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The purpose of this study is to test the concurrent criterion validity of a new measure, the Career Pathways Survey (CPS) by exploring how women's glass ceiling beliefs are related to five major indicators of subjective career success: career satisfaction, happiness, psychological wellbeing, physical health and work engagement (WE).

Data from a cross‐sectional study of 258 women working in Australian organizations were analyzed. The participants completed the CPS and measures of subjective career success. The CPS assesses four sets of beliefs about glass ceilings: denial, resilience, acceptance and resignation.

Regression analyses showed denial was positively associated with career satisfaction and WE; resignation was negatively related to happiness and both emotional and physical wellbeing; resilience had positive relationships with happiness and WE; acceptance was negatively related to WE. The findings provide support for the hypotheses and the concurrent validity of the CPS.

Given the study uses a cross‐sectional design, causal directions found between variables are inferences. Further research with longitudinal and experimental studies is needed to provide support for these inferences.

Training programs to analyze glass ceiling beliefs after testing with the CPS may be a beneficial strategy to help women identify reasons for their career goals. Feedback from CPS testing might facilitate greater awareness of the causes of women's subjective success in organizations.

The paper is the first to shed light on the connections between these success variables and women's beliefs about glass ceilings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between glass ceiling beliefs, work engagement, and burnout.

A research model was developed based on the constructs from the Career Path Survey (CPS) and a literature review of research related to work engagement and burnout. Data from a cross-sectional study of 467 female employees from banks in India were collated and empirically tested, using structural equation modeling.

Denial and resilience were positively related to work engagement and negatively to burnout. Resignation and acceptance had a positive relationship with burnout and a negative relationship with work engagement.

Further longitudinal studies focusing on different occupational sectors and career aspects can be considered for a more accurate and generalized insight into this concept.

Glass ceiling survey can be considered as an input for human resource functions for effectiveness of the organization.

This paper is the first to analyze the connection between the beliefs that women have about the glass ceiling and burnout and its components.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new measure called the Career Pathways Survey (CPS) which allows quantitative comparisons of women's beliefs about glass ceilings.

A 34‐item version of the CPS was completed by 243 women from all levels of management, mostly in Australia. An expanded 38‐item CPS was administered to another sample of women (n=307).

Analyses of data from both studies yielded a four factor model of attitudes to glass ceilings: resilience, acceptance, resignation and denial. The factors demonstrated good internal consistency.

The CPS allows a comparison of positive attitudes towards seeking promotions via resilience and denial scores, and provides feedback on negative attitudes towards seeking promotions via resignation and acceptance scores.

This new measure can be recommended for studies of women's and men's attitudes towards gender inequality in organizational leadership. Also, it could play a role in identifying sexist cultures in organizations.

Because of the scarcity of measures of glass ceiling beliefs, this study makes a major contribution to the literature on women's beliefs about barriers to career advancement.

The purpose of the paper is to review and analyse different glass ceiling studies conducted in different Asian countries during the three decades after the introduction of the metaphor. It also describes the antecedents and the consequences of the glass ceiling.

The method chosen for the study was a computerised search of available materials using the keywords relating to glass ceiling in Asia and latest reports from international organisations.

The perception of glass ceiling existence in Asian countries has been sorted out region-wise. Different factors for glass ceiling have been categorised under different theories.

The study includes a multiregional aspect of glass ceiling, which will be useful for further studies in this area. The limitation of the study is that it did not assess the awareness and influence of glass ceiling in each industry.

Since the study showed glass ceiling practices in different countries in Asia, it might help policy makers for making proper decisions for breaking of glass ceiling.

The study may be a part of empowering women as it analyses areas of inequality and finds out antecedents.

This paper is the first to shed light on glass ceiling on a multicultural and multiregional aspect.

Much research has been conducted regarding leadership success challenges. However, few are practically oriented on whether the success of women's leadership aligns to organisational, personal and societal contexts as glass cliffs. Thus, this study aims to examine these factors and introduce how they inhibit women from leadership success.

This research examined the glass ceiling effects Ethiopian women leaders face. This research focused on adjusted clusters and a survey of 446 female employees from zones, woreda and kebeles. The data was processed through SPSS 25.0 to regress the values.

Breaking the glass ceiling, the glass cliffs effects on women’s income levels, the lack of an arena for self-improvement, the nature of organisation policies and challenges in teamwork were found to contribute to women’s under-representation in top leadership positions.

The results focused only on the 94 public organisations in Ethiopia that were selected by adjusted cluster sampling.

Realizations of substantial change and refocusing on bringing a significant number of women to the boardrooms in the public bureaucracy, besides glass cliffs.

Enhancing the importance of accepting women leaders.

To add value to the stock of literature in gender equality, this research brings a strategic focus on factors that inhibit women from top leadership positions.

This paper explores gendered beliefs about the Glass Ceiling (GC) using a new measure, the “Career Pathway Survey” CPS, in an under-researched country, Egypt.

Data were collected from 438 employees in Egypt. Participants completed the CPS and other demographic and work measures. The CPS tests four GC beliefs: denial, resilience, acceptance and resignation.

Factor analysis validated the configuration of the four factors of the CPS. Descriptive tests showed the female sample with resignation belief, whereas male sample views their females counterparts as resilient. The chi-squared test showed differences in beliefs with different age groups, education level, marital status, number of children, job contracts, job tenure and managerial levels. Moreover, there are evidences of more intensive GC barriers in male-dominant organizations.

This paper is the first to: re-validate the CPS measure, examine demographic and work factor roles and the CPS, test CPS on a male sample and analyse differences between male and female beliefs according to gender-dominated sectors.

The purpose of this paper is to present a longitudinal, qualitative study exploring changes in the attributional constructions of sense-making in the perceptions and lived experiences of the glass-ceiling among a cohort of female mental health nurses in the National Health Service who participated in a 12-month multi-faceted career and leadership development pilot programme compared to a matched control group.

The authors interviewed 27 female mental health nurses in the UK who participated in a multi-faceted development programme specifically designed to support female nurses secure career advancement and 27 members of a matched control group who did not experience the programme. Participants engaged in semi-structured telephone interviews at three separate time points (six months apart) over a 12-month period.

Programme participants differed in their attributional constructions of sense-making in relation to the glass-ceiling over time compared to the matched control group, e.g., triggering understandings and awakenings and re-evaluating the glass-ceiling above when promoted. Findings are used to theorise about the glass-ceiling as a concept that shifts and changes over time as a function of experience.

Practical implications include important organisational outcomes in relation to fostering the career advancement and retention of talented female leaders at all career stages.

The authors present the first known longitudinal, qualitative study to explore changes in attributional constructions of sense-making in perceptions and experiences of the glass-ceiling among female nurses over time compared to a matched control group.

The paper focusses on the intrapersonal vs environmental barriers to women's career advancement to the top leadership positions in the information and communication technology (ICT) business and envisages the individual, organisational as well as societal practices for overcoming such barriers in the given sector.

The study relies on the qualitative research method of expert interviews with top-level women managers in the leading ICT companies in Lithuania. The study allowed identifying and structuring the key barriers to women's careers and three-level practices for overcoming them.

The research has shown that the key intrapersonal barriers are related to the lack of self-confidence and perceived glass ceiling. The main environmental barriers are male domination and socially gendered professions. The practices for overcoming women's career barriers can be categorised into three levels – individual, organisational and societal. The study has shown that the most important individual practices are the ability to continuously self-educate and self-affirmation. On the organisational level, the following key practices can be applied: mentorship and inclusive company culture. The societal practices for improving women's career advancement in ICT are mainly represented by the visibility of successful leaders as role models and initiatives increasing awareness for an inclusive society.

The research limitations are largely related to the research sample selected for the qualitative research (interviews). The respondents are already established in the top leadership positions, so may only have a retrospective view on the obstacles to the respondents' careers. A larger sample could provide a more generalisable data, whilst a larger number of interview participants for preselected categories, like company category or tenure in a position, would provide insights on the different stages of career growth and company's influence for the individual's growth. The authors encourage extending research to other sectoral and national contexts.

The research sets out the key barriers that can be overcome with the help of individual, organisational and societal practices. This provides a comprehensive list of practices that can be adopted by the organisations (in the ICT and beyond), as well as the policy makers on the societal level.

Addressing the issues of gender balance and women's career advancement in one of the fastest growing industries (ICT) has profound social implications. Qualitative research has shown how the barriers can be overcome at different levels of the social system.

The paper marks one of the first attempts to introduce a three-level approach to addressing the intrapersonal and environmental barriers to the advancement of women's careers with a particular focus on the ICT sectoral context.

This paper aims to provide a framework with the antecedents of women managers’ resilience in SMEs.

This developmental study uses a comprehensive literature review and a set of propositions to identify the antecedent of women managers’ resilience and develops a conceptual framework for resilience.

The results indicate that in addition to personal resilience traits, interactive engagement with the work environment, career adaptability and positive human resource management (HRM) interventions are the main antecedents of women managers’ resilience.

This paper contributes to theory by providing a new perspective on the study of resilience as a process at the organisational level and as a trait at personal level. It contributes to the women employee-centric resilience discussion in HRM literature and explores the relationship between resilience and women managers’ career progression. This is a developmental study, and despite the strengths of the undertaken approach, there are a number of limitations due to the lack of empirical evidence. Therefore, future research activities should focus on validating the framework and determining any potential boundaries of this resilience framework.

The study reveals a number of practical implications leading to a recommended resilience toolkit for HR managers of organisations to develop and promote resilience in their women managers and aspiring managers.

The social implications of this study include the social relationships within the work-setting, better employee engagement and interaction with the work environment and flexible career progression pathways.

The paper is based on rich conceptual and theoretical discussion that identifies the key antecedents of women managers’ resilience. The study also conceptually establishes the moderating relationship between women managers’ resilience and work stress and burnout.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of barriers to career progression among female university students. While significant literature has examined career enhancement in the context of employed women, little work has explored the perceptions of future career challenges of females about to enter the workforce and embark on their careers. This study derives its motivation from research findings that confirm that women need additional focused preparation for career advancement opportunities.

The study used a sample of 484 Indian female university students located in the United Arab Emirates and India. The study uses the established Career Pathways Survey scale (Smith et al., 2012a) to measure the four dimensions Denial, Acceptance, Resignation and Resilience to career progression. Structural equation modeling was used to model the four constructs as indicators of perceived barriers to progress.

The study finds that among the female students about to embark on their career journey, there is a strong desire toward achieving career success. The model is validated by the use of a structural equation model, and findings indicate that there is a strong sense of Resilience and an element of uncertainty about whether perceived career progression will be satisfying overall. No significant differences were observed in the perceptions across the two geographical locations. The findings suggest that continued efforts in preparing female graduates for career success are warranted.

The Career Pathways Survey may be a useful method to assist young women in identifying their career goals prior to entering the workforce. Interventions through training programs during their higher education may be beneficial in addressing perceptions that might hinder their later career growth.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the perceived barriers to career progression for women. Prior research has concentrated on career progression in the context of employed women. This study extends that work to understand the perceptions of women about to embark on their career journey.