Facilitators and barriers to women’s access to top management positions in the hospitality industry

Abstract

The current study proposes a model to analyze the factors that facilitate or impede women’s access to management positions in the hospitality industry, including individual-level (perception of women’s leadership skills and experience), institutional-level (organizational misconceptions of women, stereotypes and organizational cultural barriers) and interactional-level (work-life balance). Data were collected from women managers in 261 hotels in Madrid and the headquarters of the top 25 Spanish hotel chains. The conceptual model was tested by partial least squares (SmartPLS 3.0). The results indicate the three levels of influence on women being promoted to management positions, institutional-level factors being the main barriers in discrimination.