Özet:
Women have begun to take part in business life due to the changing structure of
workforce. However, women who are members of minority groups have faced many
obstacles in business life. The most important obstacle is that women are high in
number in mid-levels but they cannot come up higher levels because of individual,
organizational, and social reasons. This term referring to invisible barriers in
business life is called as “glass ceiling syndrome” in literature.
This comparative study aims at investigating potential glass ceiling effects with its
causes in academia both in Turkey and Finland - one of the Nordic countries -. The
research question is formulated as how the relationship between organizational
culture and the glass ceiling syndrome affects women academics’ career
advancements at Turkish and Finnish universities. Besides, it is examined whether
there is any effect of demographic factors on glass ceiling perceptions of academics.
A questionnaire was conducted to measure women and men academics’ glass ceiling
perceptions in selected faculties of Turkish and Finnish universities. The data of the
research was collected by Hofstede’s Culture Questionnaire (Emet – 2006, and Sigler
& Pearson – 2000) and Karaca’s Glass Ceiling Scale (2007). The glass ceiling
questionnaire involves seven dimensions representing barriers for women’s career
advancement. Hofstede’s culture approach was used as a model for organizational
culture in order to reveal cultural differences affecting women’s career advancement
in these countries. According to research findings, there is no relationship between
the glass ceiling syndrome and organizational culture but there are some
relationships with regard to sub-dimensions of variables that were determined in
academia in both Turkey and Finland. While academics in Turkey are uncertain
about the glass ceiling syndrome, Finnish academics agree with this syndrome. It is
also concluded that there are no differences in glass ceiling perceptions of academics
in terms of their demographic characteristics in both countries.
