barriers of women's access to managerial positions from women managers' viewpoint; case study: bandarabbas city

the recent increasing number of women in organizations has not been associated with their appropriate positions. therefore, potential capacity of half of active workforce is not utilized fully in managerial positions for organizational success. this study investigates why women are less likely to achieve higher positions in organizations .the study identifies barriers of women's access to managerial positions through a qualitative research methods. the data are collected through in-depth and semi-structured interviews with female executives of governmental organizations located in bandar abbas. qualitative data have been analyzed according to colaizzi’s seven stages process with max qda software. the results show that four categories of barriers including personal barriers (14 items including marriage and children, lack of support from family and husband, etc.), organizational barriers (19 items including negative mindset and viewpoint of decisions makers and managers, preference of men to women in equal conditions, etc.), social barriers (4 items including social culture and men-dominant culture, lack of believing the competency of women, etc.), and legal barriers (5 items including pregnancy-leave law, obedience of wife from husband, etc.), are the main obstacles of women for achieving higher managerial positions in iranian organizations. at the end, the study proposed some practical solutions such as identifying and introducing successful women mangers to overcome the obstacles.