Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Research in Social Sciences
Year: 2025
DOI:
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Bridging Gaps: A Critical Analysis of Women’s Leadership and Organizational Transformation
Yueran Zheng
ABSTRACT:
In most organisations, women are under-represented in senior positions. This study focus on global trends with a special emphasis on China and broader Asian organizational landscapes. This research aims to advance the understanding of women’s leadership models by critically examining their portrayal in management literature, highlighting their essentialist underpinnings and exclusionary tendencies, and assessing their broader implications for gender equality and leadership innovation. By integrating insights from global and regional contexts, particularly focusing on the Chinese and broader Asian cultural and organizational landscapes, this study contributes an evaluation framework that identifies critical enablers and barriers to women’s leadership at micro, meso, and macro levels. The findings underscore the global prevalence of structural barriers, such as organizational biases and the glass ceiling, alongside cultural challenges unique to developing regions, while also highlighting enablers like mentorship and inclusive workplace cultures. This research innovatively addresses the gap in evaluating the impact of women’s leadership programs, offering a pragmatic framework for stakeholders in policy and practice to measure and enhance the effectiveness of such programs. By bridging theory and practice, this study contributes to global discourse on gender equality and organizational transformation while offering actionable insights for China and similar socio-economic contexts striving to amplify women’s representation in leadership.
keywords: Women’s leadership, Essentialism, Gender equality, Organizational transformation, China