Challenges and Opportunities Facing Women Managers in Oromia Regional State Bureaus and Offices
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Date
2008-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The study is generally intended to investigate challenges and opportunities facing women
managers in the executive branch regional level bureaus and offices of the Oromia region.
Moreover, it is concerned with identifying attitude of subordinates towards women managers’
behavior, and identifying initiatives taken by the organizations and regional government to
resolve women managers’ problems. To attain these objectives data is collected from secondary
and primary sources .Primary data is collected from women and men managers as well as their
subordinates using survey questionnaire and semi structured interview schedules. Secondary
data is colleted from regional gender related policy documents. The data is presented and
analyzed descriptively using percentages, mean and independent sample t-test by the help of
SPSS version 13. Furthermore, relevant literatures are also reviewed. It is found that women are
generally
underrepresented in regional bureaus and offices and the majority of them are not
adequately qualified. They do not have better opportunities to hold managerial jobs both in large
and newly established executive branch bureaus and offices. Furthermore, they are equally
under-represented at all levels of management hierarchy in the study universe. Gap in gender
policies, human resource management in its practices, organizational culture and personal
barriers are the major challenges for women to join and steps forward in managerial jobs.
Despite this fact, the attitudes of both sex subordinates towards women managers are found
relatively encouraging. Regional executive branch bureaus and offices, and the regional
government have taken some encouraging initiatives to increase women’s share of managerial
positions. But they are not adequate to dismantle the “glass ceiling” and “glass walls” in
managerial occupations although current political environment and international institutions’
pressure among others are the available opportunities. Generally, women managers have
encountered challenges both within the organization and outside of the organization. The
challenges are conditioned by institutional and non institutional factors. Thus, in addition to
using available opportunities, policy intervention and collective effort of stakeholders are
generally recommended to eliminate the challenges facing women managers in the executive
branch regional bureaus and offices of the Oromia state
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Keywords
Managers, Oromia regional