The Main Factors Influencing the Promotion of Female Leaders in Chinese Organization

Abstract

While scholars have paid more attention to the study of female leadership compared with past decades, there are still questions that need to be answered. We try to explore the main factors influencing the promotion of female leaders in Chinese different organizations (i.e., the government, state-owned enterprise and the private sector) and proposed actions for female leaders themselves (internal) and the family, the society (external) to take so as to improve the situation. We adopt mixed design including both qualitative and quantitative methods. First, we conduct eighteen semi-structured interviews within three types of organizations. We find that the institutional factor under the Chinese context, domestic responsibility (especially children), guanxi/relationship and professional certificate play vital roles in affecting the promotion of female leaders. Next, we build multilevel models to test and prove that professional certificate affects the promotion of female leaders with statistical significance by analyzing 135,666 managers in 3,687 Chinese listed companies between 1999 and 2017. We find that the influence of professional certificate is consistent across 79 industries and 31 provinces where the headquarters of 3,687 Chinese listed companies locate. Finally, we provide suggestions for management practice and future research.