Pakistani Leaders & managers

Presented By: Javeria Waheed

Uzma Rahim

MSc 3rd

Introduction

• General outlook of Pakistani society reflect women’s increased involvement in different professions.

• Pakistani managers and entrepreneurs adopted the north American human resource management practices as strategies to attain above average growth and sustainable survival in the changing market (Saher, 2010)

• Women workers are hired on priority to create the North American, gender egalitarian, impression. Thus, more women are joining professions which were previously considered male domains.

Cont…• On the other hand this change has made women’s life more complex by

creating dual demands of joining profession and maintaining honour of the family and exclusive handling of reproductive duties besides professional responsibilities.

• There are certain rules/demands of modern organizations which are inconsistent with societal norms of Pakistani society.

• For example managerial positions demand their employees to be more assertive, aggressive and empowered whereas the socio-cultural values of modesty, family honour encourage women to be humble in dress, conversation and action. (syed, 2008)

Cont…• Women managers experience double edge, pressure and confrontation not

only due to organizational norms but also from society’s specific gender roles expectations.

• This cross cultural context of organizational structure and societal context creates more challenges for women managers.

• Syed identifies this situation from a social psychological perspective that women in modern organizations in Pakistan experience moral and emotional dilemma due to inconsistency between the display of rules at workplace and Islamic female modesty where they continuously strive to maintain cultural and professional identities.

Challenges• The workplace though created challenges for women employees

especially women managers to manage workforces socialize on highly gender specific norms.

The women managers face different subtle and obvious societal and organizational challenges that includes Token position , glass ceiling ,glass wall ,harassment , unavailability of networking and mentoring relation.

(Dr,Sahar,Shazia Safdar,Tasmia Matloob)

Cont…• Shah contend that men in Pakistani society find it hard to accept women in

the positions of authority even in the professional context, which suggest home-to-job transferring of role relationships Men’s dominance in the domestic setting is replayed in the ‘Public’.

• So women’s role as managers become more critical when she has to supervise men to achieve organizational goals.

• Budhwar depict that women managers have to deal with male ego which is viewed as serious barriers to women’s upward growth on managerial laadars.

Cont ..

• Chuma and Ncube the women performance at managerial position is jeopardize by their male colleagues especially by older one as they feel insure by women and considered managerial position as their own right.

Some major challanges

No importance to women’s opinion

No social circle and mentoring

relationship

Male Hide the opportunities

Clear difference in bonuses

Sexual harassment

Case studies

Balancing the work-family role was one of the serious challenge that women face.

Support of the family is an another big challange

strategies

Vartan Bhanji As A Strategic Mechanism

• Saher & mayrhofer (2013) have highlighted the importance of vartanbhanji management styles, organizational culture , individual , departmental and organizational performance despite adoption of western HRM practices in contemporary organizations in Pakistan.

• “Vartan bhanji” has been considered as a strategy to develop social network (saher,2010) as well as mechanism to influence people in Pakistan.

Cont…

• According to khilji (2013) social connections and interaction generally take precedence over rules in contemporary organization of Pakistan.

• Khilji further highlights that family centered mores of local culture are explicitly reflected in organizations working in Pakistan.

• The workers create family like relationship with non-kin on the embedded assumption of ‘Vartan bhanji’ in Punjabi culture (Saher, 2010)

Cont…

• VB as an informal social network is significant to access various types of resources and information in pakistan and information is shared on the basis of social bond among VB members (saher, et al,2012)

• Family like relationship are developed with non kin for their social integration into the kin group (lyon,2002) to develop association with informal networks in the organizations.

• Here VB works as a mechanism to have access to informal network through developing kin-ship relations with non-kin.