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

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