Organisational Cultural Factors and Barriers Affecting Women's Career Success at a Selected Institution of Higher Learning in South Africa

Abstract

The paper aims to identify organisational cultural factors and barriers that affect women's career success at the University of Limpopo in South Africa. In developed and developing countries, women of all races were marginalised for decades based on their gender, class, and level of education. After 1994, South Africa introduced prescripts such as the new Constitution (108/1996) and Employment Equity Act (55/1998) to redress past imbalances and to empower women. Nonetheless, after almost three decades, women are still underrepresented in senior management positions and academia, with no exception from other sectors. Women aspiring to occupy management positions are expected to work twice as hard as their male counterparts. Besides various barriers, organisational culture plays a supportive role in modifying women's career success. The paper adopts a correlational non-experimental research design and a quantitative approach. The convenience sampling method was used to select 70 women academics from all levels of a lectureship in the Faculty of Management and Law at the University of Limpopo to complete an online structured questionnaire. Data were analysed using SPSS version 28.0. The results show a significant relationship between organisational cultural factors and women's career success. However, no relationship was found between career barriers and women's career success. The results revealed that women still experience barriers such as the glass ceiling and gender stereotyping in their career progression. The paper recommends reviewing employment policies and adopting strategies and programmes, including mentorship, to influence organisational cultural change and remove barriers for the benefit of women's career success.