Asian women in top management: eight country cases

Abstract

This article is a by-product of an innovative session of the 2014 Asia Chapter of the Academy of Human Resource Development conference, Seoul, South Korea, where eight female researchers with roots in eight Asian countries (in alphabetical order: China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand) presented on the topic of Asian women in top management. In this article, we present these presenters’ perspectives on the topic, including their current state of working conditions and balancing of personal and professional lives. We asked them the following three questions: (1) Do traditional values/religious beliefs limit or liberate women in management? (2) How have social views on the role of women in management changed in your country? (3) What organizational and social changes are necessary for women to advance to leadership positions? We also encouraged them to go beyond answering these three questions. Additionally, we discuss convergence (commonalities) and divergence (differences) across these eight Asian countries.