Women in Management Worldwide: Progress and Prospects (2nd ed.)

Citation

Patterson, N. (2012), "Women in Management Worldwide: Progress and Prospects (2nd ed.)", European Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 36 No. 2/3, pp. 380-384. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591211204823

Book synopsis

This book builds upon the 2004 version of the book Women in Management Worldwide: Facts, Figures and Analysis to update understandings of women's current position within management and the workplace from a global perspective. The purpose of this updated edition is to clearly highlight changes over time in both developed and developing countries. Authors from the 2004 edition were invited to update their contributions supported by the introduction of some new cultures and countries.

The book is divided into 20 chapters which are all (within the exception of Chapter One) structured into seven geographic sections: Part I European Union Countries (France, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK), Part II European Countries (Norway and Russia), Part III North and Central America (Canada, Mexico, USA), Part IV Australasia (Australia and New Zealand), Part V Asia (China, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey), Part VI South America (Argentina) and Part VII Africa (South Africa).

The opening chapter by the editors clearly outlines the motivation for the book in shining a spotlight on women's lack of career progression and pay segregation, despite their increasing representation within the workforce. Furthermore, they outline women's lack of access to basic education, subjection to violent behaviour and lack of fairness within the workplace and society worldwide. They further contextualize the need for this updated book in relation to the worldwide economic recession and the effect upon part time work and job losses since the initial publication. The editors contend that education is vital in ensuring women's advancement and highlight the need to continue to collate data on womens career progression worldwide remains critical. The remaining 19 chapters each focus upon a specific country with each addressing the following key areas: labour force characteristics; numbers of women pursing education; numbers of women in management; women entrepreneurship; legislation and initiatives supporting women in the workforce and finally a comment on future prospects.

Part I focusing upon European Union countries (France, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK) highlights the increasing numbers of women obtaining higher education qualifications in relation to men, however, this has failed to alleviate gender discrimination and support women's accession to senior management positions. The role of higher education and education more generally, is positioned as a means of addressing gender inequalities by addressing gender segregation by subject, encouraging more women into science, engineering and technology subjects.

European Countries, Norway and Russia are outlined in Part II. The chapter focusing upon Norway highlights its success in the achievement of gender balance through legislative change ensuring that women hold at least 40 per cent membership of corporate boards. However, the chapter notes that this has not prevented the continued segregation of salaries and educational subjects as well as the small number of small businesses led by women. Russia too experiences professional segregation with the increased educational attainment of women surpassing that of men failing to make a positive change in women's representation in senior positions.

Part III focuses upon North and Central America including chapters on Canada, Mexico and the USA. The chapter focusing on Canada notes women's increase in the workforce but there remain a lack of representation within senior roles. They continue to take responsibility for the family highlighting that the improvement of access to fair treatment has failed to change perceptions of management and family roles. In Mexico women's visibility within management and entrepreneurial activity has increased but they continue to run small businesses and are concentrated within “feminine” roles and activities which limit women's opportunities for career progression. The chapter on the USA notes very little change from the initial version of the book. Whilst half of employed women are within management positions there is a significant lack of women CEOs, however, it is noted that the economic impact of women entrepreneurs has increased from 2001 to 2008.

The fourth part of the book focuses upon Australasia and the countries of Australia and New Zealand. The Australian chapter notes the continued underrepresentation of women within the workforce and senior positions in organizations. Legislation is highlighted as failing to address the perpetuation of women feeling penalized if they access family friendly policy and secondly the misconception that there is equality between the sexes. The chapter focusing on New Zealand highlights the differences in women's representation within management in both the private and public sectors noting that progression appears to have stalled amid complacent beliefs regarding women's progression clearly noting the disparity between expectations of women's progression and the reality.

Part V highlights some common themes across China, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey as this section focuses upon Asia. Masculine norms, religious influence and gendered understandings of women's social role have contributed to women's gross underrepresentation within senior management positions. There were some positive increases in relation to increased educational attainment and entrepreneurial activity of women (e.g. China and Israel), however, this was not consistent with others (Turkey and Lebanon), which still outlined the education gap and slight increase of women entering entrepreneurship.

Part VI outlines the South American contribution to the book focusing solely upon Argentina. The implementation of a quota system within the political system has had a positive impact in women's increased representation; however, this quota system is restricted and does not move beyond the political sector. There have been some progressions in relation to women's increased involvement in academic programmes, non‐profit organizations, entrepreneurial activity, social networks, with some relatively small improvements in women's rights. However, much of this is small scale and there are still significant restrictions for women ascending to management positions.

Part VII, the final section of the book, which focuses on Africa and more specifically South Africa, the need for socio‐political reform is highlighted as key in order to begin to address societal extremes of great affluence and poverty. Cultural challenges such as race discrimination, societal norms and expectations placed upon women's shoulders are also discussed highlighting the need for significant structural reform to enable even well educated, experienced women to progress within organizations.

Evaluation

This book provides an insightful view of the current status, perception and reality of women's place within the workforce, management and entrepreneurship from a global perspective. The book provides a sobering summary of women's career progression (or lack of) in the past six years which has an important place in enabling global comparisons, highlighting the slow pace of progression for women in management. Two chapters which I felt captured the essence of the key issues for women in management worldwide and resonated with me most was:

1. 1.

   Sohrab, Karambayya and Burke's Chapter Ten which focused on progress within women in management in Canada in which they highlighted the lack of perceptual change; and

2. 2.

   McGregor's Chapter 14 on New Zealand in which she outlines the disparity between the expectations placed on women's progression within management and the reality of the situation.

I would most definitely recommend this book to students and scholars' interested in researching women in management, leadership and entrepreneurship. The text outlines global and country specific challenges and opportunities highlighting some similarities and differences drawn from cultural values, norms, practices and legislation. The book itself is organized well and the consistency of the chapter structure enables cross country comparisons which are presented in an accessible format. The focus on both developed and developing countries with supporting facts, figures and illustrative examples, allows the reader to dip in and out of the text with ease.

Whilst I think the book overall is an excellent reference text there are three criticisms that are evident in some places within the book. The first criticism is the perpetuation of gendered assumptions for example the perceived gender neutrality of Turkish law (Chapter 18, p. 334) and sex role stereotyping of women to feminized leadership styles (Chapter 19). Whilst it may be the social role expectation (Eagly, 2005; Eagly and Karau, 2002) for women to behave in communal and feminine ways deemed appropriate for their socially perceived female body (Messerschmidt, 2009) we should not assume that all women feel comfortable or instinctively behave in this way as this only serves to map or remap the gender binary (Kelan, 2010). Where for example women's difference is emphasized in terms of their assumed femininity within the workplace (e.g. Chapter 9, p. 160), we should problematize this further in order to challenge the perceptions which Sohrab, Karambayya and Burke call for in Chapter Ten.

Secondly, women entrepreneurs are presented as a paradox. They are presented as offering opportunities for increasing economic growth, yet problematic because they tend to set up and run small businesses (e.g. Norway in Chapter Eight and Mexico in Chapter 11). Whilst, it is not the purpose to suggest that an economic rationale is not important, but rather, it is essential to highlight the gendered nature of such measures. Scholars should remain cognizant that both men and women are both orientated to start small business and is much more commonplace than large high growth businesses. As Ahl (2002, p. 58) pertinently highlights men have been able “to be free riders on their few growth orientated fellow businessmen … while the women are marked out as non‐growers” and therefore underperform.

Thirdly, women entrepreneurs motivations for entering entrepreneurship is primarily positioned as being family orientated. Whilst it is no to say that this may not be the case, it is a widely held assumption which should be questioned (Lewis, 2009) given women's motivations for starting up in business have been found to be far more complex and multifaceted (Patterson and Mavin, 2009).

That said, Women in Management Worldwide: Progress and Prospects, is a useful book, which provides an excellent foundation to understand current trends of women in management from a global perspective ‐ I would firmly recommend.

In the author's own words

More women are now in the workforce. More women are getting the necessary education and experiences to equip them for success in the workforce. There continue to be many “firsts”. However, the fact that we are still celebrating “firsts” is disheartening. The bad news includes evidence showing little and slow progress in women's career advancement to senior‐level position, some back‐sliding in terms of enforcing supportive legislation, lots of rhetoric but little action or follow through, many countries in which organizations seem to not be doing anything specifically to develop and support their women managers and professionals, along with a series of worldwide events revealing some deeply rooted societal biases towards women (International Labour Organization, 2004, pp. 13‐14).

About the reviewer

Nicola Patterson is a Lecturer within the leadership and management development subject group at Newcastle Business School. Her research interests focus on leadership, gender, entrepreneurship and small business. Before entering academia, Nicola worked within the private sector as a Researcher and within enterprise development in both the private and higher education sectors. Nicola Patterson can be contacted at: nicola.patterson@northumbria.ac.uk