The Effects of Work-life Conflict and Mentoring on Female Career Advancement
Rahimah Mohamed Yunos1*, Syahrul Ahmar Ahmad1, Noreen Noor Abd Aziz2, Fatimah Hashim1, Siti Masnah Saringat1
1 Faculty of Accountancy, Universiti Teknologi Mara Cawangan Johor, Malaysia
2 Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi Mara Cawangan Johor, Malaysia
*Corresponding Author: [email protected]
Accepted: 15 December 2021 | Published: 31 December 2021 DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ajbs.2021.3.4.6
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Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of work-life conflict and mentorship on the career development of Universiti Teknologi Mara’s (UiTM) alumnae.
Multiple regression analysis was used in this study to evaluate the connection between the independent and dependent variables. The study's target demographic consisted of female graduates from all UiTM branches. The findings revealed that work-life conflict and mentorship is significantly related to career advancement. It is recommended that higher education institutions increase curriculum activities geared particularly toward female students. Employers should have a structured mentorship program in place to prepare their female employees for positions in higher management. These initiatives may eventually assist firms in finding suitable female candidates for their boards of directors, thus allowing them to meet the Malaysian Securities Commission's requirement of 30% female directors.
Keywords: Career advancement, mentoring, work-life conflict
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1. Introduction
Women's engagement in the private sector is limited, and they have fewer opportunities for advancements due to the assumption that women are less skilled and incapable of competing with men, particularly in the area of management and leadership (Bernama, 2019). Denoted as a glass ceiling effect, women face several obstacles in advancing to positions of leadership (Boorstin, 2019; Siboni, Sangiorgi, Farneti, & De Villiers, 2016; Srivastava, Madan, &
Dhawan, 2020; Tominc, Šebjan, & Širec, 2017). Malaysian-listed businesses are required to nominate at least 30% women to their boards, as recommended in the 10th Malaysian Plan, however, this requirement has not been met until 2019, with just 16.96% of women on the boards of listed companies, and 24.82% in the top 100 (Securities Commission Malaysia, 2020). The desire to increase women's board participation is consistent with empirical findings that women directors increase innovation activity (Marina, 2018), is associated with higher corporate social reporting (Mohd-Said, Shen, Nahar, & Senik, 2018), increase profitability (Pangestu, Gunawan, & Wijaya, 2019; Zahid et al., 2020), and improve corporate sustainability (Zahid et al., 2020). However, complying with the law is not a simple checkbox exercise and a low percentage of women participation is not impactful to the companies (Ahmad, Rashid,
& Gow, 2018; Arulvel & Pratheepkanth, 2019). Instead of blaming firms for failing to meet the objective, it is critical to examine what factors may have led to this problem. Many variables have been explored in the literature that may inhibit women's professional advancement;
however, this study focuses on work-life conflict and mentorship. The findings of this study will help clarify whether the barriers are at the individual or firm level. The findings may aid higher learning institution, organizations, and policymakers in initiating relevant measures.
2. Literature Review
Career Advancement
A career progression is a transition from a lower to a higher level of employment until it reaches management level. This progression can take place within the same occupation or through a changeover to a related profession that requires a higher level of education. Not only is it important to aim for a higher salary, but it is also important to keep learning to avoid mediocrity or job dissatisfaction. In other words, a skill set eases the progression to a new career position with more difficult tasks. Communication skills, self-awareness, and workplace attitude (Tripathy, 2020), on-the-job training, and further education and training (Dosunmu &
Adeyemo, 2018; Niati, Siregar, & Prayoga, 2021) are all factors that contribute to career development because they can boost employee motivation and job performance. Despite their best efforts to stay relevant, women still face additional challenges when it comes to entering the masculine domain of leadership. According to Srivastava et al. (2020) the presence of a glass ceiling reduces women's career satisfaction and prevents them from recognizing the organization's goal which ultimately limits their career development. Despite compromising on compensation, receiving good support for teamwork, a good working environment, and job security, these women are unable to identify the organizational goal. Employers have lost faith in women because of the perception that they are always unavailable and frequently multitasking with their personal lives, resulting in the creation of a glass ceiling. The social role theory in leadership's communal and agentic attributes explain why women are underrepresented in leadership positions (Eagly, 1987). Women's participation in decision- making positions are low (Saadin, Ramli, Johari, & Harin, 2016), and this is reflected in the long-awaited 30% female representation on boards of directors. Although the number of female graduates exceed male graduates, the gender gap in the workplace has not yet narrowed (Ang, 2018), and female participation in the labour force has fallen in middle management, with even lower figures at the board level (Chin, 2021). Low labour force participation also contributes to women's slow development as leaders. Male participation is 40% higher than female participation (NST, 2019), and female graduates are more likely to choose a low-paying career and settle in a low-paying job (Gu, 2018). According to the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), many graduates are working in jobs that are incompatible with their qualifications (Malay Mail, 2020). According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia Official Portal 2020/2021, women participate at a high rate of 75.1% in the 25-34 age group, but only 57% in the 45-54 age group. Women's multiple roles in their career, running a family, and chores at home puts pressure on them to give up on their careers. Gender discrimination in the workplace also limits their opportunities for growth in a men-dominated environment (Victor & Shamila, 2018). Women already face challenges in the workplace, and family responsibilities exacerbate the situation. O’neil, Hopkins, and Bilimoria (2015) stated that there are three critical factors that make women's career advancement worthy of investigation: (a) the differential impact of family or care-giving responsibilities on men and women's career; (b) women development psychology suggests that a distinctive relational emphasis may infuse women's career development; and (c) women's under-representation and subsequent token status at higher organizational levels that constrain their career progression.
Work-life Conflict
According to the role theory suggested by Katz and Kahn (2015), individuals have numerous roles, encompassing work and personal domains. Work roles are tasks that must be completed to earn a wage, whereas living roles are connected to family-life, such as partnering, parenting, and personal activities. Work-life conflict develops when the work role is impeded by engagement in the family role (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985) and household responsibilities are one of them (Arham, Norizan, Ridzuan, Alwi, & Arham, 2019). Bureau of Labor Statistic (2021) reported that women carry more domestic duties than men, and they spend more time caring for children. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the obligation expanded to satisfy the demand for homeschooling while also working from home. Therefore, working mothers face a more challenging dilemma to devote additional effort for work at the expense of their family life (Spagnoli, Lo Presti, & Buono, 2020). Women who struggle to balance family and work would naturally choose family. As an alternative, they would choose to work part-time, commit to flexible working hours, and settle with lower wages in return for a workplace that is closer to home; all of which do not foresee promotion opportunities (Vaghefi, 2018) particularly when the main reason for women to work is concerned to economic necessity rather than career ambition (Bharti et al., 2021). Responsibilities in primary child-rearing years and in the partnered relationship (Bardekjian, Nesbitt, Konijnendijk, & Lötter, 2019) and shortage of comprehensive and affordable childcare that require them to spend most of their hours taking care of family members than performing professional works (Matot, De Hert, Cohen, & Koch, 2020) are among the barriers for women to pursue leadership positions. Dealing with pregnancy is another challenge faced by careered women (Al-Asfour, Tlaiss, Khan, &
Rajasekar, 2017). To add, the guilt of extending working hours beyond normal working hours, especially for those with children, also causes them to let go of the overburdened job, which eventually slows their professional advancement. (Arslaner & Boylu, 2017; Harniyati et al., 2021; Toffoletti & Starr, 2016). Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed,
H1: Work-life conflict has a negative effect on female career advancement.
Mentoring
Kram (1988) proposed a mentoring paradigm that stressed two roles in mentoring: career and psychology. Mentoring is a career role that provides assistance, exposure, coaching, protection, crucial service, and the delivery of professional standards and ethics. As the mentor becomes the role model, the psychological functions promote the mental growth of the mentee's ability and effectiveness, as well as offers an outlet for the mentee to seek guidance, form friendships, and address difficulties to get acceptance and acknowledgment. A mentor is a professional in an individual's chosen field who is actively trying to integrate his or her mentee into a developmentally appropriate professional role. The mentor bears some responsibility for the mentee's successful professional growth. Mentoring is frequently used as a managerial strategy to communicate organizational principles and culture, as well as to manage stress, encourage employee engagement, and reduce labour turnover (Chang & Busser, 2017; Eissner & Gannon, 2018; S. S. Kim, Im, & Hwang, 2015; Uen, Chang, McConville, & Tsai, 2018). As a result, mentoring can help solve some of the chronic issues in terms of motivation, commitment, and retention (Sharples & Marcon-Clarke, 2019). According to Biehle, Crowl, Park, Vos and Franks (2021), peer mentoring circles are helpful for professional growth because they emphasize interpersonal connectivity and relatability experiences among peers.
Mentoring programs geared specifically towards women can be beneficial for women's job progression (Dashper, 2018), but it may promote gender inequality as it acknowledges the underperformance of individual woman relative to their male counterparts (Dashper, 2019).
Kim (2017) argued that the mentoring of female managers are linked more to relational support and emotional empathy rather than to achieve a greater career goal. Nevertheless, female managers are more likely to value psychosocial support as it creates good empathy in work- family relations. Kim (2017) also added that formal mentoring is effective in a condition where positive experiences from work are transferred into the domain of family life. To specify, formal mentoring programs provide career-specific support as evident in Perumal and Dastane (2017) where women's professional advancement in the IT field is decreasing when they do not have a mentor, particularly because IT is a male-dominated industry. Mentoring has a beneficial impact on women's retention and professional development because it provides a third space for them to engage in the profession and gain confidence (O’Meara, Nyunt, Templeton, & Kuvaeva, 2019). Nevertheless, women faced significant obstacles to leadership positions owing to a lack of mentoring and structured assistance (Remington & Kitterlin- Lynch, 2018). Dashper (2020) identified structured mentorship as a technique for empowering women in talent management and addressing gender imbalance since it helps women increase their confidence, capacity to establish objectives, and celebrate accomplishments. Cho, Park, Han, and Ho (2019) reported that mentoring had helped in the leadership development of women CEOs in multinational companies in Korea. To simplify, mentoring helps to eliminate information gaps, create a support network, and engage women with role models (Buckles, 2019). Development in terms of personal, professional, job productivity, and satisfaction is attributed to successful mentoring. It was proven that women who participated in a year-long formal mentorship program improved their careers through promotion, new jobs, and improved working performance (Dashper, 2018). They underlined that the mentorship programme had increased these women's confidence and helped them focus on defining professional goals and broadening their network. The following hypothesis is proposed considering the above findings:
H2: Mentoring has a positive effect on female career advancement.
3. Research Methods
Data Measurement
The survey included a question on career advancement (CA) 7 items, work-life conflict (WLC) 8 items, and mentoring (MR) 15 items. CA scale was adapted from Jawahar and Hemmasi (2006), the WLC scales were adapted from Afza and Newaz (2008) and Lyness and Thompson (1997), and the MR scale was adapted from Dreher and Ash (1990). The survey questions utilized a five-point Likert scale (1-strongly disagree, 2- disagree, 3-neutral, 4-agree, and 5- strongly agree) for each statement. Respondents were asked to indicate their perceptions about working in their present organization. A higher score (strongly agree) on the CA indicates a higher degree of potential for career advancement. One item in the scale was in a reverse statement: “The men-network in my organization limits women's opportunities for promotion to the senior position”. The score for this scale is reversed before performing the analyses. The summed total of CA responses was calculated and used as a score for career advancement. A higher score (strongly agree) on the WLC indicates a higher degree of work-life conflict. The summed total of WLC responses was used to measure work-life conflict. A higher score (strongly agree) on the MR indicates that the participants perceived that they received great mentoring. The summed total of MR was used to measure mentoring. Figure 1 presents the research framework to test the effects of work-life conflict and mentoring on career advancement.
Figure 1: A research framework
Data Collection
A pilot test on eight UiTM alumnae was conducted to assess the length and clarity of the scale.
Changes have been made to clarify unclear wording based on the responses. Questionnaires were distributed online via WhatsApp and Facebook groups. Participants included working UiTM alumnae. This study had a total of 106 respondents.
Data Analysis
Reliability statistic on all variables is high based on the Cronbach's Alpha; 0.896 for CA and 0.922 for MR. WLC was initially assessed based on 10 items, but two items were removed:
“While working at my current workplace, I have taken a huge amount of time off for childbearing, child-raising, parental care, or similar family responsibilities” and “Staying longer than the regular office time is highly appreciated by my family members” (reverse statement). These items have negative values in the Inter-Item Correlation Matrix. Removing them has increased the value of Cronbach's Alpha from 0.884 to 0.937. Multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses using SPSS Statistics 27.
4. Results
Descriptive Analysis
Over 45% of the 106 respondents were between the ages of 26 and 35, and more than half were married but none of the participants have dependent children. Over 60% of respondents had a bachelor's degree, 18% had a master's degree, 7% had a diploma, and 6% had a postgraduate qualification. Only 15% of them are in junior level, with the rest in middle (40%) and senior level (45%). Most of the respondents had worked in the private and public sectors for more than four years (Table 1).
H1
Career advancement Work-life conflict
H2 Mentoring
Table 1: Respondents’ profile
Demographic indicator N %
Age (n= 106)
20-25 years old 8 7.5
26-30 years old 30 28.3
31-35 years old 19 17.9
36-40 years old 17 16.0
41-45 years old 10 9.4
46-50 years old 15 14.2
>50 years old 7 6.6
Marital status (n= 106)
Single 41 38.7
Married 62 58.5
Divorced 3 2.8
Education level (n= 106)
Professional 2 1.9
Doctorate 5 4.7
Master 19 17.9
Degree 72 67.9
Diploma 8 7.5
Working year (n= 106)
6m - 1y 7 6.6
1-3y 12 11.3
4-6y 26 24.5
7-10y 14 13.2
>10y 47 44.3
Position level (n= 106)
Junior 16 15.1
Middle 42 39.6
Senior 48 45.3
Type of companies (n= 106)
Government 33 31.1
Listed companies 19 17.9
Private companies 52 49.1
Self-employed 2 1.9
The mean score of 4.012 shows that most participants agree that women get support from the organization they currently work at to enhance their career (Table 2). The higher the WLF score, the more conflict there is between work and personal life. The mean value of 2.838 for WLC indicates that most participants had little conflict between the two, and the mean value of 3.882 indicates that most participants are less than agreeable about receiving mentorship in their careers.
Table 2: Mean value of variables Variable Mean Std Deviation
CA 4.012 .805
WLC 2.838 .939
MR 3.882 .535
The mean value of each item instruments is presented in Table 3. Of the 8 items measuring WLC, the highest mean score is 3.2 indicating neutral perception about personal life being negatively affected due to tiredness at work. The lowest scores, on average, are 2.63 and 2.64, indicating that they have no difficulty carrying out personal roles as a spouse or parent while working and that their work schedule does not conflict with their family life. The highest score for WLC is 3.2, which indicates that they are unconcerned about being tired from work and unable to do things they enjoy. The mean value for mentoring indicates that respondents are more likely to choose between neutral and agree when evaluating whether or not they receive mentoring at work. They are given challenging tasks and opportunities to learn new skills, according to the highest score of 4.16. The lowest score of 3.54 indicates that most participants are either neutral or agree that they acted as a role model on average. The respondents agree that women can become senior managers based on the way the organization is run, with a mean score of 4.32. According to the participants, men's networks, on average, are less likely to limit women's opportunities to hold senior positions. The highest number of respondents (45%) hold a senior position of which majority have work for, for more than 10 years. There are participants who hold high positions; manager-13%, director-7%, accountant-2%, and head of department- 4%. The remaining participants are assistants and in executive level.
Table 3: Mean value of instruments
Variable Mean Std
Deviation Career advancement
1. Sufficient opportunities exist in my organization for women to advance into senior management positions.
3.95 1.072 2. In my organization, there are equal career development opportunities for men and
women.
4.12 .953 3. According to the way my organization operates, a woman can become a senior
manager in the future.
4.32 .981 4. Women and men are respected equally in my organization 4.25 .934 5. In my organization, the number of women penetrating the hierarchy and achieving
senior positions is steadily increasing.
3.97 1.028 6. In my organization, women are primarily encouraged to apply to managerial roles. 3.92 .987 7. The men network in my organization limits women's opportunities for promotion to
the senior position (reverse)
3.56 1.196 Work-life conflict
1. My work schedule often conflicts with my family life. 2.64 1.097 2. After work, I come home too tired to do some of the things I like to do. 3.20 1.133 3. On the job, I have so much work to do that it takes away from my personal interests. 3.10 1.137 4. My family dislikes how often I am preoccupied with my work while I am home. 2.68 1.074 5. Because my work is demanding, at times I am irritable at home. 2.87 1.180 6. The nature of my job makes it difficult to be relaxed all the time at home. 2.75 1.161 7. My work takes up time that I like to spend with my family. 2.83 1.100 8. My job makes it difficult to be the kind of spouse or parent I like to be. 2.63 1.132
Mentoring
1. I am given or recommended for challenging assignments that present opportunities to learn new skills.
4.16 .678 2. I am given or recommended for assignments that require personal contact with
managers in different parts of the company.
3.98 .756 3. I am given or recommended for assignments that increase my contact with higher-
level managers.
3.94 .871 4. I am given or recommended for assignments that help me meet new colleagues. 4.09 .697 5. I am assisted to finish assignments/tasks or meet deadlines that otherwise would
have been difficult to complete.
3.91 .799 6. My colleagues/superiors went out of their way to promote my career interests. 3.55 .852 7. My colleagues/superiors conveyed feelings of respect to me as an individual. 3.91 .737
8. My colleagues/superiors conveyed empathy for the concerns and feelings that I have discussed with them.
3.88 .739 9. I am encouraged to talk openly about anxiety and fears that detract me from my
work.
3.60 .933 10. My colleagues/superiors shared personal experiences as an alternative perspective
on my problems.
3.92 .719 11. My colleagues/superiors shared the history of their careers with me. 4.00 .690
12. I am encouraged to prepare for advancement. 4.07 .680
13. I am encouraged to try new ways of behaving on the job. 4.05 .709
14. I have served as a role model. 3.54 .853
15. My colleagues/superiors displayed attitudes and values similar to mine. 3.64 .830
Multiple Regression Analyses
Standard multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the hypothesized relationship among the variables. Table 3 presents the standardized regression coefficients (beta weight, ), standard error, and the coefficient of determinations (R2).
Table 4: Multiple regression analysis for female career advancement
DV= Career advancement
Independent variable Beta Std error
Work-life conflict -.200** .067
Mentoring .373*** .063
R square = .204, F = 13.220***
***p<.01, **p<.05
The results showed that mentoring has the highest contribution to female career advancement relative to work-life conflict, as shown by its higher coefficient. The analysis showed that female career advancement is significantly influenced by work-life conflict at a 5%
significance level and mentoring at a 1% significance level.
5. Discussion and Conclusion
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether women career advancement is associated with work-life conflict and mentoring. The findings of the regression analyses confirm hypotheses 1 and 2, namely that work-life conflict has a negative effect on female career advancement and mentorship has a positive effect on female career advancement. The results on work-life conflict is consistent with previous studies (Arslaner & Boylu, 2017; Harniyati et al., 2021; Matot et al., 2020; Toffoletti & Starr, 2016; Vaghefi, 2018; Yet-Mee, Luen Peng, &
Chan Yin - Fah, 2013) that work-life conflict influences women’s career growth. The finding also confirms that mentorship is a significant factor to their career enhancement (Remington &
Kitterlin-Lynch, 2018) (Cho et al., 2019) (Dashper, 2018) (Perumal & Dastane, 2017). Women will normally choose family if pursuing their career prejudices her time with them. In order to support women in balancing their roles without giving up one over the other, a more proactive measure should be taken by various parties in supporting them. Formal mentoring is one of the effective support (Buckles, 2019; H. Kim, 2017; O’Meara et al., 2019) that could help reduce other problems that lead to the glass ceiling effect. Mentees are fully committed and aggressive in motivation and planning, and that there is reciprocity between mentor and mentee (Read, Fisher, & Juran, 2019). In the same manner, mentoring from senior female colleagues may assist younger women in striking a balance between personal commitment and professional development. The assistance may aid the mentee in developing self-confidence and learning how to deal with issues that may cause work-life conflict. Indirectly, it helps the mentoring program partly recognize the challenges faced by women and assist them to stay motivated instead of blaming and discriminating their efforts. Additionally, organizations should
implement measures to increase employee loyalty and develop internal talent to their female employees. The initiative to promote women is not solely on the employer, as a woman would need to have the ambition and passion to achieve higher. To achieve this, leadership skills could be developed earlier at higher learning institutions through leadership-related programs and activities specifically tailored for female students (Offermann, Thomas, Lanzo, & Smith, 2020). To sum up, there are times when it is necessary to prioritize a career over a family, and the difficulty of doing so is mitigated by the understanding of the opportunity and impact that follows.
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