Women’s advancement in the German hospitality industry despite of the glass ceiling

Bachelorarbeit von Maike Winkler

Introduction:

Today, women represent 40 % of the labor force worldwide and continually climb up the hierarchical ladder of organizations. However, they do not overcome 20 % with regard to higher management levels. Interestingly, a share of only two to three percent of women is represented in executive management positions within globally relevant corporations. This number points out that the lack of females in top levels is a global phenomenon.

According to Wirth, the situation of females in the labor market has enhanced in the last decades. However, reports of the German Federal Statistical Office show that in 2004, only 1.7 million female workers were holding senior positions in comparison to 3.3 million male workers in the service industry throughout Germany. Consequently, these figures lead to the assumption that obstacles in terms of the glass ceiling metaphor seem to exist. Knutson and Schmidgall characterized a glass ceiling as ‘an invisible, generally artificial barrier that prevents qualified individuals such as women from advancing within the organization and reaching their full potential.’ Prior researches indicated that obstacles that result in the glass ceiling effect are linked to disparities in, for instance, gender stereotypes as well as equal employment opportunities. In addition, according to Oakley, organizational, behavioral, cultural and structural explanations mirror barriers that lead to the glass ceiling.

‘The more senior and well-paid the post, the more likely it is to be filled by a man, despite women’s numerical predominance in the industry’. Keeping this meaningful quotation in mind, this research was conducted in order to provide women in the hospitality sector in Germany with ideas and promising steps to advance in their career by breaking the glass ceiling. Therefore, in combination with a literature review, in-depth and open-ended interviews with females working in leadership positions in the German hospitality industry were executed in order to identify personal experiences and interpretations of the issue.

[…] In correspondence to the preliminary discussed background of the topic, the research in this thesis is concerned with the question of how women can break the glass ceiling in order to advance to executive positions in the German hospitality industry. The background analysis revealed that women seem to be underrepresented in valued and powerful jobs. Thus, taking this into consideration, one might hypothesize an interconnection between the glass ceiling and a scarcity of females in powerful positions in terms of stereotyping, equal employment opportunities and work-life balances.

This thesis focused on one major objective: the identification of opportunities to break the glass ceiling. […] For the purpose of meeting the research aims, a qualitative research approach was chosen to obtain empirical data in terms of learning about personal career fates and perceptions of interviewees in a curious and critical way. Hence, it appears to be more likely to obtain a definite answer to the proposed research questions than in quantitative research. As the topic of breaking the glass ceiling can be described as a sensitive issue this approach was chosen to manage complex and ambiguous data.

Moreover, the qualitative approach was taken on the basis of phenomenological motivations in order to understand how the glass ceiling metaphor appears to others on the basis of their subjective experiences and interpretations. Denscombe defined qualitative data as a ‘product of a process of interpretation.’ Therefore, in terms of data analysis, data is being produced by a researcher with the objective to identify patterns and interconnections among natural ideas.

Face-to-face, open-ended and in-depth interviews with women in leading positions within the German hospitality industry were conducted. Semi-structured interview questions were used to guide the interviewees through the topics to be addressed during the interview in order to facilitate the process of comparing samples and to minimize the risk of different interpretations.

Nevertheless, the approach allowed flexibility, dependent on answers of the respondents, in order to learn deeper about individual experiences and thoughts. In this context, interviewees were given the opportunity to openly present their perceptions, advancement support or hindering incidents during their career from a female point of view. Naturally, the content of the interview questions corresponded to assumptions and key issues discussed in the literature review. In order to accomplish the overall aim, to identify own recommendations in terms of advancement tools to break the glass ceiling, results were summarized and addressed in chapter four and an answer to the proposed research question can be obtained in chapter five.

[…] The first part of the thesis is concerned with an explanation of the focus of the topic while giving the reader brief insights into the research problem in order to raise interest already in the introductory chapter.

Furthermore, the determined aims that have been formed in accordance with the research question, lead to the research design in which for instance methodological and sample size decisions are being presented. Detailed descriptions can be found in the separate chapter methodology.

The proposal was used to concentrate on relevant sources during the data collection process in terms of literature and interviews. On the one hand, data analysis of literature can be found in chapter two in which the impact of the glass ceiling on women’s career advancement is discussed on the basis of theories and results from previous researchers; on the other hand, chapter four continues with the actual interview results.

Finally, these results are compared in the context of the research question and presented in the conclusions. Hence, recommendations were developed on the basis of the overall research results.

Table of Contents:

Text Sample:

Chapter 3.2, Research justification and appropriateness of methods:

As mentioned above, qualitative face-to-face interviews aimed at encouraging and inspiring respondents to discuss freely about life stories, personal experiences and perceptions in the context of the glass ceiling. Therefore, the possibility to receive sincere insights into experiences and views beyond ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers while revealing actual examples and interpretations of the glass ceiling’s impact on women’s career advancement, seemed to be high. A total of 19 questions provided guidance for topics to be addressed. Interview questions and insights into aspirations can be found in appendix 4. According to Opie, semi-structured interviews allow more flexibility in terms of the order of questions and scope for answers of interviewees in comparison to structured interviews.

Following Baumert, a researcher should listen actively to statements of interviewees while being sensitive about the perceptions of respondents and show great interest by asking further details (‘tell me more about it’). This approach, called elaborations probes, was used since the interviewee is encouraged to talk about an issue. The majority of the questions were open in order to receive detailed and thorough answers from interviewees who were stimulated to reply in their own words. The respondents could decide about issues that they wanted to emphasize or which aspects they liked to consider to a certain. Indeed, these questions were partially structured to allow flexibility and focus at the same time. Thus, the interview was designed to give respondents the chance to characterize their interpretations; however, the focus in order to receive privileged insights into feelings and experiences was determined in advance.

According to Kohli, the qualitative interview targets at a higher participation of the interviewee as they are free to explain and formulate specific incidents in a way how they perceive, experience and estimate certain developments increasing the opportunity of the interviewee to influence the order of topics. In addition to the majority of open questions, a few supporting questions were asked in order to receive ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers that are easier to analyze and compare without being time intensive. However, it seems that fewer information can be obtained and life stories are likely to be hidden since the conversational partner is not appealed to talk about own incidents. The threat lies in an impersonal and uncomfortable atmosphere.

Therefore, following these arguments, I decided carefully about the combination of both question types. On the contrary, quantitative studies allow embracing a larger amount of participants; however, a quantitative approach bears considerable threats in validity and reliability since surveys limit the possibility of the participants to mention personal experiences and reveal a meaning behind interpretations. Statistics neither address people personally nor create a basis for trust.

3.3, Description of procedure:

First of all, a test interview was conducted in order to check the topics and order of the questions to ensure, on the one hand, that the interviewees feel comfortable with the questions while simultaneously providing comprehensibility, appropriateness and linkage to the theoretical framework.

Following the qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were used that encouraged seven women to reflect on their personal experiences, attitudes and perceptions in terms of the influence of the glass ceiling during their career. I did not have difficulties to raise interest about the topic and motivate respondents to participate in the interview.

After sending an E-Mail to inform them about the idea of conducting an interview, the respondents were called to explain topic and intention of research and appointments were set. Furthermore, age, work experience in different destinations and general background were taken into consideration as assortment criteria. Interviews varied from one to one and a half hours and were conducted between October and early November 2009 (09.10.09, 13.10.09, 14.10.09, 15.10.09, 16.10.09, 19.10.09, 02.11.09).

Having taped the interviews, transcripts that consisted of 55 pages were prepared to facilitate the content analysis and identification of categories. The interview language was German as it was the mother tongue of the interviewer as well as interviewees. Important quotations can be found in English throughout the thesis with the German translation in parenthesis to maintain the original meaning.