A Study on Women's Career Advancement in Malaysia

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Journal of Human and Social Science Research ORICPublications

Vol. 2, No. 1 (2013), 21-34 webpage: http://www.oricpub.com/hssr-journal

Human and Social Science Research HSSR Vol. 2(1), 21-34

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A Study on Women's Career Advancement in Malaysia Corresponding Author: Lim Yet-Mee Associate professor, UniversitiTunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia, [email protected] Keywords: Women’s career advancement Work-life balance

Received: 04 Jul 2013 Accepted: 15 Aug 2013

Abstract The research aims to examine on the barriers that hinder from the career advancement of female employees in manufacturing companies. In this research, we will review the barriers which include work-life balance, networking, mentoring support, and training and development. In the research a total of 200 questionnaires were distributed to female executive who was working in the manufacturing industry in Klang Valley area but only 162 questionnaires have been completed by the respondents. Pearson’s analysis and multiple regression analysis were used for this research. The final result shows that the four variables, only work-life balance as a predictor barrier to women’s career advancement. As such for future research, other factors could be considered that this includes broader field or industry, different level of female employees, ratio of race in Malaysia and also corporate practices and corporate culture.

1. INTRODUCTION

Lim Yet-Mee Associate professor, Faculty of Accountancy &Management Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia

Tan Luen Peng Lecturer, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia,

Benjamin Chan Yin-Fah Faculty of Business and Management, Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation, Malaysia

One of the most significant social changes of the last century is women’s involvement in the paid workforce (Powell, 1999). Although gradual increases in the levels of women’s involvement in the workforce continue to be observed (Morrison and Glinow, 1990) but the numbers of women holding managerial positions were found to be much lower (Greig et al., 2007). A study by the world economic forum (WEF) endeavoured to measure the ‘‘gender gap index’’ to find out the level of inequality between women and men. The findings found out that woman are reported to have made considerable strides in organizational representation with moving into upper-level management positions, but more than half remain working in the lower stratus of the nonprofit sector. Surveys indicate that gender is still a common obstacle to women’s career advancement in many contexts and women have had difficulty in taking an equal place in decision making positions within industry and business (Vinnicombe and Colwill, 1995). Tharenou et al. (1994) found that women advanced more slowly in organizations than men. Women usually find themselves in a difficult situation when they have to choose between their family responsibilities and career development (Valentova, 2005; Claes, 1999). Women tended to dedicate more hours for family activities rather than men (Eby et al., 2005) but that hour devoted to work activities were equal for men and women.

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22 | A Study on Women's Career Advancement in Malaysia

Therefore, the total time and energy devoted to family and work were too heavy in order for the women to perform both roles well or happily (Duxbury et al., 1991). Powell and Butterfield (1994) suggested that women’s lack of advancement to higher levels of management often results from their having less fully-developed informal networks than men. Women tended to use their informal networks where men were more instrumentally active to promote their careers. Therefore, women missed out the opportunity to “schmooze with decision makers” (Castro and Furchgott-Roth, 1997). A study by Linehan (2001) also indicates that women are often less keen and have less time to take part in informal networking while men spent more time networking than women after working hours. Although mentoring may be important to the advancement of both male and female employees, it may be even more critical for women. Many researchers have concluded that women are not well integrated into monitoring systems (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987; Nieva & Gutek, 198l). Nieva & Gutek (198l) suggested that male mentors may find it difficult to accept female as protégés because the male mentors assume that many female lack of commitment and drive required for a long-term professional career. Research by Cooper and Hingley (1983) suggested that women may miss opportunities for career advancement because they lack female role models. The lack female role models probably give rise to responses which mirror the behaviour of successful male executives and may further isolate women as their lifestyle does not easily adapt to the male managerial model (Cooper and Hingley, 1983). According to Tharenou et al. (1994), even though training and development increased managerial advancement, it is most favourable to men as compared to women. However, Schein and Mueller (1992) argue that “think manager, think male” as men may need less training to develop their credibility as managers and skills for management because they have greater opportunities than women. Hence, women face more barriers in searching for jobs that are directly related to managerial skills than men. 2.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY

It is a fact that omen to gain equal treatment in career advancement because of work-life balance issue, networking, mentoring support and training. There was an argument that women have not made significant progress because they do not have the required educational backgrounds, skills, and work experiences. The research study is to identify the barriers that hinder the career advancement of female employees. By examining the barriers that hinder the career advancement of female employees, it helps us to increase the number of women’s involvement in upper-level management. Finally, it will reduce the gap of imbalance between both genders in upper-level management.

3.

LITERATURE REVIEW

3.1 Works-Life Balance Studies showed that work-life benefits are commonly viewed as a solution to help female employees balance their work and non-work commitments. Work-life benefits refer to programs and policies designed to help employees manage the competing demands of life, work, and family. Examples are inclusive of flextime, compressed work weeks, job sharing, part-time work, seasonal schedules, telecommuting, paid time-off plans, personal leave of absence or respite, child care benefits, lactation areas, on-site childcare centres, school-age programs, dependent care spending accounts, managerial work-family training, elder care benefits, and work-family resources (Johnson, 1995). Work-life balance practices and policies focus on removing gender-based structural barriers towards women’s advancement. Consequently, it can be assumed that work-life balance practices and policies designed to acknowledge and support the multiple demands of Journal of Human And Social Science Research / Vol. 2, No. 1 (2013), 21-34

L. Yet-Mee, T. L. Peng, B. C. Yin-Fah | 23

family and work should foster women’s career advancement. A recent study confirms that women are taking the advantage of flexible work arrangements in order to meet their career goals and manage the complexity of other duties (Shapiro et al., 2007). Although the use of organizational work-life programs has been shown to reduce work-family conflict, nevertheless female employees continue to receive less facility and support from their organizations that necessary to differentiate between work and non-work related roles and avoid conflict of both roles. A number of recent data sets indicate that family-friendly policies and work-life balance policies were distributed evenly across sectors or organizations. A study by Kargwell (2008) found that women received little support from their organizations to help them to carry out their responsibilities. According to a respondent in Kargwell study, the Ministry of Health initially did not provide any facilities to help her in carrying out the burden of her twin roles. However, the officers did eventually provide her with transportation facility only. Moreover, a qualitative research by Broadbridge (2008) also shows that most of the organizations are not willing to provide any facilities to assist women carry out the dual role including taking care of children and work at the office. Two of the three senior women with children in Broadbridge study said that various work-home conflicts have caused barriers in their careers. The third woman in this study mentioned that she has decided to put her career as her main priority but the organization did not provide any facility, in order for her to improve on work performance and equally balance the time with non-work matters. According to Bond et al. (2002), larger companies are more likely to have formal policies but line managers could eventually influence and become a barrier to employees and also act as a “gatekeepers to employees’ access”. It has been argued for some time that managers play an important role in the success of work-life programs because they make implicit and explicit choices regarding the adoption of workplace practices (Schneider, 1990). In addition, managers play a key role in the effectiveness of work-life policies and programs because they may encourage employees to participate or discourage employees from participating in these programs or because they may reinforce cultural norms that undermine employees’ efforts to integrate their work and family lives (Thompson et al., 1992). In Bond et al. (2002) study, they found that line managers often had discretion over application of family-friendly policies and this were often founded upon considerable ignorance of both statutory requirements and organizational policies. There was some evidence shows that even where formal policy had been introduced, its interpretation and implementation was subject to informal and often uninformed line manager's discretion. 3.2

Networking

Shopping orientations are one of the most axiomatic concepts in consumer behavior literature which is referring to the general predisposition of consumers toward the act of shopping. This disposition may be manifested in varying patterns of information search, alternative evaluation, and product selection. The orientations are operationalised by a range of attitude, interest, and opinion statements related to the topic of shopping (Brown et al., 2003). Brown et al. (2003) suggested that it is logical that consumers possess different shopping orientations and these will affect their purchase behaviors in Internet shopping, and price comparisons are a major reason why consumers use Internet shopping. A study asserted that the Internet lowers consumers’ search cost in acquiring information about prices and product offerings, and reduce inefficiencies caused by buyer’s search cost. Therefore, Internet significantly reduces the search cost for a price conscious consumer by providing rapid access to the information of the products or services (Girard, Korgaonkar and Silverblatt, 2003). Based on the research findings on the cost savings and benefits gained by shopping on the Internet, the authors proposed that price-conscious customers would try to find the least expensive items and reduce their search cost by purchase goods on the internet.

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Some studies suggested that convenience is the main reason why consumers use the Internet for the purpose of purchase (Brown et al., 2003). There is evidence to show that the Internet shoppers are convenience oriented, variety-seeking, innovative, impulsive, and less risk averse than non-Internet shoppers. Earlier studies also concluded that convenience shoppers are less traditional, less outgoing, and less socially conscious (Girard et al., 2003). Perotti and Widrick (2005)found that customers' perceived convenience of shopping on the Internet has a positive impact on online purchase behavior. Variety seeking consumers are more willing to trade enjoyment for variety. A recent study suggests that when people are motivated to find a variety of products in order to try different things, they will prefer to shop on the Internet because the Internet provides an environment with a variety of goods and services. Therefore, people who are seeking variety are more likely to shop on the Internet (Girard et al., 2003). Studies found that not all consumer behaviors are well planned. A person may buy merchandise on impulse while walking down an aisle in a store, or may suddenly decide to go inside a store on impulse while walking down the street (Girard et al., 2003). Some consumers have used impulse buying as an interesting and spontaneous way to complete their grocery shopping, as their shopping lists were often incomplete (Ramus and Nielsen, 2005). Impulse purchase is more likely to be for inexpensive or less expensive items seen in a store environment while shopping for other goods (Girard et al., 2003). However, people are less likely to buy on impulse on the Internet because online shopping is regarded as a much more planned and organized (Ramus and Nielsen, 2005) activity. Some earlier studies have identified some persons who enjoy shopping as a leisure activity and tend to browse in retail outlets “without an upcoming purchase in mind,” such shoppers are named as “recreational shoppers.” They are interested in gaining knowledge about a specific product and actively seek for product information such as price and product quality. An earlier study on recreational shoppers reveals that while convenience or economic shoppers do not enjoy shopping or harbor neutral feelings toward it, recreational shoppers are the people who enjoy shopping as a leisure-time activity (Girard et al., 2003). There were some arguments that people who enjoy the shopping process are unlikely to buy online, and that purchasing via the Internet is a poor substitute for the leisure experience associated with the conventional shopping (Brown et al., 2003). 3.3 Mentoring Support Mentoring is a term generally used to describe a relationship between a less experienced individual, called a mentee or protégé, and a more experienced individual known as a mentor (Donaldson, et al., 2000). Research has supported links between mentoring relationships and increased employee productivity, enhanced organizational commitment (Aryee et al., 1996) and lower levels of turnover (Allen et al., 2004). Thus, mentors are frequently characterized as individuals who are committed to providing support to junior members in an effort to remove organizational barriers and to increase the upward mobility of their protégé’s (Higgins & Kram, 2001). A study by Maxwell (2009) proved that mentoring programs can enhance female Mentees’ career development subsequently contributing to improving the gender balance in management. Maxwell further said that mentoring is about improving females’ opportunities and about increasing the number of females in management. According to Ragins (1989), mentoring relationships have been identified as a significant factor in the career advancement of women, and barriers women face in obtaining such relationships in organizations has been identified. Researchers consistently find that women experience barriers in gaining a mentor (Ragins & Cotton 1991). Women in male-dominated organizations often have limited mentoring opportunities (Klenke, 1996). In addition, women had been socially excluded from informal mentoring relationships and had greater difficulty acquiring informal mentors to the same extent as their male colleagues (Kanter, 1977). A study by Kanter (1977) found that the male manager chooses to sponsor or mentored other males and not females. Kanter (1977) used the term “homosocial reproduction” to refer to the situation of men choosing other men. In the other words, men who occupy powerful positions preserve the status quo by sponsoring other men thus reinforcing a gendered reproductive practice (Colley, 2002). Thus, the implication of Journal of Human And Social Science Research / Vol. 2, No. 1 (2013), 21-34


women’s limited access to informal mentors was viewed as disadvantages because they were denied access to this type of relationship and consequently missed out on the considerable benefits male mentors enjoyed including improved career outcomes. Moreover, a study by Lee and Nolan (1998) found that 92.6% of the female respondents felt that mentoring was important for women to assist them in developing their careers. Although most of the female respondents in Lee and Nolan (1998) felt that mentoring was important for women, but the study also found that 47% of women administrators surveyed did not report having mentors. Therefore, there is an evidence proves that women have limited mentoring opportunities. 3.4 Training and Development Training and development can be defined as the process of providing employees with specific skills or helping employees to correct deficiencies in their performance. In addition, the training’s objectives are helping the employees to improve or gain skills and knowledge that would help them in the job performances and as well as improve their career advancement (Mondy and Noe, 2005). A study by Mondy et al (2002) found that training and development are organizationally directed experiences designed to improve employee competency levels and enhance organizational performance. The literature suggests that managerial advancement is positively related to human capital credentials. According to Becker (1993), human capital theory proposes that individuals choose to improve their education, training, and work experience, which results in payoffs later in their careers in pay and job status. Apart from that, Becker (1993) also discovered that education increases the managerial level and pay by increasing knowledge, skills, and ways of solving problems, and productivity. Hence, education, training and work experience are said to increase advancement. In addition, Burke and McKeen (1994a) mentioned that managerial women who participate in a greater number of education and training activities are more likely organizationally committed, job-satisfied and involved, and have higher career prospects. More specifically, women’s advancement to senior management is directly related to their increased knowledge and skills and professional development opportunities made available to them throughout their careers (Wentling, 2003). On the other hand, Ragins and Sundstrom (1989) also found that training can develop knowledge, skills, credentials, and credibility, and thus it will be beneficial for the promotion. Therefore, education and training seem to have a great importance to the career development of women managers. Besides that, a research by Morrison et al. (1987) indicates that managerial women should be given similar opportunities for training and development as equivalence as men. It is common for women receiving less training and development, less visible, challenging and risky job assignments, jobs that use skills such as nurturing which are both traditionally female and historically less valued. For women, training may be an essential source of expertise in managerial skills, which they may have little opportunities to gain through job assessment and work experience. Moreover, Jamali et al. (2006) emphasized that more middle women managers agree that they have fewer opportunities for professional development than men in their organizations. An interviewee in Wentling (2003) study stated that she spent four days on a management development course for executives. The course was only attended by three women and the rest was male executives who are in many cases had never worked with a woman executive. These results suggest that middle level women managers are more pessimistic in terms of accessibility to career development opportunities made available in their firms. 3.5 Women’s Career Advancement Career advancement is usually conceived as promotions in management ranks and attainment of higher management levels and pays (Miner, Chen, and Yu, 1991), and it was explained by organizational,



interpersonal, and individual theories. At the organizational level, new job hires are proposed to enter opportunity structures of internal labour markets such as promotion ladders and job types that influence opportunities for hierarchical advancement (Markham, Harlan, and Hackett, 1987). At the interpersonal level, both mentors and networks relationships are said to facilitate career and personal development in different stage of career development. Mentors are said to provide career and emotional support that facilitates the career advancement at the early stages of career development. As career progresses, informal social networks are said to facilitate advancement at all stages in career development (Burke and McKeen, 1994b). At the individual level, personal traits are said to influence the seeking of career advancement and fit with career advancement (House, Howard, and Walker, 1991). Individuals’ human capital such as work experience, training and development is proposed to increase productivity, and to be rewarded with higher status and pay (Becker, 1975). Initial and continued advancement is thought to be enhanced by managerial skills, and by the resulting high job performance (Locke, 1991). Family commitments, especially relevant in child-rearing years, are said to result in multiple roles that may reduce women’s managerial advancement (Ragins and Sundstrom, 1989). Moreover, a research by Morrison (1992) stated that a small but increasing number of organizations have implemented practices to support and develop managerial and professional for women. These organizations have reported positive outcomes such as increasing numbers of women now participating in key training and development activities, increased in the number of women on the short list for promotions and increased in the numbers of women achieving more senior positions. Therefore, there is an evidence to prove that organizational training could assist women in their career advancement. 4.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This is a quantitative study and in term of its application, it is a cause and causal study. The population of the study covers ten manufacturing firms in Klang Valley areas. The natures of these manufacturing firm's businesses are food processing, packaging, automobile, marble manufacturing and paper manufacturing. The unit of analysis for this study is individual female employees from middle level management in manufacturing firms. The middle level management definition term may be varied from the organization to organization. As such, the organization may define this category of employees based on their organizational structure. In general, for the manufacturing industry, they could categorize supervisors, foremen, technicians and line leaders as lower level. Meanwhile, executives and managers are categorized as middle level management and position such as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Operation Officer (COO) and General Manager (GM) are known as upper level management. The target sample in this study will be female executives from manufacturing firms and whereby these firms classified them as employees from the middle management based on their organizational structure. The sampling method used to collect the data is of judgment sampling method. A total of 200 sets of questionnaires was distributed to the manufacturing firms’ female executive via email and fax. However, there are only 162 sets of the questionnaires received and the remaining questionnaires are not suitable because it was not completed or does not meet the requirement. The minimum requirement of sample is one variable to ten respondents (Hair, Anderson, Tatham & Black, 2006), thus a respondent size of 162 observed in this survey is sufficient for this study. The present study is carried out using a quantitative survey with a structured questionnaire. Primary data had been used and these data were collected by distributing questionnaires to manufacturing firms’ female executives through email and fax. Telephone calls have been made to some of the respondents as follow up and to who needs additional information pertaining to the questionnaire.

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The measurement of women’s career advancement was adapted from Jawahar and Hemmasi (2006) as it was referring to the organizational support towards women’s advancement. In addition, the questionnaire for work-life balance was adapted from Thompson, Beauvais and Lyness (1999). The measurement of networking was adapted from Bozionelos (2003) as it was referring to the availability of network resources in the organization. Moreover, mentoring support assessment was adapted from Dreher and Ash (1990) as it was referring to the level of mentoring support which the mentees received from their mentors. Furthermore, the items used to measure training and development was adapted from Tharenou, Latimer and Conroy (1994) as their research also measured the frequency of the training and development. All the questions in assessing Women’s career advancement, organizational support, work-life balance, availability of network resources and training was designed with five point ordinal scales ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Meanwhile, the questions used to measure the mentoring support in designed with five points ordinal scales from to a very large extent (1) to Not at All (5). A summary of all items measured in questionnaire been developed from various sources as depicted in Table 1. A pilot test has been conducted to ensure the instrument in this study is reliable before go for the sample collection. A number of 10 sets of questionnaires have been distributed to the female executives who working in the manufacturing firms. There are some feedbacks received from the respondents on the questionnaires. All the respondents have commented that Age and Monthly Gross Income is sensitive and confidential information and they would prefer to answer the income and the age by the range of income and by the range of age group. Therefore, some modifications of the questions in the questionnaire have been made to give a better understanding to the respondents and make the respondents comfortable during answering the questionnaire. 5. 5.1

RESEARCH RESULTS Profile of the Respondents

Most of the female respondents in this study were in the age range of younger than 30 years old which stated 51.9%. In this study, Chinese obtains a higher percentage than the other races which is 56.2%. In addition, 51.2% of the respondents have an education level of Bachelor Degree. Among the entire respondent, 52.5% of them had married and 48.1% of them are having children. Descriptive analysis has found that the entire respondent only has a maximum of four children, implying that they are planning to have less number of children and more focus on their working career Moreover, there were 77.2% of female respondent are having a range of RM2000 to RM4000 monthly gross incomes and 20.4% of the respondents have worked at their current company for two years. Administration department is the popular department among the female respondent in this study which stated 34%, followed by the marketing department, finance department, manufacturing department and purchasing department with the value of 21%, 19.10%, 8.00% and 8.00% respectively. Around 37% of the respondent’s company nature business is food processing and thus followed by the packaging business with the percentage of 27.20. The Automobile business, Paper Manufacturing business and Marble Manufacturing business are following by the percentage of 16%, 11.10% and 8% respectively. 5.2

Mean Summation Score and Reliability Results of Each Variables

Since all the variables were in five point ordinal scales, it is important to check mean score for each summation score of variables. The study showed the mean of the dependent variable, Women’s Career Advancement, is 1.9514 and this indicates that most of the respondents are disagreeing that they have received support/s from an organization for their career advancement. Next follow by Networking and © ORIC Publications/2013


Work-life Balance having the value of 3.9907 and 3.9673 respectively. This indicates that most of the respondents are agreeable and perceive that networking and work-life balance are barriers to women’s career advancement. The mean of Training and Development is 2.4219. It indicated that most of the respondents are only attended 2 to 3 times training courses within the organization. Before conducting any analysis of the data, the internal consistency for each variable used has been examined by looking into their Alpha Cronbach’s score. Women’s career advancement has the value of 0.629. Work-life balance (0.869), mentoring support (0.839), networking and mentoring support have the values of 0.665 and 0.839 respectively. Training and development, do not conduct any reliability test as it measured by using the frequency of the training and development in the organization. Finally, the value of Cronbach’s for all construct is accepted for further bivariate or even multivariate analysis. 5.3

Correlation and Predictions

Prior to linear regression analysis, Pearson Product Moment Correlations were computed on selected pairs of variables and this was conducted to test for direction and strength of the correlation between variables. Examination of the correlation of the variables, women's career advancement was significantly related to work-life balance (r = -0.528), training and development (r = 0.260). Then, linear regression was employed to identify the predictor towards women's career advancement. A closer inspection of Table 2 found that the F statistic for the overall goodness of fit of the model is 16.125, which is significant at α =0. 01. This model explains 30% of the variance in financial satisfaction. This indicates that 30% of women's career advancement was explained by the linear combination of the four predictor variables. After excluding the non-significant variables, the final regression model produced by enter method is: women career advancement = 3.100 – 0.343 (work-life balance). Based on Pearson’s analysis result, work-life balance shows that work-life balance has negatively related towards the women’s career advancement. As the coding for all the work-life balance are in negative statements, this means that result was aligned with the study of Kargwell (2006) indicating women received little support from their organizations to help them to carry out their responsibilities as female employees had decided to give first priority to their families. This priority has led to a negative role of female employees in their career progression and subsequently, it has contributed to their under-representation at senior management level. Additionally, Worrall et al. (2010) have supported that lack of work-life balance as a main barrier to women’s career advancement. Studies show that work life balance practices will assist employees in balancing their work and family demands, which can in turn lead to enhanced employee productivity and significant business improvements. An analysis by Dex, Smith, and Winter (2001) found that organizations offering parental leave enjoyed above average labour productivity, and that provision of flexible work hours and telecommuting was associated with reduced turnover. In addition, Hughes (2007) also mentions that an organization can benefit from helping employees to analyse and create work life balance. Therefore, organization should adopt the work life balance practices such as flexible work hours; job sharing, telecommuting; childcare benefits, on-site childcare centers, and eldercare benefits in order to help female employees balance their work, non-work commitments then increase their productivity and lead to significant business improvements. Pearson Moment Correlation Test found that networking has no significant relationship to women’s career advancement in this study. Interestingly, this study found out that most respondents have the difficulties in building work relationships (also known as networking) especially with other female employees. The study shows that most female employees experienced discrimination from other female employees and as such they do not prefer working with female colleagues and higher-ranked female employees (refer to itemize Journal of Human And Social Science Research / Vol. 2, No. 1 (2013), 21-34


question in Table 1). This study has also found that women tend to feel difficult and challenging to deal with other female employees but they feel more comfortable when communicating and working with male colleagues or employees. Nevertheless, this preference is due to differences in gender. To drop a short note, previous studies found that networking is indeed crucial in career advancement especially in men but not for women in this study. This could be explained women’s development is unique and the use of a male model which explains career success is not appropriate for women (Gallos, 1989). Again, mentoring support has no significant correlation with women’s career advancement. Majority female employees in the study felt that mentoring support does not assist them in their career advancement or a barrier factor in the career advancement. A closer inspection towards the responses in mentoring support might find that most of the respondents from the present study choose the scale of “not at all” and “to a small extend”. A comparatively low score of means result implies that most of the females from the present study prefer to not have mentoring support. The reason behind is less female holding senior management position, thus the female at the executive level unable to get mentoring support from the female senior managers. As a consequence, the female executives have no choice than be more independent and find the other way out for career advancement. 6.

CONCLUSION

This study aims to identify the predictor towards women's career advancement among Malaysia working women. In conclusion, only one independent variable (work-life balance) has a significant relationship of the dependent variable (women’s career advancement). Training and development did have significant correlation with women’s career advancement but it was not a significant predictor in the regression model. It is worth to note that both networking and mentoring support were not contributed towards women’s career advancement in this study. As mentioned in discussion, the researchers come out with two conclusions that (1) Malaysia working female has compensated their networking time with family responsibility at home and (2), they prefer a female mentor but currently they are less female mentoring support in their organization. Currently, under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010), Malaysia government has strived to smooth the progress of higher participation of women in the nation's labour force. In lines with the work-balance matter, Malaysia government has come out with various efforts especially in providing training opportunities, encouraging flexible working hours, longer maternity leave and creating a special window in existing business financing programmers to those working female groups. In terms of laws and regulations, the government also monitoring the existing laws and regulations that discriminate against women to increase the number of participation of women in the workforce. In the future, not only for Malaysia government, other nations would need to solve the consequences of the increase proportion of women in labour force participation. Since more female indulge in formal labour force participation, older persons have greater responsibility to take care of their grandsons at home. In certain circumstances, the pressures on them are greater, due to the changes in the life cycle, such as the loss of a spouse or a decline in health that affects older persons directly. In most of the times people choose to work in order to obtain money to sustain their life and achieving their financial goal (Chan et.,al 2010). Women choose to indulge in labour force participation mainly because of family expenditure needs. However, when one partner of the marriage dies, the survivor might feel the financial stress. This risk disproportionately affects older female workers, who are nearly three times as likely as older men to be widowed in the United States (Burkhauser and Smeeding, 1991). This population has contributed to the nation development and thus, Government or even non-government organizations (NGO) are urged to



provide a different social security system in securing the economic well-being among the female working group. Noorin and her colleague in year 2010 have studied the expenditure pattern among the single mothers in Malaysia. Most of the respondents are working and the study revealed that single mother have spent, on average, about 20% of their year income in reading materials for their own human capital purposes. Instead of the formal trainings provided from the organization, this study calls for more efforts from both government and non-government organizations to develop more informal human capital opportunities among this working group enhancing their career advancement A few limitations are identified and acknowledged while conducting the results. Firstly, the limitation in this research is it only focused on the manufacturing industry. There are many industries such as banking, education, service and tourism which were not included in this study. In additional, the scope of respondents in this study just focused on female executive in the middle level management where in fact there are other categories not yet to be focused. Besides, the unbalanced ratio of races of the female employees in executive level that involve in this study does not show the actual scenario as the ratio of races of Malaysians is totally different from the ratio in the study. As we all known, the largest portion of residents in Malaysia is Malay followed by Chinese and Indians. The study is limited as it involves more Chinese female employees than the Malay female employees. Apart from that for future research, it is recommended that other factors and elements need to take into consideration, such as more broader field or industry, different level of female employees, ratio of race in Malaysia and also corporate practices and corporate culture. By having a good understanding of this research topic, it is our hope that we able to find an appropriate solution for gap of imbalance between both genders in the upper-level management and thus increase the number of women’s involvement in the upper-level management. As such, we hope the organization and employees could work together for a better working environment and to ensure that women being treated fairly in every aspect of the job related. REFERENCES [1]. [2].

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L. Yet-Mee, T. L. Peng, B. C. Yin-Fah | 33 Table 1: Source of variables items measured in questionnaire Variables, Source

Adapted Questions have been used in Questionnaire

Women’s Career Advancement, adapted by Jawahar and Hemmasi, 2006

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Work-life Balance adapted by Thompson, Beauvais and Lyness (1999)

Networking adapted by Bozionelos (2003)

Sufficient opportunities exist in my organization for women to advance into senior management position In my organization, there are equal career development opportunities for men and women According to the way my organization operates, a woman can become a senior manager in the future Women and men are respected equally in my organization In my organization, the number of women penetrating the hierarchy and achieving senior positions is steadily increasing 6. In my organization, women are primarily encouraged to apply to managerial roles 7. The men network in my organization limits women's opportunities for promotion to senior position (R) 8. In my organization, women have to perform better than their male counterparts to be promoted to the same position (R) 1. In general, managers in this organization are not accommodating of family-related needs; 2. Higher management in this organization does not encourage supervisors to be sensitive to employees' family and personal concerns 3. Higher management in this organization is not sympathetic toward employees' child care responsibilities; 4. In the event of a conflict, higher management does not understand when employees have to put their family first 5. In this organization, employees are not encouraged to strike a balance between their work and family lives 6. Higher management in this organization is not sympathetic toward employees' elder care responsibilities; 7. This organization is not supportive of employees who want to switch to less demanding jobs for family reasons 8. In this organization, it is generally not okay to talk about one's family at work 9. In this organization, employees cannot easily balance their work and family life 10. This organization does not encourage employees to set limits on where work stops and home life begins 11. In this organization it is very hard to leave during the workday to take care of personal or family matters. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Mentoring Support, adapted by Dreher and Ash (1990)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Training and Development adapted by Tharenou, Latimer and Conroy (1994)

1. 2.


There are very few individuals in the organization with whom I share emotional support, feedback and work confirmation There are very few individuals in the organization with whom I consider as best friends and share any kind of issue, professional or personal There are very few individuals in the organization with whom I frequently talk about work related topics; I personally do not know people who occupy important posts in the organization I seldom keep in touch with a number of people who are at higher levels than I am I do not have a network of friendships in the organization that can help further my career progression. Given or recommended you for challenging assignments that present opportunities to learn new skills? Given or recommended you for assignment that required personal contact with managers in different parts of company? Given or recommended you for assignment that increases your contact with higher level managers? Given or recommended you for assignment that helped you meet new colleagues? Helped you finish assignment/task or meet deadlines that otherwise would have been difficult to complete? Gone out of his/her way to promote your career interests? Conveyed feelings of respect for you as an individual? Conveyed empathy for the concerns and feelings you have discussed with him/her? Encouraged you to talk openly about anxiety and fears that detract from your work? Shared personal experiences as an alternative perspective to your problems? Shared history of his/her career with you? Encouraged you to prepare for advancement? Encouraged you to try new ways of behaving on the job? Served as a role model? Displayed attitudes and values similar to your own? How many times in your employment with this organization have you participated in training courses run by your organization? How many times in your employment with this organization have you participated in training courses run by outside organization?

34 | A Study on Women's Career Advancement in Malaysia Table 2: Summary of Multiple Regression Analyses for Women Career Advancement

Unstandardized Coefficients

Variables

B (Constant) Networking

Std. Error

Standardized Coefficients

t

Sig.

Beta

3.100

0.396

7.833

0.000

0.025

0.061

0.029

0.409

0.683

Work-life Balance

-0.343

0.052

-0.480

-6.662

0.000

Mentoring Support

0.096

0.07

0.098

1.382

0.169

-0.027

0.016

-0.121

-1.707

0.090

Training and Development R square = 0.301 ,df = 4 ; F = 16.125 ; p = 0.000

Fig. 1 Research Framework: The barriers that hinder the career advancement of female employees.


A Study on Women's Career Advancement in Malaysia

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