Vidya Scopus

380 Int. J. Management Practice, Vol. 10, No.
4, 2017
Perceived career challenges and response

strategies of women managers in Indian
five-star hotels: a mixed-method study
Vidya Patwardhan*
Welcomgroup Graduate School of
Hotel Administration (WGSHA),
Manipal University,
Manipal 576104, Karnataka, India
Email: vidya.patwardhan@manipal.edu
*Corresponding author
Sureshramana Mayya
Department of Commerce,
Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College,
Udupi 576101, Karnataka, India
Email: sureshmayya@hotmail.com
Harish Joshi
School of Management,
Manipal University,
Manipal 576104, Karnataka, India
Email: hg.joshi@manipal.edu
Abstract: This descriptive phenomenological study is designed to investigate

and describe the lived career experiences of women managers in Indian five-
star hotels. Data were collected from face-to-face interviews with 29 women
managers of two five-star hotels in Delhi and one five-star hotel in Mumbai
along with responses to open-ended questions from 158 women managers of 46
five-star hotels in the cities of Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, and
Bangalore and analysed in lines of qualitative content analysis. The content
analysis of the data yielded 13 themes related to career experiences of women
managers that enabled and hindered their career progression. Findings revealed
that women managers in five-star hotels are keen to ascend to leadership
positions and they expect organisations to realise the promise of diversity to
facilitate their career ambitions. They adjust their feelings of satisfaction and
develop career strategies to reduce dissonance with their lack of ability to attain
executive positions. The findings of this study may be useful for women who
desire advancement to executive positions and to organisational leaders who
wish to hire and promote the right person regardless of gender.
Keywords: women managers; India; five-star hotels; career advancement;

career challenges; career strategies.
Copyright © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Perceived career challenges and response strategies 381
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Patwardhan, V., Mayya, S.

and Joshi, H. (2017) ‘Perceived career challenges and response strategies
of women managers in Indian five-star hotels: a mixed-method study’,
Int. J. Management Practice, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp.380–405.
Biographical notes: Vidya Patwardhan is working for one of the reputed hotel
management institutes in India, Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel
Administration, Manipal University, Manipal. She has total work experience of
25 years both in teaching and administration. She is involved in teaching
undergraduate and post graduate students of hotel management and tourism
studies. She has completed PhD in Management from Manipal University,
India.
Sureshramana Mayya has been working as an Associate Professor and Head,

Department of Commerce, MGM College, Udupi. He has completed 34 years
of experience in teaching and research field. He has guided more than
25 candidates for MPhil and three for PhD in management. He has 50 national
and 5 international publications to his credit. He completed 5 major research
projects financed by various research agencies like UGC, ICSSR, ICA, DSIR,
and DST.
Harish Joshi is Professor at School of Management, Manipal University. He is

the Chair Person for Dr. TMA Pai Chair for Social Entrepreneurship and
Coordinator of Center for Social Entrepreneurship, Manipal University. His
area of expertise includes management, entrepreneurship, accountancy,
operations management and global business. He has undertaken various
research projects on women entrepreneurship, rural development and
community health. He has over 23 years of teaching and administrative
experience.
1 Introduction
1.1 Women in workforce

For the last four decades, the gender issues have occupied the centre stage of
development debate in India. Consequently the Equal Remuneration Act (1976), which
addresses the gender-based discrimination concerns in respect of recruitment, wages,
work transfers, and promotions came into existence. Moreover, the principle of gender
equality is enshrined in the Indian Constitution in its Preamble and Directive Principles.
Within the framework of a democratic policy, the Institution grants equality to women
and empowers the State to adopt measures of positive discrimination in favour of
women. Articles 14, 15 (1), 15(3), 16, 42, and 15(A) (e) are of specific importance in this
regard (Gender Resource Centre, 2003). As a result, discernible changes have happened
in the context of women’s employment in India. Prior to this, the percentage of women
participating in the formal employment was considerably low and most of them were
confined to the traditional professions like teaching, banking, nursing etc. Among them,
the number of women reaching the top of the organisational pyramid was meagre.
It was in the 1980s that women in India started entering the managerial ranks in the
organisations (Nath, 2000). Currently women have carved a niche for themselves both in
education and employment. The women of modern India are more inclined towards
382 V. Patwardhan, S. Mayya and H. Joshi
acquiring professional education, involving in utilising their skills and knowledge, and
striving for equal opportunities. This can be attributed to the greater social acceptance for
women with children to work and their inclination towards higher education. The socio-
cultural barriers that had existed earlier have turned into advantages today. The Indian
women enjoy a safety net unlike their Western counterparts because of the less
individualistic and family oriented Indian culture (Nath, 2000).
Many social and employment norms have been rearranged within an established
pattern with only superficial effects on employment of women at the management levels.
The second-order change, where a transformation of fundamental pattern which require a
reinforcing change in the context (Marshall, 1995) by breaking the prevailing cultural
values, assumptions and taking the route of reform that must be brought in by the power
holders within the current systems is attempted and addressed but seems to have familiar
patterns in new guises. Despite few well-publicised exceptions, presence of women at the
board level is still appallingly low worldwide including Indian organisations. Women
giving up their megawatt careers due to complex demands creating a new trend called
“opting-out revolution” or “off-ramps” (Hewlett and Luce, 2005) resonates the need to
investigate women’s career paths. This trend is more prevalent among the women of
“sandwich generation” reminding the pervasiveness of traditional division of labour
which makes women deal with a combination of push and pull factors. According to
various feminist scholars, hospitality industry is not an exception, where, absence of
women in top management owing to organisational barriers as well as self-imposed
barriers continue to take the centre stage of career development discussions (Knutson,
1999; Woods and Viehland, 2000; Ng and Pine, 2003; Brownell, 2004; Zhong, 2006;
Ladkin and Reklitis 2007; Boone, 2013; Clerk, 2014). In India, although the participation
of women is increasing in the recent past, the rate falls behind other countries. Across
various sectors of the economy women remain under-represented at senior management
levels and they continue to be the minority in vast majority of the company boards.
According to MasterCard Worldwide Index on Women’s Advancement (2014), in India,
female labour force participation was only 35.9% in 2012 which is the least as among the
South East Asian Countries. In 2015, instead of an increase, it further decreased by 0.1%
and stands at 35.8%. The presence of women in top level management tapered off
sharply and they hold just 15% of the top posts. The numbers dropped even further in the
biggest companies and only 4.5% of the chiefs in Fortune 1000 companies are women.
As per NDTV (2014) report, compared to the global average of 20%, only 4% of
working women in India make it to senior leadership positions in the corporate sector.
1.2 Tourism and hospitality industry in India

The Indian tourism and hospitality industry has become one of the key drivers of growth
among the service industries. It is a 7.6 trillion US dollars’ global industry that created
277 million jobs (one in 11) for the global economy in 2014 (World Travel and Tourism
Council, 2015). It contributes to 6.23% to the National GDP and 8.78% of the
employment in the country (Market Research, 2013). The travel and tourism industry
contributed Rs.2.17 trillion (US$ 36 billion) or 2% to the country’s gross domestic
product (GDP) in 2013. The figures are expected to rise to Rs.4.35 trillion (US$ 72.17
billion) by 2024 (Shine.com, 2014). The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report of
2013, published by World Economic Forum, India, stated that India ranked 11th in the
Asia Pacific region and 65th in the World Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index
2013 (Shine.com, 2014). Highlighting the sector’s employment-generation potential, the

World Travel and Tourism Council reports that India’s travel and tourism sector has the
capacity to employ approximately 50 lakh people directly or indirectly by 2019 and it
would be the second-largest employer in the world. According to Cushman and
Wakefield (C&W) (2014), a leading global real estate Consultant Company, the
hospitality sector will see a growth of over 65% in total hotel inventory by 2017. Around
52,000 new hotel rooms are expected to come into existence in the next five years (2013–
2017). As predicted by Hospitality Valuation Services (HVS) work force survey 2014,
the required work force by 2021 would be 7458 managers for luxury segment and 9807
for the five-star categories alone with 34,582 managers across all categories of the star
hotels.
1.3 Women in hospitality – challenges

Development opportunities for women have increased following the growth in tourism
and hospitality sector and the presence of multinational hotel companies in India.
However, at the same time, there appears to be some disconnect between the nature of
the job, the nature of the industry and the issues concerning their personal life, which is
adversely affecting their professional life. Institutional barriers and social attitudes
towards women’s abilities at times hamper the movement of women to the higher
echelons of management and they may be struggling to reach the top positions in the
hospitality industry because of multiple commitments (Ng and Pine, 2003; Zhong, 2006;
Baum 2013). Owing to gender socialisation and social expectation, there will be a role
conflict for women and at the same time, the culture of hospitality is quite demanding
due to irregular working hours and pressures of work (Ng and Pine, 2003; Zhong, 2006;
Kumar, 2014). The existence of segregation in the hospitality sector might have forced
women to engage in jobs with lower status (Kattara, 2005). Along with organisational
barriers such as perception of feminine traits, inhospitable culture and lack of
networking, the self-imposed barriers are also becoming major obstacles as noticed by
researchers (Boone, 2013). Ideally, in a workplace with seven-day week operation,
opportunities have to exist for women to advance in their managerial career at a
comparable rate. Although it would appear that, the employment in this sector is
advantageous for career-oriented women, why then is the hotel industry struggling to
retain women who wish to take advantage of the career paths offered? As noted by Acker
(2006), is the five-star hotel industry a place of opportunity for career-oriented women
managers or is it still an “inequality regime”?
Against this backdrop, the study started with an attitude of curiosity rather than
combating the contentious territory where the possible phenomenon of women leaving
the hotel industry is still pervasive. The purpose was to explore the experiences of
organisational life of women in hotel industry to ascertain the career growth patterns and
prospects at the managerial levels. It was also intended to examine whether the women
managers in Indian five-star hotels perceive career advancement issues differently than
their Western counterparts. In our opinion this study is important, at both micro and
macro levels. First, it builds on earlier research contributions, such as Ng and Pine
(2003), Brownell (2004), Zhong (2006), Chaudhary and Gupta (2010), Panwar (2012),
Catalyst (2012), Boone (2013), Subramaniam (2014) and Baum (2015). Second, while,
the Indian research studies investigating women manager’s career advancement inform
us about the current state of research, the boundaries between the interconnected issues
impacting their career growth remain somewhat imprecise and contributing to a less than
coherent field of knowledge. Hence our aim was to conduct an extensive evaluation of
recent research to discern patterns and frameworks that can contribute to our current
understanding of their career experiences. Third, we made use of a mix of quantitative
and qualitative methods to explore the subjective and objective facets of career growth,
which is an under-researched domain in the Indian context. Fourth, this paper has
practical implications for both the women managers and organisational leaders towards
understanding the career obstacles, personal choices, career strategies, relationship
priorities and organisational support systems. Fifth, India is becoming a young country
with rich heritage, having 40% of the population under age 35 (Shamberg, 2016) and the
concentration of young working-age people is growing up builds the case for why
women’s career have to be studied separately from men’s careers. It is these concerns
that frame the rationale for this paper.
2 Literature review
Much prior research has examined a series of variables that explained women’s career
advancement or barriers in their careers in the Western context. Although limited and
inconclusive, little research has been directed toward the identification of factors
influencing upward mobility of hospitality women managers even in the Indian context.
These reports provided a fairly succinct account of the nature of women’s career
experiences. This review of literature is guided by this prior research.
2.1 Contributing factors to career advancement of women managers

Previous research findings that look at major contributors to women manager’s career
success reveal several recurring factors. Omotayo et al. (2014) report that promotion to
an executive position is an interplay between manager’s competence, efforts and
organisational support and encouragement. According to Knutson (1999) men and
women use different strategies to excel and rise to the top and the most important
strategy women adopt is to exceed expectations. The corollary strategies may be seeking
out high visibility assignments (Catalyst, 2012), responsible for a large workforce,
accepting complicated assignments, trying to gain management experience (Nzioka,
2013), working in cross-functional areas (Burke and Nelson, 2002), having an influential
mentor (Burke and Nelson, 2002), relocating (Clerk, 2014), changing jobs and
companies, effective inter-personal skills, communicating effectively (Brownell, 1999)
and developing a style with which men are comfortable (Ladkin, 2002; Catalyst, 2012).
The existence of management learning (Bryans and Sharon, 2003), organisational
support systems (Culpan and Wright, 2002), mentoring (Mattis, 2002), networking
(Wirth, 2001), training and development programs (Loutfi, 2001; Wirth, 2001), and
organisation cultures that support women (Bajdo and Dickson, 2001) have been found to
be very important for women’s advancement to management positions. Women
managers in Indian organisations have been generally successful in rising to managerial
positions despite a culture that might suggest otherwise. They are successful may be
because of the positive interplay between the organisational and familial support coupled
with personal drive for success (Nath, 2000).
2.2 Glass ceiling

The glass ceiling that prevented women from reaching the top positions in management
may be showing cracks but it still exists. This creates bottleneck for women to climb the
corporate ladder and prevents them from attaining top-level positions (Eagly and Carli,
2007). Although women are well educated, they are pushed into a constricted range of
occupations, where there is less responsibility, lesser pay, limited authority and minimum
opportunities for advancement (Smith, et al., 2012). It has generated a lot of discussion in
the literature related to “women in management” in particular and the women in
hospitality in general (Flanders, 1994; Knutson and Schmidgall, 1999; Eagly and Carli,
2007; Winkler, 2010; Yang, 2011; Singh, 2011). Though glass ceiling still be present, the
women managers from the Indian corporate world are making an effort to disintegrate it
though perseverance, determination and increased participation in managerial roles
(Singh, 2011).
2.3 Gender stereotyping

Those women who gain access to managerial positions may have been able to move up
the hierarchy, yet discrimination continues subtly. Classically women are considered as
more communal and men as more agentic. Communal characteristics are related to
welfare of other people and agentic characteristics describe a more aggressive, dominant,
assertive, and confident, which have been traditionally aligned with leadership roles.
Owing to this, women face a double disadvantage: if they display agency, they
are punished for gender non-conformity, (Ezzedeen, 2009) and if they display shared
qualities, they are judged as communal. As Heilman (2012) claims, gender stereotypes
are the basis of biased evaluative judgements and discriminatory treatment of women in
work settings. Sometimes women managers are challenged with balancing passiveness
with assertiveness to satisfy the expectations of colleagues and superiors (Schulz and
Enslin, 2014).
2.4 Gender inequality

This feminine management style characterised by strong relationship orientation brings
with it discriminatory practices creating significant gender segmentation of labour
in the hotel industry (Chaudhary and Gupta, 2010). While women have proven their
management capabilities, certain factors stymie their advancement due to negative
attitudes toward them that are often difficult to detect because they lie below the surface
(Knutson and Schmidgall, 1999). A study of 1550 hospitality managers in the USA
showed that the most common reason for women managers to leave the hospitality
industry is either gender discrimination or sexual harassment (Woods and Cavanaugh,
1994). Another study by Sparrow and Iverson (1999) showed the presence of more
covert forms of gender discrimination in hospitality industry and the income of women
was still lower than that of men (Woods and Viehland, 2000). Schulz and Enslin (2014)
pronounce that gender bias continues to play a role in the gender incongruity at
managerial levels in organisations across the USA, though women hold 51% of all
middle management positions.
2.5 Social structure and culture

As an add on, the social structure of the corporate world reflects a sex segregation of
professions in which women congregate in the lower levels of the hierarchy and in the
“velvet ghettos” of staff functions (e.g., human resources) (as cited in Bowles, 2012).
These stereotypically female-oriented career paths lead women away from the core
functions (Wirth, 2001) and deter them from accumulating the requisite skills and the
experience required to succeed in high-level positions (Bowles, 2012). Cultural values,
which both stem from and reinforce the social structure, further weaken women’s
potential for top positions by influencing expectations that men will be in charge
and women will behave in a subservient (relational) manner (Eagly and Karau, 2002;
Eagly and Carli, 2007). The social values and customs regarding women’s family
responsibilities place them in “time bounds” that interrupt the work and the family with
one another in physically and psychologically draining ways (Mainiero and Sullivan,
2005). This undermines women’s work, commitment, aspirations, and capacity to attain
the high-level positions (Bowles, 2012).
2.6 Double bind
The various dimensions of glass ceiling discussed in the previous sections, creates a set
of conflicting demands that require women demonstrate contradictory behaviour and set
them up for harsh judgement to, no matter which behaviour is adopted and forces women
to choose from equally unsatisfactory alternatives (Catalyst, 2007). It manifests itself
in three predicaments - extreme perception, the high competence threshold, and
competent but disliked. The backlash against women happens at three levels: individual,
organisational, and societal. Women are attacked for violating stereotypes and the
stereotyped expectations are punished in subtle and not so subtle ways (Burke and Major,
2014). As a result, the women in the workplace face double binds and they need to
monitor their agency (Burke and Major, 2014).
2.7 Work–Life balance

Adapting themselves to the environment women are trying to prioritise personal and
professional goals. The work–life boundary for hospitality managers whose commitment
and loyalty present a challenge to employers. In hospitality industry, the concept of WLB
is more complex due to the nature and characteristics of the industry wherein the issues
related to time balance, which concerns the amount of time spent in the workplace,
involvement balance which concerns the level of physical and psychological involvement
and satisfaction balance which concerns with the level of satisfaction between work and
non-work roles (Lakshminarayanan, 2013) collides with each other. This is predicted on
the premise that despite work–life balance affects both the genders, married women are
the most affected since they have to play multiple roles to strike a balance between work
and family (Wheatley, 2012).
These findings from the literature review related to facilitators and barriers so far are
however based on conceptual ideas theorised predominantly from the mainstream
literature and empirically tested within the geographic focus with a relatively limited
understanding of the position of women in management in the Indian context. Some
researchers in the past have inspected the status of women in countries including
Egypt (Kattara, 2005), Lebanon (Jamali et al., 2006, Tlaiss, 2010), China (Yang, 2011),
Malaysia (Jogulu, 2011), New Zealand (Mooney, 2009), Singapore (Li, 2001). Their
findings are based on the mixed viewpoints with no empirical link between career
advancement and visible barriers. In India, prior research that focuses on women’s career
advancement is infrequent, with some notable exceptions (Chaudhary and Gupta, 2010;
Chaudhary and Gupta, 2011; CSR, 2010; Singh, 2011; Panwar, 2012; Subramaniam,
2014). In comparison, the gender differences including pay disparity were more
significant in the mainstream literature and the findings are not correlated to those of
previous studies when examining the obstacles to career advancement. The glass ceiling
metaphor still remains integral to any discussions on career advancement of women in
the mainstream literature, evidence of its continued relevance is hard to find in Indian
hotels. Thus, this paper argues that critical attention should be paid to both “visible” and
“invisible” factors affecting career advancement of women in hotel industry, and in doing
so, highlight why women managers of Indian five-star hotels are not able to establish
their careers. In conclusion, a number of issues that emerged from the review of literature
raises questions about the necessity of conforming in order to progress in one’s career.
3 Method
Mixed methods research is both a method and methodology for conducting research that
involves collecting, analysing, and integrating quantitative and qualitative research in a
single study (Cresswell, 2003). A triangulation mixed method design is used in this
study, in which different but complimentary data has been collected on the same topic.
The pragmatic approach that combines the qualitative and quantitative research methods
as an effective alternative to connect issues advocated by Morgan (2007) is used to
provide a better understanding of the research problem. As a team of mixed method
researchers, we have collected both qualitative and quantitative data and mixed them at
the same time (concurrent). The reason for using qualitative and quantitative data is to
bring together the strengths of both forms of research to corroborate results. The open-
ended questionnaire was coded to categorise the information and the responses
were classified by themes to summarise the findings. The likelihood of credible and
trustworthy findings was enhanced by collecting the data qualitatively through interviews
and focus group discussions with selected women managers.
3.1 Sampling parameters

Data were collected from face-to-face interviews with 29 women managers from two
five-star hotels in Delhi and one five-star hotel in Mumbai along with responses to open-
ended questions from 158 women managers of 46 five-star hotels in the cities of Delhi,
Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Bangalore. The researcher visited these hotels by
securing prior permissions from the Managers. The participation of the women managers
was voluntary, the confidentiality was guaranteed, and the hotel companies fully
endorsed their participation. The participants were selected among those who were at the
managerial levels with at least two years of experience. The women managers on duty
during the time of the researcher’s visit participated in the study. The representative
managers from human resource/training department of these hotels facilitated the survey
process. The participant hotels have a total of 572 women managers and the researcher
was able to contact 187 (29 + 158) (33%) of them to participate in the study. Out of the
total participants, 3.8% belonged to food and beverage production, 6.6% to food and
beverage service, 16.4% to front office, 12.4% to housekeeping, 26.3% to sales and
marketing, 16.9% to human resources, 3.8% spa and wellness, 5.2% to finance, 8.6% IT
and quality departments. At the time of the study, 18.3% of the women managers were in
the age group of 20–25 years, 33% of them were 26–30 years, 24.5% were 31–35 years,
10.2% were 36–40 years, and 14% were above 40 years. Women managers are well
qualified with post-graduation (53.8%) and graduation degrees (46.2%). Regarding the
service, 31% of them had 1–5 years of total service; 55% of them had a total service of
6–15 years and the remaining with more than 20 years of service.
3.2 Data collection

As the intention of this study was not to generate hypotheses to examine the
relationships, but to get a clear understanding of the perceived barriers and challenges,
the qualitative approach was preferred. The participants were briefed on the subject
matter prior to the interviews, which enabled them to gain an understanding of the
information being requested thereby facilitating validity and reliability. The interview
process started with an open-ended question: “Can you think of specific attributes that
contributed your career advancement”, followed by “Can you describe some aspects that
challenged your ambition of advancing in career…”, and “What is your opinion about the
organisational and personal support systems…” The participants were allowed to narrate
their opinions related to all aspects affecting their career advancement. Interviews
generally lasted around 45–60 minutes, which were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and
coded.
The managers in five-star hotels are expected to be always available on call and be
physically present in their respective work places. Owing to this nature of work, majority
of them could not cooperate with researcher for interviews. Therefore, as they suggested,
the questions were put forward in the form of an open-ended question, which they could
answer at their convenience. According to Neuman (1997), open-ended annotations are
often the best way to learn, “how a respondent thinks and to discover what is really
important to him or her”. They are a rich and relatively unique source of data
descriptions that privilege managers’ own accounts and representations of their work
experiences. The open-ended questionnaire comprised two incomplete sentences, they
being:
When you think about your career, certain events may stand out in your
mind – things that may have most helped your career advancement and
barriers/challenges that have hindered your career advancement. What do you
think are the …
1 Factors that facilitated------------
2 Factors that hindered--------------
These questions were framed after discussion with the practicing managers as well as the
academicians and an in-depth review of literature. The respondents were requested to list
out as many view points as possible in order to get the complete picture. This was pilot
tested with five women managers with a rich experience of 20–25 years, during their visit
to the researcher’s hotel management institute for campus recruitment.
3.3 Data coding

The hotels were coded as H1, H2,… H46 where H1 represents hotel 1 and H2 represents
hotel 2 and so on. For face-to-face interviews, the group members from the first hotel
were coded as H1-a, H1-b…H1i where a, b, c, d… were the codes assigned to each of the
participant of that hotel. Similarly, the codes for participants from second and third hotel
were H2-a, H2-b… and so on and H3-a, H3-b… and so on respectively. The open-ended
responses were coded based on the themes identified during the data analysis. They were
coded as T1-1, T1-2, T1-3… T1-29 wherein T1 represents theme 1 and response 1, T1-2
represents theme 1 and response 2… and so on. Similarly T2-1 represents theme 2 and
response 1, T2-2 represents theme 2 and response 2, … and so on.
The responses from interviews and open-ended questions were data driven and
required less interpretation that allowed the researcher to focus on the selected aspects of
data based on the research questions. The researchers extracted text from interview
transcripts and open-ended responses to identify the factors (facilitators and constraints)
related to career advancement and then synthesised the text to establish the units of
analysis. After completion of the open coding, the preliminary codes that emerged from
the text were determined and the data that did not fit an existing code, the new codes
were added. The next step was related to grouping of similar codes and placing them into
broad categories. They were further revised, refined, and were checked to determine
whether the categories were mutually exclusive. We identified 45 sub-themes both within
and across the categories and organised them into 13 master themes. The procedure
adopted by Cho and Lee (2014) was used as a base for qualitative content analysis.
4 Data analysis
4.1 Content analysis

The qualitative content analysis is used as a strategy for the analysis of qualitative
descriptive studies and a method of textual data analysis (Patton, 2002). The inductive
approach is used since the prior knowledge about the phenomenon under investigation
was fragmented and the codes, categories, and themes were to be drawn from the data
and the focus was only on extracting the categories from the data. The researchers made
an attempt to code the visible and surface content of the text as well as the latent content
(Graneheim and Lundman, 2004) along with some degree of interpretation (Schreier,
2012). Additionally, the observations, the document review, and field notes enriched and
complemented the primary data.
4.2 Process of classification of items

Through the analysis and comparison of themes, the glimpse of various sub-themes
within each category emerged. Items were classed based on the understanding of their
content in the circumstantial context (Kandasamy, 2009). The items related to the
existing dimensions were sub-classified and those entirely unrelated were labelled as new
dimension. As the new items emerged, the classification strategy was (a) in case, this
relates to an existing dimension, it was sub-classified under this dimension, and else, (b)
if it was unrelated to the existing dimension, it was labelled as a new dimension. The
classification for the theme was followed the same logic. Establishing a theme is a way to
link the underlying meanings together in the categories (Graneheim and Lundman, 2004)
with multiple interpretations are essential to present qualitative results.
5 Results
The data were categorised based on “commonalities and differences” through emerging
themes (Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2002). The women managers have explicitly captured and
highlighted the positive and negative career experiences with some valid suggestions.
These themes netted the recurring patterns of critical issues across the data. Keeping in
mind the spread of thoughts and variedness of expressions, the explanations, and
necessary cross-validations through existing literature were provided only as per the
master theme of the categories identified. The facilitators and constraints to career
advancement as stated and cited by the women managers comprised 13 master themes.
The newly emerged themes and subthemes are summarised in Table 1.
Table 1 Themes and sub-themes of interviews and open-ended responses
Master Themes Sub-themes

1. Work-Life Balance 1. Organisational commitments (12 responses)
(34 responses) 2. Personal choices (10 responses)
3. Movement restrictions (12 responses)
2. Personality-Proactive 1. Hard work (6 responses)
Individual Behaviour 2. Adaptability (6 responses)
(26 responses) 3. Belief in oneself (4 responses)
4. Positive attitude (5 responses)
5. Learning and development (5 responses)
3. Organisational Culture and Barriers 1. Top management attitude (5 responses)
(24 responses) 2. Restricted growth patterns (5 responses)
3. Lack of cross exposure (4 responses)
4. Biases against women (5 responses)
5. Work pressure (5 responses)
4. Superior, Colleague, and 1. Co-operative work environment (5 responses)
Subordinate Support 2. Supportive superiors and colleagues (4 responses)
(19 responses) 3. Attitudes of male superiors and co-workers
(4 responses)
4. Lack of support from female superiors
(3 responses)
5. Team work (3 responses)
5. Organisational Support Systems 1. Keeping bosses happy (6 responses)
(16 responses) 2. Supportive work environment (5 responses)
3. Equal rights in development (3 responses)
4. Political savvy (2 responses)
Table 1 Themes and sub-themes of interviews and open-ended responses (continued)
Master Themes Sub-themes

6. Geographic Mobility 1. Geographically bound (7 responses)
(13 responses) 2. Stagnation (3 responses)
3. Lack of promotion (3 responses)
7. Cultural and Societal Expectations 1. Male dominant society (4 responses)
(12 responses) 2. Cultural taboos (3 responses)
3. Credibility issues (3 responses)
4. Societal influences on organizational culture
(1 response)
5. Perception and Stereotyping (1 response)
8. Long Hours Culture 1. Quality vs. quantity (3 responses)
(10 responses) 2. “Being there” culture (2 responses)
3. Irregular duty hours (3 responses)
4. Lack of time for personal life (2 responses)
9. Work Family Conflict 1. Family commitments (5 responses)
(8 responses) 2. Hindered career growth (3 responses)
10. Mentors and Sponsors 1. Need for career counsellors (3 responses)
(7 responses) 2. Mentor support (2 responses)
3. Sponsors (2 responses)
11. Family Support 1. Support from parents (5 responses)
(7 responses) 2. Support from spouses (2 responses)
12. Reciprocity – 1. Reciprocation (3 responses)
Individual and Organisational 2. Understanding and empathising (3 responses)
(6 responses)
13. Sexual Harassment 1. Sexual favours (3 responses)
(5 responses) 2. Matter of choice (2 responses)
5.1 Quantitative analysis of themes and sub-themes

This analysis provided an array of factors that affect the career advancement of women
managers in five-star hotels in India. From the master themes, the perceived salience of
gender in organisations as well as gendered identities is evidenced. It can be inferred that
with right organisational intervention, support, and understanding, the challenges and
obstacles that the women managers experience in the workplace and at the home front
can be reduced considerably to make their career journeys smoother. Women have to
adapt difference strategies to tackle the important mechanisms that impede change in
organisational beliefs and the pernicious effects of implicit gender discrimination in the
workplace.
Table 2 Summary of open-ended responses
Percentage Rank
Facilitators and Barriers
responses (N=158) Order
Work-life balance (34) 18.18 1
Personality-Proactive individual behaviour (26) 13.90 2
Organisational culture and barriers (24) 12.83 3
Superior, colleague, and subordinate support (19) 10.16 4
Organisational support systems (16) 8.56 5
Geographic mobility (13) 6.95 6
Cultural and societal expectations (12) 6.41 7
Long hours culture (10) 5.34 8
Work family conflict (8) 4.27 9
Mentors and sponsors (7) 3.74 10
Family support (7) 3.74 11
Reciprocity – Individual and organisational (6) 3.20 12
Sexual harassment (5) 2.67 13
5.2 Qualitative analysis of themes and subthemes

5.2.1 Work–life balance
Congruent with the findings of various research studies (Women 1st, 2010; ILO, 2012;
Mckinsey 2012; ILO, 2015), the work–life balance occupies the top position in this
study. The fundamental issue which seems to affect women in managerial positions is the
need to balance family and professional demands. The frequency of responses suggest
that due to the changing employment patterns, nature, intensity of work, changing
societal structures arising out of dual career couples, single parent families, and childcare
responsibilities, the work–family interface has become more complicated.
One of the sample statements that appeared during the interviews is:
“…Having a child became a barrier in the organisation. The major problem
that ever happened was that, I had to quit operations and move into non-
operations’ department as I had got married. In operations I did not have the
options of work–life balance. To ensure work–life balance, I had to take a
decision of moving into non-operations – Training Manager (13 yrs.) (H2-g:
Personal choices)
WLB challenges may impact women’s advancement, and, if not dealt with, may
contribute to the glass ceiling phenomenon. As a possible solution, perhaps, women
could choose to work fewer hours than men in order to spend more time with their
families. This is what one of the study participants had to cite…
“Typically in most of the hotels in our industry, the number of hours one spends
in the hotel is used as a yardstick to judge how hardworking a person is and I
have constantly had to battle that perception. As a woman, a family maker and
as a senior management resource of a hotel, it takes a lot to balance all the
rolls and I have therefore learnt to manage my time efficiently ignoring the
popular perception and instead keeping the focus on working smartly and
efficiently” Head Marketing and PR (13 yrs.) (T1 – 21: Organisational
commitment).
This highlights the sentiments of the women managers towards the difficulties they face
due the dual responsibilities. Being the principal caregivers they are unavailable for
unplanned overtime and long travelling and the kind of flexibility that companies would
require (Baum, 2013). Furthermore, the responses to open-ended statement “factors that
hindered …” have phrases such as “personal choices”, “movement restrictions” that
highlighted their opinions and brought to the forefront the problems associated with
balancing their professional and personal lives.
5.2.2 Proactive individual behaviour

An important observation by Ng and Pine (2003) is that the female hotel managers are
aware of the difficulties the women face but they tend to downplay the difficulties and
favour personal against institutional strategies to overcome them. The related sub-themes
emerged in this category were related to hard work, adaptability, belief in oneself,
positive attitude, and learning and development. The respondents quite vociferously
commented about the proactive measures and personal initiatives adopted by them to
manage their career. The sample interview responses are as follows:
“…..Women are perceived that they might not shine well at the leadership
positions. They might have to prove it more than men that they can also do
justice to the responsibility given. Hard work pays off. I think a lot depends on
the personality of the woman, her home front and the upbringing at home. It is
a male dominated industry, hence one has to work harder and also find the
right organisational culture where one could thrive and grow.” – VP
Marketing (25 yrs.) (H2-i: positive attitude)
As a new and young manager, working with senior colleagues whose
experience was greater than my age… it was initially difficult to gain their
confidence who believed that young managers hardly know anything. But my
sheer hard work and interpersonal skills, I have been able to shift their mindset
that not all young managers do not possess the skill set, what is important is
the enthusiasm to contribute towards organisational development – (Manager
HK 5 yrs.) (H3-a: hard work)
Research underway demonstrates that women’s characterisations of themselves largely
parallel their characterisations of women in general (Hentschel et al., 2013). Our results
indicate that the hospitality women managers are willing to work collaboratively with
men, take an equal amount of credit for successful joint outcomes and likely to visualise
themselves equally competent. Proactive behaviour is an expression of personal values
which motivates accuracy and a desire to create good impressions.
5.2.3 Organisational culture and barriers

During the interview sessions, majority of the women managers voiced concerns towards
organisational barriers resulting from the masculine culture prevailing in hotel
organisations. The related themes that emerged in this category were, top management
attitude, restricted growth patterns, lack of cross exposure, biases against women, and
work pressure. As the researcher was interested in understanding the legitimacy of these
claims, she searched for themes and patterns in their comments. The remark from one of
the managers to substantiate this is as follows:
“…Constant changes in key result areas make you deliver more but not
guaranteeing growth. Promises made not kept within certain organisations.
I do not have great contacts at the top management levels to even notice
my work. Sometimes women at the top feel threatened by uprising female
talents and create a hindrance to their growth.” – Director Sales (13 yrs.)
(H2-e: Restricted growth patterns)
Mooney and Ryan (2009) comment about two distinct ways in which the women are
disadvantaged. First, there are the formal or visible aspects of male exclusionary practice
– the way that jobs and, second, the working hours are constructed – can be found in
many bureaucratic organisations and long working day, which is seen, as intrinsic to
working practices. In this aspect, the views of managers from H1 and H3 differed where
the 1st group felt that lack of career progression plan and workplace politics attributed to
slow career advancement and the 3rd group felt that lack of geographic mobility and
scope for change of career is the cause for slow career progress.
5.2.4 Superior, colleague, and subordinate support

Women managers praised their superiors and colleagues for extending support, providing
help and guidance to succeed and grow. On the negative side, a few of them did
experience the whims and fancies of male superiors and counterparts. Chaudhary and
Gupta (2010) studied gender equality in the Indian hotel industry and their respondents
felt that men are not comfortable working under women in their hotels. A report by Ng
and Pine (2003) on managers in Hong Kong hotels records that among the 14 obstacles to
career advancement, the lack of support system at work topped the list followed by the
lack of equity in promotion and inadequate job knowledge. Here is how one woman
described her response to superior and subordinate support:
“I have had the opportunity to work with a good team of superiors, who have
shaped my career by being my mentors. My ability and working style was
appreciated by my seniors, hence I feel satisfied when I look back at the years
gone by.” – Unit head travel desk – FO (28 yrs.)(H3-i: Supportive superiors)
Similarly, women managers mentioned about the limitations of not having supportive
colleagues and superiors. As male managers invest more time in workplace and have a
different level of relationship with male bosses, there is a perceived lack of fit between
demands of high level positions and the support systems available to women. Here is the
recount of one of the manager’s conversations with the researcher:
“…Handling union issues, work with staff who do not even high school pass
outs, managing demanding boss and home and male managers try to take you
for a ride. As a woman I had to play the right politics to get my things done”.
– Executive HK (19 yrs.) (T4-7: Attitudes of superiors and co-workers)
5.2.5 Organisational support systems

A small portion (16/158) of the women managers, who responded to this, reported the
positive organisational experiences and they hold favourable perceptions about the
support systems provided by the organisation. A number of women managers cited that
they did not observe any conscious discrimination against women in their organisations.
They received continuous support from male colleagues and superiors. One of the
statements from a women manager towards this is:
“….Last 20 years I am working in hospitality industry and I have worked

throughout in international brand. I don’t feel there is any barrier but what I
have seen most of time “buttering your boss” takes over on your knowledge. If
you are a straightforward person, people do not like the straight forwardness.
But in my case I am able to handle these challenges because of my knowledge
in my area.” – Complex Executive HK (20 yrs.) (T5-1: Keep bosses happy)
In a study examining the problems and challenges faced by women managers of different
service sector organisations in India, the participants reported that the support systems
such as medical facilities and transport facilities are quite satisfactory in their
organisations (CSR, 2010). They are encouraged to attend training and development
programmes and promotions in their companies are based on performance. The
maximum comments for this theme was from the group H1 on issues that are related to
“supportive work environment”, “equal rights in development” and “political savvy”.
5.2.6 Geographic mobility

The significant issues brought out from Mooney’s (2007) research on female manager’s
place in Australian and New Zealand hotels were organisational culture, geographical
mobility, old boy network, role models, and career pathway to General Manager. The
career paths between men and women are different and men make more career moves
and have more management positions before attaining general manager’s position
(Blayney and Blotnicky, 2010). One of the woman manager described it as challenge and
how it became a hindrance:
“Moving abroad to work was the biggest risk. I took it as a challenge, as I left
the comfort zone and went to countries where I had to learn the local language
to interact with staff, not one but three countries. The department I chose at the
outset of my career i.e., housekeeping is the biggest hindrance to my career
progression as majority of the hotel companies does not promote Executive
Housekeepers to the next level in the management or administration.” –
Executive HK (25 yrs.) (H1-f: Lack of promotion)
The perceived lack of correspondence between women’s family responsibilities and job
requirements is likely to lead to the conclusion that produces negative expectations about
their likely career success. But, Gen Y women managers are geographically mobile and
some of them are even ready to remain singe for career reasons. Mobility problems are
mostly exclusive to women who are in the age group of 25–40, where they are more
concerned towards childbearing. Unfortunately in many cases this turns out to be
negative to their career growth and they have to forgo promotions. Managers from all
groups commented about this hindrance and opined that this was one of the major causes
for “stagnation” and “lack of promotion”.
5.2.7 Cultural and societal role expectations

Despite the gains women have made, negative perceptions and stereotypes of women as
followers in male-dominated organisations inhibit a woman’s potential to be a leader
(Jackson, 2001). Li and Leung (2001) reported that women in Singapore hotels have
given up some family life in order to progress and the barriers to advancement in
Singapore hotels are not due to corporate practices but are the functions of cultural and
societal supports.
“If a lady smokes, drinks, small town, people become judgmental. Compliance
and ego problems are major factors, men feel inferior if they have to work
under women”- Asst. manager Sales & marketing (13 yrs.)(T7-2: Cultural
Taboos)
Nath (2000) in an interview with 20 women executives from the service and
manufacturing sectors, including hospitality, examined the impact of social,
organisational, and personal biases on professional women in India. It was found that the
changing cultural and social values have altered the perceptions about women’s roles
impacting their career progression. The group members of H3 substantiated this with
phrases like “male dominant society”, “cultural taboos”, “credibility issues”, “societal
influences” and “perceptions and stereotyping”.
5.2.8 Long hours

A study on gender sensitivity in Indian hotel industry by Chaudhary and Gupta (2010),
reports about gender-based work allocation, night shifts, and long working hours. Hotels
were found to be insensitive towards women employees on the issues like working
conditions, work allocations, and less favourable work environment. One of the women
managers mentioned that:
“Indian hospitality industry has a major challenge of working for long hours. I
personally feel that the quality of work matters more than the quantity of hours
of work. Nine hours of work should be maximum for any associate who will
help him/her balance the personal life and hence stay happy with the job.”
– Sales manager (16 yrs.) (T8-1: Quality vs Quantity)
Burke and Nelson (2002) have listed the most powerful barriers as cultural
discouragement, where work environment that values long hours over actual performance
under the theme of bias and discrimination. An article on work–life balance by Doherty
(2004) explores the major barriers to women’s career progression and highlights the long
hours associated with managerial roles as a major problem affecting the career progress
of women.
5.2.9 Work family conflict

This is an important phase in a woman’s career where issues within the family with
implications for her career development becomes more prevalent, that should be
examined not as a ‘woman issue’ rather as an organisational concern. The Harvard
university article by Fynn, Heath and Halt (2013) discussed six important issues (termed
as paradoxes) to be addressed immediately by the organisations. One among them is
termed as ‘careful what-you-wish-for paradox’ – in spite of opportunities women are
opting out in high numbers to stay home to raise children. One of them cited:
“Firstly, it takes long time to reach higher levels. By then a single hard
working career oriented woman becomes a married family oriented woman.
She needs to give time to family; her home responsibilities, pregnancy, child
with childcare, etc., keep coming in between where she can’t concentrate on
her work.” – Deputy director Sales (19 yrs.) (H1-d : Family commitments)
Broadbridge (2008) in a study on women managers in retail industry, considered the dual
role of women as the main reason for their lack of career progress. The results of a study
by Kim (2012) indicated that the job satisfaction might be improved by limiting work to
family conflicts and by evaluating the nature of facilitation of family to work.
5.2.10 Mentors and sponsors

By using a sample of 3220 Australian women managers from public sector and business
service industry, Tharenou (2005) examined the mentor career support twice a year apart,
and found out that it increased women protégé’s advancement more than it did men’s.
Ibbara and Karter (2010) remarked that there was a continuous leakage in the pipeline at
mid-to-senior levels in spite of investing considerable time and resources through
mentoring and providing other developmental opportunities by organisations. One of the
woman managers described it as below:
“I feel it is very important to have sponsors because they are the people who
open doors and influence somebody on the other side. Unfortunately it is
very difficult in my hotel to reach out to people.” – VP marketing (19 yrs.)
(T10- 3: Sponsors)
Although mentoring and networking are arguably the most widely discussed issues in the
context of women’s career advancement, the number of responses are least among the
participants of this study.
5.2.11 Family support

The changing cultural and social values have altered the perceptions about women’s roles
impacting their career progression and the contemporary women opine that family
support and encouragement are critical to their career success. It goes without mention
that the culture of long hours and lack of flexible work options for family women, the
support and guidance of parents and partners become priceless. One of the woman
managers’ explained this as follows:
“Without my parents support I would not have been able to have much of a
career. However, the fact that I had two growing children did prevent me from
taking up an operational role that further exacerbated my inability to advance
further in my job. At the moment, I am happy but I know I can’t advance
further.” – Asst. manager FO (9 yrs.) (T11- 1: Support from parents)
Apart from this, managers from H3 vociferously spoke about spousal support and said
that the advancement was possible purely due to the support and guidance of their
husbands who played a big part in their endeavour to grow and advance.
5.2.12 Reciprocity – individual and organisational

Today’s women managers believe in accepting challenges and supporting the
organisational cause. Their desire for new challenges will likely find them directing their
hope towards the levels of career advancement that may have seemed unattainable when
they began their careers (Simmons, 2002). It appears that some of the women managers
are experiencing “eustress”, which is best exemplified in the following narrative:
“…When I moved from director of events to director of room’s position, it was

most challenging, yet it was a great motivation since the company expressed a
large confidence in both my leadership and ability. The only way to address
this challenge was to be logical, questions be on the shop floor, above areas
and work in areas that were completely unknown, speaking to employees at the
entry level to understand their jobs, aspirations, connect to them. I had to learn
to take risks, face situations, and grow.” – Hotel Manager – Exe. Office
(17 yrs.) (H1-g: Reciprocation)
Research indicates that engaging in challenging work can have positive health
consequences for women. Ohlott, Ruderman and McCauley (1994) compared male and
female manager’s experiences of developmental job demands and tested managerial
skills learned from them. The findings showed that the female managers are experiencing
job demands to a greater extent as compared to the male managers and they were
learning more from their experiences.
5.2.13 Sexual harassment

Brownell (1993) in a Cornell university study reported that lack of equity in training, lack
of job knowledge, and sexual harassment were almost of no concern among women
managers in the US hotels. In a study on factors affecting the career advancement of
women in hotel industry by Zhong (2006), hospitality students, educators, and industry
recruiters did not perceive sexual harassment as a major constraint to succeed.
“Sexual harassment is a matter of choice, because there is no force; just want
of compromise, now the lady has to decide how much she can compromise.”
– Asst. FO Manager (4 yrs.) (T13-2: Matter of choice)
However, two managers from H1 and H3 did face problems due to senior’s expectations
of sexual favours, one of them quit the job, and the second manager said, “I had to learn
to live with it”. A manager from H2 eventually reported to HR and her work area was
changed while the men received a memo from the HR director. Overall it appeared that
due to organisation wide staff training and induction courses related to appropriate and
inappropriate conduct in the work place while dealing with customers and employees, the
instances of sexual harassment experienced by the hospitality staff has been reduced to
an extent.
5.3 The deduced model of career advancement and career life strategies
The initial code structure of the open-ended question and interview answers was revised
to organise the data thematically and appropriate labelling was provided. For career
advancement, the 13 master themes were merged into four categories corresponding to
the categories that emerged for career challenges/barriers. The emerging framework of
career advancement of women managers developed by us is based on the themes and
sub-themes presented in Figure 1. It illustrates the co-existence of facilitation and conflict
between career advancement and career challenges and the career life strategies designed
to manage this co-existence and to support their career.
Figure 1 Deduced model of career advancement
Value System (56/27) Value System (55/29)

Initiative (5) Hard work (8) Self-belief
Personal space (12) Personal choices (15)
(9) Positive
attitude (6) Learning (10)
Family commitments (10) Mobility (18)
Adaptability (6) Accepting challenges
(5) Communication
(3) Mobility (4)
Professional Social barriers (53/37)

Professional Social Support (37/15) Training and education (12) Stereotyping
Conflict
Training and education (10) Colleagues (5) Cultural and societal (7)
and subordinates (11) Empathy (5) Superior/subordinate/peer support (14)
Attitude of male superiors (6) Team Cross training (5)
work (5) Facilitators to Challenges/bar
Career riers to Career
Advancement Advancement Personal Social barriers (41/13)
Personal Social Support (33/23)
Children (12) Family responsibilities
Spouse support (13) Parental support
Children support (4) Friends (14) Family problems (7) Gender roles
(12)
(8)
support (4)
Facilitation
Organizational barriers (65/ 38)
Organizational
support (49/25) Gender bias (4) Sexual harassment (4)
Work Environment (6) Mentor/Sponsor Lack of support (6) Work pressure (6)
(6) Organisational
structure/culture (13) Work environment (3) Mentor/sponsor
Promotions (14) Recognition (10) Career Life Strategies (52/45) (5) Organisational structure and culture
Sacrificing personal life (12) Time (7) Promotions (6) Recognitions (5)
Management (12) Family before career (7) Flexibility (5) Long hours (12)
Shift in departments (7) Given up family
(3) Keep bosses happy (3) Slow down the
career growth (3) Reciprocation (5)
Note: The number to the left indicates the number of times the idea/category
appeared across the transcripts. The number to the right indicates the number of
transcripts where the idea/category was expressed.
6 Discussion and conclusion
The past decade brought several changes to hospitality and tourism sector and an
evidence of steady increase of women in managerial positions. Organisations have been
effective in hiring women; however, the real “change” in increase in the number of
women in executive positions seems to be farfetched (Baum, 2015). There is converging
evidence for a link between barriers to ascension resulting in non-realisation of career
ambitions of women. Various researchers opined that women managers do experience
barriers to career progression in their work places (Burke and Nelson, 2002; Davidson
and Burke, 2004; Burke and Mattis, 2007), and feel compelled to distance themselves
from demonstrating their suitability for a position of leadership. There are signs that the
tide is changing and that women are poised to play a far more prominent role in the years
to come (Evans, 2014). This resonates with the research outcomes that have addressed
the topic of career advancement even in the Indian context.
Taken together, these results suggest that the personal career experiences of women
managers implicitly explains the salience of different organisational realities. It voices
the opinions of women managers toward pervasive influence of gendered behaviours
impacting their priori expectations. Women managers have raised concerns about work–
life balance problems, work–family conflicts, working hours, structure, and culture,
social and societal, mobility related, and organisational barriers. A striking observation in
this study is that “sexual harassment” barely found any mention as an impediment to the
career experiences of women managers. They have praised various support systems
(family, supervisory, organisational including mentors) that facilitated them to balance
their professional, personal life, and advancement with conviction. The belief that
women tend to display different forms of leadership is evidenced through the remark of
various personality factors that assisted them to experience career success. There are two
pre-fabricated moulds related to personal and professional issues unwittingly contribute
to the perpetuation of the status quo and making women distance themselves from the
leadership positions. This has far-reaching implications for their career opportunities and
plays an important role in shaping organisational realities for women to achieve power
and influence. Can we conclude that the women managers from Indian five-star hotels do
not have the risk of being exposed to failure and are allowed to seize the given
opportunities?
The hotel companies need to evolve from a “one size fits all” mentality towards
career structures and support systems (Martins et al., 2002) with an awareness that
woman’s career dynamics fluctuate over the life course. Considering women as active
contributors at all phases of their lives and providing supportive organisational policies
and practices may be vital for enabling desired whole life integration. The hotel industry
may give attention to the needs and concerns of women managers to address the
problems they face, and to initiate, an honest and straightforward analysis of how these
problems can be resolved. More inclusive working practices along with developmental
opportunities that advantage women’s accumulation of social capital may help to balance
the male and the female participation at the apex of the management hierarchy. The
added value of our study is that it combines the various research strands which focuses
on the difficulties women face and makes clear that organisational success cannot be
achieved as long as the potential of individual women is not recognised.
7 Implications
Based on our analysis and review of pertinent literature, we conclude that the barriers to
career advancement for women managers in Indian five-star hotels still persist. There is a
scope and hope for policy makers to help women face the challenges acknowledging the
choices and preferences displayed by them in organisations. It may be difficult for an
organisation to deliver on the basis of only expectations, if there is no understanding of
what they are (Cross et al., 2008). The dimension of “work–life balance” seems to be
specifically relevant and need to be addressed in a hotel environment, wherein “being
there” culture prevails till date. Moreover, women have started reciprocating well to the
challenges thrown on them and with the support of the organisation they have learnt to
face demanding situations, challenges, and growing vertically. Hence, the empirical
findings of this study would aid the policymakers in reducing the gap between the
advancement expectations of women managers and the reality of the work place
attributes. Subsequently, responding to the workplace expectation may well mitigate the
turnover intention among the women managers thus crafting a sustainable win–win
relationship, aiding the success of the organisation.
8 Limitations and scope for future research
It may be noted that though this study contributes to our knowledge base, it has
limitations and feasible prospects for further research. The convenience sampling
technique used in the study due to the smaller population size may limit the
generalisability of results to other groups of women. Since we were not able to get the
consent from some of the five-star hotels for the survey, we had to use this sampling
technique to get the required sample size. Considering the low female–male ratio in five-
star hotels, the geographic region for the study could not be specified to any specific
regional area or any particular group of hotels. Also, the study is limited to only five-star
luxury and five-star hotels and does not include the other six categories (from four-star to
one-star, heritage, and others). Another problem encountered in the research is the self-
reported bias where the research design relied on the perceptual judgment of the
participants. There is potential validity of problems associated with the perceptual
measures of competence as self-evaluation is considered to be inherently biased.
Similar study may be conducted on the career advancement of men at the managerial
level and a comparison can be made to identify the differences in perceptions. To get the
real picture of the concerns identified by the women managers, a study may be conducted
on women who have left the hotel industry. The findings of which may be useful for
devising methods to retain the women managers. A study may be conducted on the career
advancement of women who are at the executive level to identify the factors overlooked
or too focused by women managers involved in this study. An in-depth study may be
conducted on work–life-balance issues to shed more light into their existent opinions.
Optimistically, our deduced model helps to understand and address the important issues,
and sets out an agenda for future research. Future research may also test the effectiveness
of specific policies that address these issues as a way to facilitate the career expectations
and success of women in hospitality.
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380 Int. J. Management Practice, Vol. 10, No.

Perceived career challenges and response

Abstract: This descriptive phenomenological study is designed to investigate

Keywords: women managers; India; five-star hotels; career advancement;

Copyright © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Patwardhan, V., Mayya, S.

Sureshramana Mayya has been working as an Associate Professor and Head,

Harish Joshi is Professor at School of Management, Manipal University. He is

1.1 Women in workforce

1.2 Tourism and hospitality industry in India

2013 (Shine.com, 2014). Highlighting the sector’s employment-generation potential, the

1.3 Women in hospitality – challenges

2.1 Contributing factors to career advancement of women managers

2.2 Glass ceiling

2.3 Gender stereotyping

2.4 Gender inequality

2.5 Social structure and culture

2.6 Double bind

2.7 Work–Life balance

3.1 Sampling parameters

3.2 Data collection

3.3 Data coding

4.1 Content analysis

4.2 Process of classification of items

Master Themes Sub-themes

Table 1 Themes and sub-themes of interviews and open-ended responses (continued)

Master Themes Sub-themes

5.1 Quantitative analysis of themes and sub-themes

Table 2 Summary of open-ended responses

5.2 Qualitative analysis of themes and subthemes

5.2.2 Proactive individual behaviour

5.2.3 Organisational culture and barriers

5.2.4 Superior, colleague, and subordinate support

5.2.5 Organisational support systems

“….Last 20 years I am working in hospitality industry and I have worked

5.2.6 Geographic mobility

5.2.7 Cultural and societal role expectations

5.2.8 Long hours

5.2.9 Work family conflict

5.2.10 Mentors and sponsors

5.2.11 Family support

5.2.12 Reciprocity – individual and organisational

“…When I moved from director of events to director of room’s position, it was

5.2.13 Sexual harassment

Figure 1 Deduced model of career advancement

Value System (56/27) Value System (55/29)

6 Discussion and conclusion

8 Limitations and scope for future research

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