Effects of Glass Ceiling on Women Career Development in Private Sector Organizations – Case of Sri Lanka

Abstract

The study was entirely designed by centering the focal problem of the effect of Glass Ceiling on Women Career Development. The overall study was structure based on the conceptual framework built up using the information of literature survey. The study was conducted with the aim of obtaining the following objective. That is “To find out the Effect of Glass Ceiling on Women Career Development with regard to female executive level employees who are working in private sector organizations.” At the same time, hypotheses are developed to find out whether there is a significant effect of Individual Factors, Family Factors, Organizational Factors and Cultural Factors on Women Career development. Merely this study has been completed with an empirical survey which was thoroughly conducted using a self-administered questionnaire and the sample consisted of 150 women executives. For presenting and analyzing the data both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The findings reveal that the Glass Ceiling and Women Career Development have a moderate negative relationship, and also show that Individual Factors, Organizational Factors and Cultural Factors have a significant effect on Women Career Development whereas Family Factor has effects on the Glass Ceiling. Following the study results, a conclusion was eventually made that there are significant effects of the Glass Ceiling on Women Career Development of Executive level female employees working in private sector organizations in Sri Lanka. By taking all these facts into consideration, better recommendations have been made in this study. Finally, the most valuable suggestions for further studies and limitations of the study have been outlined.