The current state of female leadership in the United Arab Emirates

Linzi J. Kemp · Susan R. Madsen · Mohammed A. El‐Saidi

45 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Global Responsibility

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Gender Diversity and Inequality Gender Politics and Representation Media, Gender, and Advertising

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to research the state of affairs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the presence (or absence) of women in senior business leadership positions, and to investigate where they are located within organizations (e.g. board members, chief officers, vice presidents, top management, division or unit heads). Design/methodology/approach This is a quantitative gender analysis of 954 organizations; based on data available from the Zawya database that tracks information about public and private companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Findings Women are still underrepresented in senior company and top department leadership positions, however, they are found slightly (but not significantly) more in departmental leadership, pseudo services and hospitality industries, and in smaller and public companies. Research limitations/implications The database utilized did not contain completed company data; specifically any response variable; hence, the study was descriptive in nature and lacked advanced statistical techniques for comparison and relationship analysis. Practical implications This study provides helpful insights for government leaders, as well as educators, and scholars, who work to help prepare women for leadership in this region. For business practitioners, the presence and development of female business leaders extends choice and increases value in the human resource pool. Social implications The authors believe that it is important that UAE females take up roles in both the public and private sector so they can become more effective role models to a rising generation of female workers. Originality/value This is one of the first scholarly studies conducted on the presence of women leaders in various sectors within the UAE.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 45 citations exist upstream.

References

2008Women, Management and Globalization in the Middle East 2005Women, work, and Islam in Arab societies 2010Perceived organizational barriers to women's career advancement in Lebanon 2001Women in management: a comparative cross‐cultural overview 2010Typology of career development for Arab women managers in the United Arab Emirates 2008Women in management in the Arab context 2009The Current Arab Work Ethic: Antecedents, Implications, and Potential Remedies 2001Beliefs about work in the Middle East and the convergence versus divergence of values

Cited by

2019Transformational leadership behaviours of women in a socially dynamic environment 2014Oman's labour force: an analysis of gender in management 2017Women in leadership in Kuwait: a research agenda 2022Challenging gender norms: women’s leadership, political authority, and autonomy

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.