Workplace Barriers and Leadership Conflicts Experienced by the Women in Higher Education in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Based on the published scholarly works, this paper attempts to explore and accumulate the challenges and barriers that Saudi women leaders in higher education are experiencing in their professional lives.  For this purpose, literature review method has been adopted. Relevant scholarly articles published in 2004 to 2017 have been rigorously studied and cited. Findings of this paper suggest that women leaders in higher education generally experience assorted challenges, such as 1) socio-cultural, 2) organizational, 3) economical and 4) personal.  They also encounter eight workplace berries, such as 1) gender-based stereotypes, 2) work-life conflict, 3) self-imposed constraints, 4) social network limitations, 5) biased organizational policies, 6) non-gender-based discrimination, 7) inadequate qualification and 8) minimal existing representation. The findings also suggest that these challenges and barriers decrease the job-performances of the women leaders while igniting conflicts with their male counterparts. This paper can be helpful to the policy maker in formulating effective solutions for women leadership conflicts in Saudi Arabia. Besides, it may create new scopes for the researchers and academicians to conduct empirical studies in this very realm.