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Barriers and
The barriers and enablers to enablers
career and leadership
development
An exploration of women’s stories 857
in two work cultures Received 10 July 2018
Revised 23 August 2018
Susan Elizabeth Mate Accepted 31 August 2018
School of Management, College of Business, RMIT University,
Melbourne, Australia, and
Matthew McDonald and Truc Do
Asian Graduate Centre, RMIT University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to contrast how the relationship between career and leadership
development and workplace culture is experienced by women in two different countries and the implications
this has for human resource development initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach – The study used a qualitative narrative research design to
understand how the lived experiences of Australian and Vietnamese early- to mid-career female
academics is engendered.
Findings – The study identified a number of key barriers and enablers that affected women’s career and
leadership development. For the Australian participants, the main barrier included the competing
demands of work and life and male dominated organisational cultures that discriminate against women in
covert ways. The main enabler was mentoring and the building of professional networks that provided
their careers with direction and support. For the Vietnamese participants, the main barriers were overt
and included male-dominated organisational and societal cultures that limit their career and leadership
development opportunities. The main enabler was having a sponsor or person with power in their
respective organisation who would be willing to support their career advancement and gaining
recognition from colleagues and peers.
Research limitations/implications – Gaining a deeper understanding of the barriers and enablers that
effect women’s career and leadership development can be used to investigate how culturally appropriate
developmental relationships can create ways to overcome the barriers they experience.
Originality/value – The study analysed the contrasting experiences of barriers and enablers from two
cultures. The participants narrated stories that reflected on the gender politics they experienced in their
career and leadership development. The narrative comparisons provide a unique lens to analyse the
complex cultural experience of gender and work with potential implications for human resource
development.
Keywords Organizational culture, Narratives, Career and leadership
Paper type Research paper

International Journal of
Declaration of conflicting interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interests with Organizational Analysis
Vol. 27 No. 4, 2019
respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article. pp. 857-874
Funding: This project was funded by RMIT University, Vietnam and RMIT University, Melbourne © Emerald Publishing Limited
1934-8835
internal research grants. DOI 10.1108/IJOA-07-2018-1475
IJOA Introduction
27,4 While many societies espouse equal opportunities for women in the workforce, there are
often societal values and deeply held cultural schemas that affect women’s career and
leadership development in organisations. Two key dimensions of cultural value or
differences in macro and micro workplace cultures include traditional and secular-rational
values (Inglehart, 1997; Inglehart and Baker, 2000; Inglehart and Welzel, 2003, 2005). This
858 study seeks to explore how these cultural differences affect the lived experiences of early to
mid-career female academics in Vietnam and Australia in their respective universities. We
propose that the Vietnamese women’s stories of their workplaces experiences are influenced
by traditional values, whilst in Australia, the stories are shaped by more secular values.
The traditional-secular value dimensions which underpin cultural and societal
behaviours are important in this study in the way they impact on work culture (Yeganeh,
2013). For example, organisational structures in the education sector in Vietnam continue to
be highly bureaucratic and patriarchal, creating barriers and constraints for the women who
work in them (Dang, 2017; Do and Brennan, 2015). Vietnamese women lack development
opportunities that support them in the workplace to overcome barriers to advance their
careers into leadership roles. If Vietnam is to continue to prosper socially, culturally and
economically, then more women are needed to occupy leadership positions in government,
public and private organisations so as to improve equity outcomes and to benefit from the
diversity of knowledge they offer (UNDP, 2014; United Nations Women Vietnam, 2016;
World Bank, 2016).
The present study seeks to gain insight into these issues through a comparative study of
Australian and Vietnamese women to explore how the barriers and enablers (to be discussed
in more detail in the following section) to career and leadership development are
experienced. The impetus for this study stems from the Australia–Vietnam Human
Resource Development Programme 2016-2020 (Australian Government, 2015). The aim of
the programme is to share workplace knowledge, skills and capabilities that target
Vietnamese women at the mid-career stage, so as to advance their careers by assisting them
to achieve promotion to leadership positions. To enable this, the programme provides
opportunities for women from Australia and Vietnam to learn from one another regarding
the barriers they face and the enablers that support them at the micro psychological, family/
household organization and the macro sociocultural levels.

Workplace gender equity in Australia and Vietnam

The opportunity to take on managerial leadership[1] roles in the workplace continues to be
elusive for many women (Atewologun and Sealy, 2014). Globally, women occupy a minority
of senior positions (only 5-20 per cent of directors worldwide), boards remain predominantly
male and change has been described as “glacially slow” (Hawarden and Marsland, 2011,
p. 532). While there are signs that the number of women in managerial leadership and at
board level is increasing worldwide (World Economic Forum, 2015), it is still far from equal.
In many countries, “equal opportunity” (EO) legislation and policies have sought to
promote women to a level that is at least equivalent to their male counterparts. In Australia,
the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1984 to improve equality between the sexes.
There is extensive evidence that opportunities for women in general – and professional
women in particular – have increased significantly as a result (Peetz and Pocock, 2007;
Sheridan and Pringle, 2009; Strachan and Burgess, 2000). Other social improvements include
better access to contraception, healthcare, education and support for working mothers, such
as child care and flexible working arrangements. However, gaining managerial leadership
roles is still insurmountable for many women to achieve as the barriers to these positions
often stem from deep structures and systems within society and organisations (Atewologun Barriers and
and Sealy, 2014). Indeed, after 30 years of workplace change, women hold only 16 per cent of enablers
CEO positions in the private sector (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2016). In
Australia, although organisational support and development of female employees has
changed markedly over the past few decades, subtle and more complex forms of
discrimination are still experienced by many (Pocock, 2005; Strachan, 2010).
In Vietnam, the Gender Equality Law took effect in July 2007, with the aim of improving
gender equality and advancing women in the workforce (United Nations Women Vietnam, 859
2016). After ten years, there is still a gap between the principles outlined in this legal
framework and its implementation at all levels of Vietnamese society (VnHelp, 2012). As
Dang (2017, p. 19) notes: “Gender equality does not exist in reality, regardless of tremendous
efforts from the Vietnamese government and policy makers”. A World Bank (2016, p. 49)
report on Vietnam stated that gender equity and leadership “in business and particularly in
government and political spheres [. . .] is overwhelmingly male”. The situation for women
working in the Vietnamese higher education sector reflects national figures, with women
comprising 12 per cent of Head of Department roles and 8 per cent of Deputy Head of
Department roles as of 2010 (Le et al., 2010). The situation is marginally better in the
Australian higher education sector. For example, 23.1 per cent of female academics occupied
managerial leadership roles as of 2010. By 2016, this number rose to 27.3 per cent, indicating
a modest increase (Universities Australia, 2016). However, in both countries, women
continue to occupy far fewer managerial leadership roles when compared to men.

Barriers to career and leadership development

Awareness of the barriers to career and leadership development in Vietnam have focussed
on the less visible or covert constraints that prevent women from advancing their careers by
moving into leadership roles (Do and Brennan, 2015; Funnell and Dao, 2013; Le, 2011; Le,
et al., 2010; Nguyen, 2013; Truong, 2008; Truong, 2014; Vo, 2009). Diehl and Dzubinski,
(2016, 2017) emphasise the importance of making the invisible visible in workplace cultures,
arguing that they reproduce the gendered structures of society where sexism is largely
hidden. While blatant forms of gender discrimination are now rare due to equal opportunity
laws and organisational awareness (Diehl and Dzubinski, 2016), gender discrimination is
still common, the problem now is that it has gone underground (Meyerson and Fletcher,
2000, p. 231):
Researchers are now focusing on gender bias involving barriers arising from ‘cultural beliefs
about gender as well as overt workplace legislation that when put into practice inadvertently
favour men (Ely et al., 2011, p. 475).
Although women in Australia and Vietnam have formal legal rights to equal opportunities
in the workplace, in these more overt or formal structures, informal power relations appear
to maintain their under-representation in managerial leadership roles through generally
invisible constraints (Gabriel, 2005). For example, women in Vietnamese workplaces are
affected by cultural barriers that perpetuate gender stereotypes that portray women as
inferior in terms of their leadership capabilities when compared with their male counterparts
(Truong, 2014). The introduction of Confucian philosophies during the Chinese occupation
of northern Vietnam over 1,000 years ago, prescribed a social philosophy for daily life based
on a patriarchal doctrine (Dang, 2017; Do and Brennan, 2015). Confucian philosophy
includes the “three obedience”s’ and “four virtues”, which are ethical principles that promote
the passivity and servility of women (Dang, 2017; Do and Brennan, 2015; Truong, 2014; Vo,
2009). Indeed, Duong (2001, p. 191) writes that equality laws and policies are considered
IJOA “secondary to customs derived from the oppressive values of Vietnamese Confucian
27,4 society”.
A degree of cultural resistance has been observed in Vietnam, in which young middle-
class women living in urban areas are increasingly being exposed to globalizing influences
and may be starting to “challenge and reconfigure genderized social norms” (Earl, 2014,
p. 137). Yet despite these influences, many women in Vietnam continue to feel obligated to
860 conform to gender-designated responsibilities, including performing household tasks such
as cooking, cleaning and shopping and being the primary care-giver for children and older
members of the family (Dang, 2017). Thus, to enhance cultural and practical support for
women to advance their careers, female leaders in Vietnam need to play a pivotal role in this
process, as both the object and agent of change (Nguyen, 2013).

Enablers to career and leadership development

Mate (2013) found that behind the dominant narrative of career progression for Australian
women in senior and middle management roles, there was a gender-specific counter
narratives[2]; that of coming to terms with a male-dominated work culture. The counter
narrative highlights the challenges and ambiguities of career progression. This was
particularly the case for women in senior management roles who felt that workplace
cultures played a major role in constructing social discourses and women’s leadership
identities that were inferior to men’s (Mate, 2013). Research indicates that mentoring can be
an effective means to build women’s capacity for leadership in organisations; however, the
mentoring relationship needs to be effectively developed to create social change as opposed
to just transactional change (de Vries, 2010, 2011; Linehan and Walsh, 1999; Murphy et al.,
2017). Mentoring has long been an important practice not only for career advancement and
personal development of employees, but also for organisational success (Locke and
Williams, 2000; Martin-Chua, 2009; McKeen and Bujaki, 2007; Ragins and Cotton, 1999).
While mentoring has been “expansively practised by men” (Morgan 2006, p. 189),
increasingly women are making use of it as well to succeed in male-dominated occupations
(Ramaswami et al., 2010). Indeed, the significance and effectiveness of mentoring in
improving the career success of women (Woolnough and Davidson, 2007) has become a
topic of interest in recent research (Abalkhail and Allan, 2015). However, the majority of
studies have been carried out in Western cultures (Van den Brink and Benschop, 2012).
Thus, more research is required in the tailoring of culturally relevant support for women in
emerging economy workplaces such as Vietnam.
The workplace culture of universities has also been found to undermine women’s efforts
to implement equal opportunity practices, therefore limiting their career choices (Diehl and
Dzubinski, 2016; Van den Brink and Benschop, 2012). Van den Brink and Benschop (2012)
suggest that equal opportunity interventions are not enough to change workplace cultures
and structures that discriminate against women. They recommend gender awareness
training that highlights the rationale, or quest for gender change, as a way to prevent “old”
culturally engrained structures from continuing to constrain female career and leadership
development. Practices such as mentoring and coaching, greater transparency in promotion
and recruitment practices and the introduction of support networks are thought to only
provide support if they are practiced within a culture that is prepared to meaningfully
implement equal opportunity practices.

International workplace culture

Modern western workplaces are considered to be increasingly liquid, “agile” and in a
constant state of “flux, mutation, reinvention and flexibility” (Gabriel, 2005, p. 13). Thus,
professional identities are now formed in highly ambiguous cultures with constantly Barriers and
shifting boundaries (Bauman, 2003a, 2003b, 2005; Bauman and Haugaard, 2008; Clegg and enablers
Baumeler, 2010). However, organisational structures in Vietnam are still largely hierarchical
and bureaucratic in nature, with multinational companies being the exception to the rule
(Vo, 2009). Indeed, Vietnamese workplaces may still reflect Weber’s (1978) “iron cage”,
which is characterised by rationality, regulation and procedure. Weber’s iron cage has been
superseded in the West by what has been referred to as the “glass cage”, which is
characterised by “display, an invisibility of constraints, a powerful illusion of choice, and a 861
glamorisation of image” (Gabriel, 2005, p. 9). Due to the liquid nature of organisations in the
West, models of mentorship, which are underpinned by Western educational and
organisational development theories, need to consider the sociocultural factors that affect
women in other cultures if they are to be useful.
The continued under-representation of women in managerial roles in both Vietnam and
Australia despite EO, are often due to invisible forces such as sociocultural bias and
informal power relations (Diehl and Dzubinski, 2016; Gabriel, 2005). Do and Brennan (2013,
p. 274) contend that there appears to be an “under-theorisation of the interrelation nexus
between “informal power” and “formal power” in gender and educational leadership
research”. Gender has long been viewed as being produced and reproduced in organisations.
For example, Gherardi (1994, p. 591) observes: “We “do gender” while we are at work, while
we produce an organizational culture and its rules governing what is fair in the relationship
between the sexes”. The inner ambiguity of gender construction is expressed in the
dilemma: how can we do gender without second-sexing the female? The management of
cross–gender situations (dual presence) is based on a two-stage ritual involving the
ceremonial work of paying homage to the symbolic order of gender (invisible micro and
macro structures inherent in the culture) and the remedial work of repairing the inequality
inherent in gender difference (Gherardi, 1994). Investigating the ambiguity of gender
enables us in this study to explore how gender is constructed discursively in two cultures
and to consider what can be done to change gender relationships in organisations.
Therefore, we draw on a qualitative approach that enables us to understand the complex
ambiguities inherent in women’s workplace stories, those that are part of the values and
culture that impact on their experiences (Chase, 1995).
Further, Kemp (2016) suggests that the experience of equality or inequality is enabled or
constrained through the language that is used. Thus, the way women talk about their
experience of development and growth in the workplace is seen to be important in
understanding their lived experience. Similarly, Bamberg and Andrews (2004) argue that we
develop our identities by telling stories about our lives. Thus, narrative approaches can
identify the lived experiences of women in the workplace, including the barriers and
enablers they encounter (Chase, 1995; Eagly and Carli, 2007; Mate et al., 2015). Barriers may
include organisational or societal cultures that subtly exclude or prevent women from
advancing into managerial positions and/or position women as the “other” (Kemp cited in
Ramarajan and Reid, 2013). For instance, Walby (2010) argues that education workplaces
are often inherently gendered in terms of networks, human capital and common definitions.
Hoffman et al. (2014) investigated the relationship between managerial skills in cross-
cultural settings to identify their applicability in different futures and found that
multinationals are becoming a dominant form of work and business culture. Hofstede (2010)
and House et al. (2004) research has been the most influential cross-cultural research applied
to organisations for the past 40 years. Their respective analyses assume that culture
programmes the collective mind, influencing the way employees behave in organisations
(Peterson, 2009). When exploring the key values in the two cultures in this study, the most
IJOA significant differences were those related to “power distance” and “individualism”, while
27,4 there were also differences in values such as masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term
orientation and indulgence.
Australians rank quite low on measures of power distance with only 36 per cent of
respondents considering it important for followers, whereas Vietnam ranks it highly with 70
per cent considering it important in their relationships with leaders. Individualism is
862 another dimension where there are large differences between the two countries. More than
90 per cent of Australians consider individual merit and evidence to be important when
hiring new employees and as a basis for promotion procedures, whereas only 20 per cent of
Vietnamese deemed this important, where instead the emphasis is more on collectivist
rewards and belonging to a team[3]. We found that Vietnamese women working in
international higher education institutions – based in Vietnam – had a stronger expectation
that their workplace seeks to foster equality, whereas those working in local Vietnamese
institutions viewed this as a pipedream. The approach adopted in the present study
supports the finding that different societies are underpinned by different cultural
expectations and values, and that these are reproduced in organisations. For women, this
means having to navigate invisible often covert practices in the workplace that function as
barriers to their career and leadership development.

Method: Narrative inquiry

Research approach
The research approach taken in this study assumes that exploring experiences across
different countries, cultures and organisations enables a deeper understanding of the topic
under investigation (Gabriel, 2005). A narrative inquiry method was chosen because it
“reflects a gender politics that moves towards a partial subversion of masculine rational
order”, which dominates many organisational cultures (Rhodes and Pullen, 2009, p. 596).
The study seeks to achieve this by documenting women’s stories, which are frequently
marginalised and silenced in the workplace. In line with Chase (1995, 2017) and Byrd (2009),
we argue that one way to give women a voice is by listening to, documenting and analysing
their stories so as to understand the more invisible covert forms of discrimination that are
influenced by cultural values. Asking participants to tell a story, as opposed to measuring
their attitudes on a set scales for example, provides the opportunity for them to articulate
developmental sequences, meaningful events and sociocultural forces that have influenced
their careers. Thus, narrative inquiry is used to record and compare the experiences of
women’s career and leadership development in Australia and Vietnam (Andrews et al., 2013;
Bamberg and Andrews, 2004; Riessman, 2008).

Participants and recruitment

In total, 12 early-to mid-career lecturers and researchers employed in the higher education
sector in Melbourne, Australia (6), and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (6), were interviewed for
this study. Three of the participants in Ho Chi Minh City worked in the public education
sector and three in the private or international education sector. All of the Australian
participants obtained their PhDs from a Western country. Five of the Vietnamese
participants obtained their PhDs outside Vietnam (the other participant obtained their
Master’s degree from a Vietnamese higher education institution). All of the Australian
participants were employed by Australian universities, and five of the Vietnamese
participants (those with PhDs) had worked internationally at some stage in their careers. A
saturation sample[4] group were recruited to participate, based on their ability to articulate
their career stories.
Narrative interviews Barriers and
The participants were asked to narrate stories about their career and leadership enablers
development and the barriers and enablers they experienced in their respective countries.
The main difference between standard in-depth interviewing and narrative interviewing is
the questioning process and the types of responses elicited. Standard interview questions
invite “reports” whereas narrative interviews invite “stories” (Chase, 1995).
The interview schedule began with the main question: “Please tell us the story of how
you have developed and grown as a leader in your professional life and career?” Prompts 863
were used to explore key elements of the women’s careers in more detail, such as: “When do
you consider your career journey began?” “What are some of the significant barriers you
have faced in your career as a leader?” “How did you overcome them?” “What have been the
most significant enablers in your career as a leader?” Interviews were conducted either face-
to-face or over the telephone and took between one to two hours. The interviews were audio-
recorded and then transcribed. All the interviews with the Vietnamese cohort were
conducted in English.

Narrative analysis
Chase’s (1995, 2017) framework was used as the basis for analysing the women’s stories,
which are divided into two main dimensions. The first was the participant’s experience of
power and success, which is referred to as their “dominant” narrative. The second was their
experience of subjectification to discrimination and inequality, referred to as their “counter”
narrative, which restricted their career and leadership development. In the analysis we
explored how the inner ambiguity of gender construction is expressed in the dilemma
between the way women experience the dominant and counter narrative, the counter
narrative as not only about barriers but also about the expression of how values about work
are enacted.

Findings and discussion

The stories indicate that women working in the higher education sectors in Australia and
Vietnam face a number of challenges in overcoming gender-related organisational and
societal barriers to their career advancement. Following is an outline and discussion of the
findings, which are divided into “dominant” and “counter” domains and “covert” and
“overt” barriers (see Table I).

Counter themes: balancing work and family

Some of the Australian women described not being willing to sacrifice family life to pursue
leadership roles as a key barrier along with not having access to networks that provided
support. They described this as a value choice. Despite the appearance of greater equality
between the sexes and shifts in values and attitudes in the West, evidence indicates that 56
per cent of women still choose to make sacrifices in their career so they can spend more time
and energy on their family (Cahusac and Kanji, 2013). This sacrifice is often exacerbated by
inflexible organisational cultures and working arrangements for mothers in managerial
leadership roles (Cahusac and Kanji, 2013). These sacrifices often mean that women
experience subtle forms of discrimination because they are viewed as “outsiders” not willing
to give everything to their jobs (Morley and Crossouard, 2015).
Smidt et al. (2017) found that women in the higher education sector in Iceland
experienced a high degree of tension between balancing work and life more than their male
counterparts. There were overt and covert incentive mechanisms in the higher education
system that were reported to create this tension for women. Our study reflected similar
IJOA Dominant themes – enablers covert/invisible Counter themes – barriers overt/visible
27,4
Vietnamese Women
Having a patron (sponsor) and recognition from Lack of available opportunities
colleagues and peers
Resilience: self-effort, commitment, a clear vision Confucian traditions (e.g. access to
networks in social spaces, negative
864 perceptions of women as leaders, women’s
subjugated roles and positions in the home
and society, balancing multiple
responsibilities)
Internationalisation of universities Not understanding the system
Having opportunities and luck Centralisation of university governance (e.g.
decision making by the central government)
Family support Not possessing luck to be appointed to
leadership role
Dominant themes – enablers covert/invisible Counter themes – barriers covert/invisible
Australian Women
Actively build professional relationships that provide Balancing competing demands
direction and support, particularly through mentoring
Collaboration and networking Not being resilient
Table I. Having a formal education Not being part of a professional group
Dominant and Making the best of opportunities and choices Unwilling to make ‘sacrifices’
counter themes Ability to gain support Lack of informal knowledge

findings to Smidt et al. (2017), as all the Australian women considered it important to
actively balance work and life, to make the most of the time and choices available to them at
work, while working to overcome the covert mechanisms that inhibited their career choices.
This was reflected in the dominant story for the Australian participants, which was to
actively build professional relationships and networks that provided direction and support
for their careers.
I think I just really enjoy working with people, but when my friend rang and said, ‘I want you to
apply for this role’ [. . .] I considered it! The manager put a business case to me that I could not
refuse, and he wanted me to step into a role that gave me more autonomy. It was a real learning
curve for me, but I got to work with the assessment centres and felt I was ready to take on this
more senior role. This was a point where I was at a ‘cross roads’, but I made the right decision for
me at the time to leave academic work. (Australian Participant #3)
The Australian participants focussed on how networks enabled them to overcome barriers
and this was associated with learning to develop resilience in the face of obstacles.
Resilience was enhanced by building strong business relationships, having a clear career
direction, pursuing goals, maintaining productivity, overcoming difficulties and being able
to enjoy family life.
A counter theme and visible barrier for the Vietnamese participants was the modern
expectation that they succeed both at work and in the home, which is termed Hai tot (“two
goods”), a lifestyle promoted by the Vietnamese Trade Union (2017). This phenomenon is
referred to as the “double burden” or “second shift” in the West (Hochschild and Machung,
1989). Traditionally, in Confucian-based socialist cultures such as Vietnam, women are
expected to shoulder the responsibility for maintaining the home and family life, so they
have less time to invest in their careers, and they may struggle to maintain a healthy work–
life balance (Dang, 2017; Truong, 2014). However, in this study, the Vietnamese cohort did Barriers and
not refer to family responsibilities as a barrier, viewing it instead as a potential enabler if enablers
extended family members were able to offer support and child care. This is important for
Vietnamese women because there is a lack of state child care services and facilities (Le et al.,
2010; Nguyen, 2013). Research by Nguyen (2013) and Dang (2017) found that family
obligations, and a related reluctance to pursue leadership roles, were observed as key factors
impeding female representation in the higher echelons of Vietnamese universities. However,
in this study, this was not apparent in the stories of the Vietnamese women who had been 865
able to take on more workplace responsibilities. We speculate this could be because that
while accepting family responsibilities is an unquestioned role, the Vietnamese women had
child care support from their extended families. This in turn may reflect that the extended
families were happy to support these women, especially as they worked in prestigious
higher education institutions, some with international orientations.

Dominant themes: the role of professional relationships

As was noted in the previous section, the dominant story for the Australian cohort was the
importance of fostering professional relationships and networks to facilitate career and
leadership development. The term “mentorship” was regularly used, for example, one of the
participants talked about how her mentor suggested she apply for a more senior role:
I felt at one stage my work was unsustainable [. . .] I had always considered following an
academic career. I got an offer of a research scholarship for my PhD and decided to take that up;
despite the pay cut, it gave me a different career trajectory. With my thesis, I co-authored a book
and insisted on my supervisor that my name went on as first author and he agreed. That was
what launched me in the direction of a more sustainable career and I am now still working with
that academic that gave me an opportunity to start publishing. I regularly contact key mentors to
ask their advice when I am applying for promotions now. (Australian Participant #6)
The dominant story for the Vietnamese participants was gaining support from what they
referred to as a “patron”. A patron may be someone who provides elements of “mentoring”
such as career and psychosocial[5] support. However, more commonly, a patron is someone
who possessed power and influence in the organisation who could assist with promotion.
Murphy et al. (2017, p. 368) term this type of developmental relationship “sponsorship”. A
sponsor in the context of Vietnam is someone who can help to overcome the structural and
nepotistic barriers characteristic of the country’s public education system. The participants
also talked about being “lucky”; needing to be in the right place at the right time to form key
relationships. Similarly, Dang (2017, p. 43) in her study of Vietnamese female academic
leaders in the higher education sector, found that for many of the participants promotion to
leadership was primarily down to good luck.
Recognition and relationships with key people in their organisations were also
considered important because one of the barriers that Vietnamese women reported was their
lack of access to social spaces outside the workplace where networks can be formed. For
Vietnamese women, “opportunities for leisure vary not only with economic resources but
also with gendered expectations around work and the use of social space” (Earl, 2014,
p. 140). Women are expected to be in the home after work to take care of their family. In
some cases, it may also be deemed inappropriate for a woman to meet with men who are not
their husbands or family members outside work. For this reason, a sponsor is highly
beneficial because they “increase the protégé’s visibility in the organization [. . .] [providing]
[. . .] opportunities for career advancement” (Murphy et al., 2017, p. 368). For Vietnamese
men the situation is reversed so that it is accepted, in many cases expected, that they spend
time developing business/workplace relationships through social activities such as “nhau” –
IJOA an informal drinking night representing a gendered and classed dimension of leisure
27,4 practices that may also include golf or tennis matches.
Even if I was invited, and usually as a woman you’re not, I don’t think I would go out drinking
with senior people. I think we would all just feel uncomfortable. (Vietnamese Participant #5)
The values described by the Vietnamese women may also be seen to be influenced by what
866 Hofstede (2010) describes as “power distance”, or formal structures in some societies, that
rank people in positions of power as having more importance than those in less powerful
roles. Inglehart’s (1997) cultural framework also offers insight into the significance of
traditional values that operate in some cultures that resist change and are deeply engrained
in religious beliefs and norms about social structures.
Research indicates that women globally lack positive role models and access to
networks, which hinders their opportunity to identify with managerial leaders in their
organisations (Burke and Vinnicombe, 2005). As Ely et al. (2011, p. 478) note:
The composition of one’s informal network can open doors to leadership opportunities, determine
who will see and grant (or not) one’s leadership claims, and shape what one learns in the process.
Mentors and sponsors may have the potential to help female leaders strategically position
themselves to enhance their career development (Murphy et al., 2017). They provide a unique
opportunity to advance careers and for established female leaders to help the next generation
develop their leadership skills (Wedu, 2014). In their conceptual overview of positive
developmental relationships, Murphy et al. (2017, p. 367) state that informal mentoring
relationships – and having more than one mentor – provide greater benefit than a single mentor
assigned to a mentee as part of a formal workplace mentoring programme. This is because the
process of developing an informal mentoring relationship is more likely to be based on trust and
compatibility than when a mentor is assigned through a formal workplace programme.
According to de Vries (2011), mentoring needs to acknowledge gender dynamics and
provide a forum for women to network. Mentors who do not consider the gendered nature of
organisational cultures and the subtle forms of gender bias that frequently occur, risk
perpetuating entrenched discrimination. Similarly, Kolb et al. (2010, p. 3) found that “a
woman seeking to establish herself at the leadership table must negotiate her way through
many tests that her male colleagues often bypass”. This includes understanding dominant
organisational discourses that form the context for negotiation and influence (power).

Work environment: glass and iron cages

The “glass cage” concept developed by Gabriel (2005, p. 9) suggests “an invisibility of
constraints, a powerful illusion of choice, a glamorization of image”. This is a useful
metaphor for understanding the experiences of women and other minority groups in
Western organisations in late modernity. Gabriel’s (2005) metaphor, like the glass metaphor
in general (Kumra, 2017), is useful for interpreting the Australian participants’ experiences
in that they can see beyond their current posts to managerial leadership positions in their
organisations, but these are blocked by invisible barriers. The glass cage is bound by
“second-generation forms of gender bias [. . .][which are] [. . .] powerful yet invisible barriers
to women’s advancement that arise from cultural beliefs about gender” (Ely et al., 2011,
p. 475). For example, women tend to underestimate their leadership abilities whereas men
are often viewed by others, and viewed by themselves, as natural leaders in a way that
women are not (Ely et al., 2011).
The Vietnamese participants’ stories highlighted the rigidities in the country’s
educational system. Weber (1978) coined the term “iron cage” to describe rational,
hierarchical and bureaucratic organisations, which is an apt description of organisational Barriers and
cultures in Vietnamese universities. In these, networks are based on political party enablers
connections and nepotism, which often bar promotion to managerial leadership roles in
overt and visible ways. Public education institutions in Vietnam do not have the autonomy
to pursue their own operational (e.g. staff promotions) and academic programmes (e.g.
curriculums). Instead, responsibility is spread across two different government bodies
(Ministry of Education and Training and Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs)
requiring universities to follow their policies and procedures (World Bank 2008). This 867
decreases the desire of management and faculty to implement improvements and innovation
to hiring to and promotion procedures (Nguyen, 2012, p. 179).
I’d say that international universities have a great advantage and are more competitive. But for a
public university, we must follow the MOET and we’ve got a lot of interference when it comes to
implementation of the academic policies. If you want to open a new programme, then it takes a lot
of time to do all the administration. (Vietnamese Participant # 3)
Public universities are one arm of the country’s state-owned and controlled enterprises
where there is also a lack of sound and transparent appraisal and promotion systems,
creating an environment governed by political connections (Vo, 2009). This form of
“patronage politics” stifles the promotion of talent in public universities (Bland, 2011).
Of course, I’d like to use my knowledge to improve the system, but the current system is very
difficult to change so I don’t think I have contributed enough to change the specific organisation
that I have been working for. I don’t think I could leave a remarkable impact. The structure of
Vietnam is still very top-down. If I take the position as a vice president, I still have to do what the
president wants. (Vietnamese Participant # 2)
One of the reasons Vietnamese women are reluctant to pursue managerial leadership roles
are the barriers inherent in the centralised decision-making system (Dang, 2017; Nguyen,
2013; Truong et al., 2017; Vo, 2009). For example, professors and other senior university
appointments are typically made on the recommendation of related government agencies or
given to high-ranking members of the Vietnamese Communist Party (Dang, 2017; Nguyen,
2013; Nguyen et al., 2017).
While cultural barriers for Australian women are no longer as overt or explicit as
they once were, there has been an ideological backlash against the gains of feminism
(Faludi, 1991; Strachan, 2010). This has meant that while a new ideological backdrop
made the concept of women’s liberation mainstream, actual conditions affecting
women’s lives have been rolled back or halted. The impact of neoliberal economic
policies on universities in Western countries has led to a significant increase in the
casualisation of academic positions that has disproportionately affected women
scholars. The ideological shift in the political economy, combined with the backlash
against feminism in Western countries, has led to a greater emphasis on individual
barriers and enablers (Adkins, 2018; Kumra, 2017). This has been borne out by findings
in the present study, in which the Australian women felt constrained by new structural
inequalities that can be likened to Gabriel’s (2005) glass cage. The Vietnamese women
felt constrained by a bureaucratic system with little autonomy and where promotion to
managerial leadership positions is governed less by merit and more by connections with
the country’s ruling party.

Ambiguous empowerment: dominant and counter narratives

Chase’s (1995) study on female school superintendents in the USA found that they were
empowered through the opportunities they gained in their professional work; however, they
IJOA were also subjected to gender and racial inequalities that were often influenced by
27,4 cultural values. Chase (1995) concluded that women’s experiences of career and
leadership development are ambiguous, revealing a tension between the success they
enjoy in their professional work and the need to negotiate male-dominated
organisational and societal cultures. In Australia, the university system is characterised
by highly individualised work processes with career progression occurring through a
868 complex pipeline process that involves recognising the ongoing development of skills
and experience and stated and unstated ideological tides. Several Australian
participants felt privileged to have opportunities; however, they also felt as though they
were not entitled to the privilege given to them and questioned their own values in
accepting these roles. So, the experiences of barriers to leadership and career
progression not only stem from organisational and societal inequality but also from
internal psychological barriers.
I think some of the choices I made were for my idealised self as opposed to my real self. There are
a whole lot of people in the development field who have this neo-colonialist perspective that I find
objectionable. I realise that development is now a huge industry. My friends were critical when I
went to work in this field and got paid over $100,000, but now I think working for the UN and so
forth was a fantastic opportunity and when I worked for them I was earning about $80,000 and
was working with people in developing countries and I felt like I was just learning. I was working
with poor people. (Australian Participant #5)
Government policy towards women in Vietnam since Doi Moi (the free market economic
reforms instituted in 1986) has communicated a contradictory message, one that promotes
domesticity, chastity and motherhood while encouraging women to gain an education,
participate in consumer culture and contribute to the economy through professional work
(Earl, 2014; Dang, 2017, p. 42). In comparing the two cohorts, Vietnamese women felt that
organisational and wider socio-cultural factors limited the opportunities available to them,
while the Australian women had trouble maintaining work–life balance and felt limited by
psychological factors. This is significant because it illustrates the somewhat universally
constricted experiences of women despite the increasingly globalised education economy
and the usefulness of the narrative method used in this study, which has been able to
capture the women’s experiences of this.

Implications and conclusions

A key finding of the present study is that women from both cultures identified
developmental relationships (e.g. mentoring and sponsorship) with peers and senior figures
within their organisations as key to surmounting the barriers they face. Mentoring was
frequently identified by the Australian women as a means to advance their careers, and it
has long been used and is widely accepted in the country’s workplaces. A number of studies
have been conducted on women and mentoring in Australia, which support its effectiveness
(de Vries, 2010, 2011). This is one area where Australian women and researchers can share
their workplace knowledge, skills and capabilities with Vietnamese women as a part of the
Australia–Vietnam Human Resource Development Programme (Australian Government,
2015).
In Vietnam, mentoring is only starting to be recognised as a means for women’s
leadership and career development. The results of the present study indicate that having a
sponsor is the most effective means of doing this. As Dang (2017, p. 43) observes, “women’s
interpersonal and networking skills played an important role in winning the support of their
superiors and colleagues and in placing them in their current positions of power and
leadership”. Given the barriers that Vietnamese women experience when it comes to
informal socialising with superiors, developmental relationships that combine elements of Barriers and
sponsorship with mentoring may allow them to extend their networks and raise their profile enablers
in an organisation. However, it needs to be borne in mind that the public higher education
system in Vietnam functions as an “iron cage”, and that promotion to positions of
managerial leadership require membership to the Vietnamese Communist Party, or at least
support from a senior member of the party within the organisation. Therefore, mentoring
may well have little effect on career advancement to leadership positions. Nevertheless,
there is value in the “psychosocial support” it can provide such as empathy, acceptance,
869
confirmation, counselling, friendship and role modelling (Fowler and O’Gorman, 2005). We
have also analysed the cultures in these two countries (Australia and Vietnam) and
illustrated that traditional cultures where religion and hierarchical structures influence the
work culture (such as Vietnam) tend to lead to a situation where barriers are more overt than
implicit (covert). Therefore, the way in which the training and organisational change
programmes are implemented requires careful consideration to avoid creating ambiguities
that impact negatively on marginalised groups within the organisational culture.
The “iron cage” of public organisations in Vietnam raises a number of broader
issues that need to be addressed if equality for women in Vietnam is to one day become
a reality. These include the gap between government policies and practices in
organisations, the lack of transparency in hiring and promotion procedures, gender role
stereotypes and prejudices, cultural expectations and women’s perceptions of
themselves as leaders (Dang, 2017). The “culture and the long-lasting reality of sexism
in Vietnam have caused Vietnamese women in general, and women in academia in
particular who come to work in Vietnam as expatriates, to believe that positions of
power and leadership are for men, not for themselves” (Dang, 2017, p. 43). Thus,
perhaps the first step towards equality in the workplace involves working within
Vietnamese cultures to gain greater recognition of the ways in which international
organisations can implement HRM practices that involve building formal network
practices and structures that support women to lead and the need to acknowledge that
barriers are both visible and invisible.

Notes
1. ‘Managerial leadership’ is defined as leadership positions in formal organisations that
involve influencing a team of employees on task objectives, commitment, motivation, team
maintenance and identification, as well as providing mentoring and career development
(Yulk, 1989).
2. A ‘counter’ narrative is defined as having a different form to a ‘dominant’ or more prevalent
narratives and are posed against the dominant narrative (Bamberg and Andrews, 2004).
3. See www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/australia,vietnam/
4. Guest et al., (2006) state that saturation of qualitative date points is generally reached with twelve
interviews, particularly in homogenous groups. The participants are all women working in
higher education and at early to mid-career stages in their careers (therefore homogenous in some
respects). However there are many variables such as culture and workplace experience that may
place limitations on the conclusions made in this study.
5. Mentoring encompasses two main functions: (1) providing support for ‘career development’ in the
form of sponsorship, coaching, protection, challenging assignments and exposure, and (2)
providing ‘psychosocial support’ in the form acceptance and confirmation, counselling,
friendship and role modelling (Fowler and O’Gorman, 2005).
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Further reading
Bardoel, E.A. (2003), “The provision of formal and informal work/family practices: the relative
importance of institutional and resource dependent explanations versus managerial
explanations”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 18 Nos 1/2, pp. 7-19.
Conley, H. and Jenkins, S. (2011), “Still ‘a good job for a woman’? Women teachers’ experiences of
modernization in England and Wales”, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 18 No. 5,
pp. 488-507.
Czarniawski-Joerges, B. (1992), Exploring Complex Organizations: A Cultural Perspective, Sage, London.
Eikhof, D. (2012), “A double-edged sword: Twenty first century workplace trends and gender equality”,
Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 7-22.
Sheridan, A. (1998), “Patterns in the policies: affirmative action in Australia”, Women in Management
Review, Vol. 13 No. 7, pp. 243 -252.
Sinclair, A. (2005), Doing Leadership Differently: Gender, Power and Sexuality in a Changing Business
Culture, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

Corresponding author
Susan Elizabeth Mate can be contacted at: susan.mate@rmit.edu.au

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