like to ask you questions about the impact current culture has

on your work experience as well as your personality. I would like you to share with me

your beliefs and your perceptions about current situation of females and how culture

affects you negatively as well as positively. In order to get this information I would like

to interview you for half an hour. I would like to get your permission for interview and I

would like to ask your permission to record your interview and I need your consent on

this paper in the form of signature. I would like to assure you that the information I get

from you will be used for research purpose solely. All the information will be kept

confidential and only I can access along with my supervisors. The findings of this study

will be reported in confidential way and your identity will be kept anonymous.I need to

assure you that if you become part of this study, you are allowed to refuse to answer any

question. It is to tell you also that the discussion will be kept open and you are free to ask

any question during the interview. If you have any questions or any queries, please feel

free to email me at [email protected]

You can also contact my supervisor

Associate Professor Philippe Daudi

Department of Organisation and Entrepreneurship

Linnaeus University

Kalmar, Sweden

Email: [email protected]

Thank you very much for your help!

Shafta Manzoor

II

Appendix 2 Consent Form

Development of Business leaders in developing countries: Impact of Indigenous

Culture on women leadership in Pakistan.

Consent Form for Participants

I have read the Participant Information Sheet for this study and have had the details of

the study explained to me. My questions about the study have been answered to my

satisfaction, and I understand that I may ask further questions at any time.

I also understand that I am free to withdraw from the study before analysis has

commenced on the data or to decline to answer any particular questions in the study. I

agree to provide information to the researcher under the conditions of confidentiality set

out on the Participant Information Sheet.

I agree to participate in the research conducted by Shafta Manzoor. I also agree for the

information to be used for the writing of the thesis, the publication of the articles and

conference presentations.

Signature:_________________________________________________

Name:____________________________________________________

III

Appendix 3 Interview questions

1) General information questions:

a. Name:

b. Age:

c. Occupation:

d. Marital status:

e. Organization you work at:

f. Place you work at:

g. How long have you been working (Total number of years you have

worked irrespective of current organization:

h. Any previous work experience:

i. How do you feel about yourself?

j. How society did shaped your image about yourself?

k. Who are you answerable to? Why?

l. How culture effected your motivation to pursue your dreams?

m. How authentic do you feel when making decisions? Do you believe

acceptance from others often changes our true decision?

n. How did the culture effect your vision and mission of life?

2) What was the culture at your home? How did it help/restrict you in excelling

your career?

3) How did culture effected your career progress? What were the challenges posed

culturally and socially?

4) What role did marriage play in your career?

5) What taboos do you feel exist in our society when it comes to females?

6) How does these taboos effect female’s perspective towards themselves and their

life?

7) How many times did you thought about giving up because of the challenges you

faced?

IV

Appedix 4 Statistics of Pakistan

V

VI

VII