Contributions of women managers to the UK construction industry

Women are constantly underrepresented in the UK construction industry due to variousbarriers they face in entering, remaining and progressing in the industry. The lack ofwomen employees has become a prominent issue as the industry needs to tackle theshortage of skilled labour and manage equality and diversity issues in construction.Taking both of these problems into account, there is a need for a 'two-way' dialoguebetween women and the construction industry to increase women's representation whilebenefiting the construction industry through women's contributions. Many researchstudies have focused on how the industry could help women by removing any barriersthey face. However, there is a dearth of research focusing on the contributions made bywomen to the construction industry to benefit the industry. This has been identified as theknowledge gap in the field of study.Women managers are the focus of this study for three reasons namely; they have been inthe industry for long enough to understand the context, culture and difficulties; they havealready progressed in their career while in the industry, despite the barriers identified andthey have attained a position where they possess a certain level of power and authority tomake decisions and influence policy.This research is philosophically placed in the phenomenological paradigm and adopts anexploratory, multiple and holistic case study research approach. A literature review and aseries of interviews with experts were undertaken to improve the knowledge of the fieldof study and associated concepts pertaining to the research. In-depth interviews, personalattributes questionnaires, multifactor leadership questionnaires and a literature reviewformed the data collection techniques. Content analysis and cognitive mapping techniqueswere used for analysis of the semi structured interviews.The contributions made by women managers at various levels of the construction industryhave been explored, and during this exploration the research analysed the leadershipstyles and personal attributes of women managers. Mentoring and coaching; problemresolution; team management; collaboration; leadership; decision making; role models;career awareness and image campaign; and cultural improvements are identified as themajor contributions made by women managers to the construction industry. The researchalso identified the factors influencing and the benefits of the contributions made bywomen managers