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Gender inclusive leadership: exploring women under-representation in public enterprises – the case of Swaziland.

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Date

2019

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Abstract

As the gender debate escalates universally directed towards leveraging societal imbalances across different economic sectors, widespread transformation initiatives are emerging to advance women to leadership. Few women are represented at managerial positions at senior, middle and firstline levels in public enterprises resulting in unequal power distribution. The relatively distorted gender distribution of authority presents major calamities for the marginalised female workforce where biases and prejudices are a commonplace in patriarchal perceptions. The study investigated reasons for the under-representation of women leadership in public enterprises within Swaziland. The first study objective explored barriers that hindered women leadership followed by an evaluation on the impact of women leadership. The strategies for enhancing women leadership were identified, further evaluating the impact of the existing gender policy in accelerating female leadership. A qualitative research approach that used semi-structured interviews on twenty-one managers was applied to the exploratory-interpretive study aimed at gaining deeper insight into the under-representation of female leadership. The fundamental study findings revealed the existence of two broad categories; self-inflicted and externally motivated barriers. Women leadership was found to exhibit a more positive impact in improving organizational effectiveness shaped largely by ethical values derived from the concept of ‘Ubuntu’. The results further identified major strategies that were constructed around a paradigm shift poised to stimulate women leadership. Gender policy was, however, considered less effective in promoting women leadership in public enterprises. The research therefore established new knowledge emerging from an understanding of the key phenomena in women leadership noting key salient features characterising self-inflicted and externally generated barriers that would help women to confidently compete with men in leadership. The practical implications pointed towards promoting gender inclusive leadership through a paradigm shift that transformed existing traditional cultural-historical and religious stereotypes. The education system needed to be reviewed while the public enterprises were to invest in education and training. The Public Enterprises Unit was to institute ethics-diversity committees by creating a joint task-force to foster women leadership. On the other hand, women group activists were to be lobbied to involve masculinity in public dialogues. In addition, women leadership was to be mainstreamed in all public enterprise activities. The study recommends further enquiry on board members of public enterprises focusing on the impact of incentives for compliance and a redefinition on the role of the human resources in monitoring and evaluating women leadership initiatives. The feasibility of inclusion committees was to be investigated to help strengthen the role of the human resource department in this regard.

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Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.

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