Indira Shrestha

Eliminating gender prejudice in job advancement is crucial to organizational success. The study aims to analyze the impact of invisible barriers (corporate culture and corporate practices) on the promotion of women working in Nepalese commercial banks. Structural equation modeling and path analysis have examined how the glass ceiling factors affect women’s career progression. The study’s targeted population consisted of female middle-level managers. It used convenience sampling to collect information from 288 female middle-level managers. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Bartlett’s tests for sphericity were used to test the study’s external validity. Construct reliability tests and average variance extracted tests were used to evaluate the convergent validity of the latent variables. Heterotrait-monotrait ratio test was used to assess the discriminant validity of the independent components. The result revealed that the corporate culture with seven observable items (β = –0.313; p < 0.05) and corporate practices with nine observable items (β = –0.507; p < 0.05) had a negative and statistically significant impact on women’s career progression in Nepal, accounting for approximately 64.0% of the variation. For organizations to be moral and effective, gender stereotypes regarding promotions must be eliminated. The study’s findings assist policymakers in understanding how the glass ceiling affects women’s promotion in businesses and recognizing discrimination based on gender to make promotional decisions impartial.

Even though women entered the corporate world in the twenty-first century, there are still relatively few in leadership roles across all industries. Women’s advancement may be hampered by a few unseen circumstances. Thus, the study sought to determine the glass ceiling elements (organizational culture, organizational climate, organizational practice, and women’s career aspirations) that could impede women’s career development in Nepalese financial institutions. Descriptive and analytical research designs were used. Women working as supervisors and above made up the population. Nepalese financial institutions were separated into three groups (commercial bank, development bank, and finance company) using multi-stage sampling. Statistical tools like frequency, mean, one-way ANOVA, and multiple regression were used for the 396 sample. The result showed that organizational culture (11 items, β = –0.335, p < 0.05) seemed more influencing to affect the career development of women negatively followed by organizational climate (18 items, β = –0.209, p < 0.05), organizational practice (10 items, β = –0.176, p < 0.05) and women’s career aspirations (18 items, β = –0.169, p < 0.05) accounting for approximately 52.3% of the variation. Post hoc analysis showed that women working in commercial banks have fewer career development opportunities compared to development banks. However, there is no difference between commercial banks and finance companies, as well as between development banks and finance companies. Finally, the study findings will help policymakers understand invisible barriers that hamper women’s careers and help women become aware of corporate and personal factors leading to improved careers.

Acknowledgment
This study was funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC), Nepal, under UGC Award Number PhD-77/78-Mgmt-03. The author wants to express gratitude to UGC Nepal for its generous funding.