Women in Leadership Positions in the People's Republic of China

Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,7, Heilbronn University, language: English, abstract: Women are still significantly underrepresented in Top Management positions and leadership is still associated with the male gender as leadership theories traditionally focus on men. This is especially evident in China which has one of the world’s highest female labor participation but a female share of only eight percent on the corporate boards. Although Chinese women’s tertiary educational attainment is now equal to the tertiary education of Chinese men they still face many barriers on their way to the top. The strong influence of Confucian values perceiving women as inferior to men remains noticeable until today and women find themselves exposed to a strongly patriarchal business environment. As being traditionally the main care-givers of their families they are deemed to be expensive potential mothers and thus gender- preference can be observed. second Classical leadership theories of the Western culture as well as of the Chinese culture are introduced to provide a common understanding of their approaches.Further the situation of women in the past and of today is being compared as well as their leadership styles, access to managerial leadership positions and the barriers they face. Since educational attainment of both genders does not explain why women are rarely found on the upper managerial ranks, other reasons that could be a barrier for women’s career advancement are examined in this research.