Attitude of Private and Public Sector Employees towards Female Managers in Ghana

Abstract

Many think-tanks and advocacy groups have sought to highlight the need to embrace women not only in mainstream employment but more importantly in leadership. The present study, which is a comparative study, looked at the differences between the traditional view of women and the attitude of employees towards female managers in the private and public sectors of Ghana. The study purposively selected 120 respondents from two private and public sector organizations with parity. Independent‘t’ test was employed in analysing the four hypotheses. Employees from public organizations showed more favourable attitude towards female managers than employees from the private sector. Employees who had had satisfying previous interactions with female managers were likely to express positive attitude toward them than those who had had regrettable experiences. Female employees and younger employees demonstrated more favourable attitudes toward female managers than male and older employees. The present findings lend support to the social identity theory that women would be more receptive than male to the appropriateness of having women serve in managerial roles but contradict the position of the role incongruity theory that women performing agentic roles characteristic of men will be resisted because they are performing roles uncharacteristic of their gender. Implication for employers, administrators and policy makers are discussed.