Towards understanding experiences of women aspiring to senior management positions within a business environment

D.Phil.Equality, status and remuneration of women in the workforce remain of on-going interest and concern. Although extensive research has been conducted into this field, intensely personal experiences of women in the work environment is an important area to be researched, as this may hold the key to assisting them in successfully reaching the higher echelons within the business world. Insight into women’s workplace experiences is a worldwide need in order to improve empowerment and equality in the workplace. Unfortunately this type of insight is lacking in the body of research that is currently available. The motivation for this study entitled: Towards Understanding Experiences of Women Aspiring to Senior Management Positions within a Business Environment was to examine the intensely personal experiences and emotions of women striving to achieve a senior place in the business hierarchy, especially when they encounter unexpected obstacles such as workplace bullying. The researcher has experienced many challenges that have influenced her career over her last ten years at work. Undertaking an auto-ethnographic study, an approach she wasn’t even aware of until 2006, provided her with the opportunity to study these events and experiences, and to learn from the knowledge gained, and thereby put forward suggestions to effect the social change that is required to improve a career woman’s quality of life. The aims of this research study were to understand the context of the research participants’ work situations and their resultant experiences, to propose actions to relieve the negative emotions and behaviours that may occur during such situations, as well as generate knowledge and add to existing theories. This research explores and describes the realities of two working women, and how they make sense of their worlds and experiences. The researcher has adopted elements of post-modernism as well as some positivistic and modernistic components which occur in varying degrees along the qualitative research continuum. While qualitative researchers hold different views regarding the incorporation and relevance of literature to their research topic, the researcher has incorporated both literature and theory in this thesis. Insights gained from the lived experiences of the research participants have been applied by means of analytical induction to relevant theory and contributeto the body of knowledge