Career mobility among filipino women managers in the food industry as influenced by career factors and strategies

This study attempts to identify and assess the effects of external, personal, and internal factors as well as career strategies on career mobility. It also derived and described a typology of women managers according to the relationship between career factors, career strategies, and career mobility.One-hundred sixteen women middle managers from 42 Filipino companies engaged in the production, processing and/or distribution of agricultural food commodities and processed food products were included in the survey. The primary data was gathered through an 11-page questionnaire originally designed by Burke, Divinagracia, and Mamo (1996), and modified as well as extended (to measure internal factors) by the researcher. Frequency analysis, t-test, chi-square analysis, factor analysis, logistic regression, path analysis, and cluster analysis were used to analyze the data.The study found out that career mobility among middle managers in the food industry is still generally a product of personal factors rather than external and internal factors and the frequency of use of career strategies. The emergence of age as a consistent negative career mobility factors suggests a probable bias in food companies against older women middle managers. The relationship of internal factors, in particular goal orientation, on career mobility is indirect (via inside and outside networking) and implies the importance of instilling in women managers the importance of career planning for career advancement. Filipino women middle managers should also develop their inside and outside networking skills to overcome the career barrier of lack of access to development opportunities in their current companies. Lastly, the passive adoption of career strategies and seeming unawareness to the existence of negative external factors of women managers can be attributed largely to the socialization of Filipina women. Generally, Filipinas have been socialized not to have high career and work expectations as well as to be not assertive