THE IMPACT OF GLASS CEILING ON WOMEN CAREER DEVELOPMENT: IN CASE OF SENIOR EXECUTIVE AND ABOVE LAYERS IN APPAREL SECTOR IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to identify whether there is a significant impact of glass ceiling toward the women’s career development. Further study was focused to identify the acceptance of career aspiration and career goal achievement by female employees in Sri Lankan context. Therefore, the study has focused on female employees who are about to top layers and females who are in the Apparel industry. The study is an explanatory cross-sectional study in nature. The researcher conducted a descriptive study in order to identify the real perception of glass ceiling in the apparel industry. A self-administrated questionnaire which has extracted from standard and a well-tested questionnaire was used to collect data from female employees. The respondents were senior executives and above layer female employees who have well experienced and have to climb us to a certain extent in their career ladder, selected from three giant apparel manufacturing organizations in Sri Lanka. And the sample consists of 100 female employees who included in the prior mentioned population. Descriptive statistics and correlation were used to analyze collected data set in order to come to a statistically supported conclusion. Through the findings, it has revealed that apparel sector, female employees who are in senior executive and above layers significantly does not perceive glass ceiling as a barrier to their career development. This study mainly focused on organizational climate, focus on work-life balance, personal factors and gender stereotypes which are few of the factors of the glass ceiling. Further study revealed that females are fully confident about their capabilities, females are ready to accept top positions and they work for career goal attainment. Further study has concluded that untested other factors can work as a glass ceiling for these females and also culture existed and educational level might act significant role to break the glass ceiling.