The change in women's career between choices and constraints: The case of the Lebanese banking sector

Women have always been an inherent part of the workforce. They have been playing a fundamental role throughout history; however, they have been considerably underrepresented in top management positions. The existent barrier between middle and top management positions entitled Glass Ceiling remains almost as impassable as it has been 20 years ago, even though the number of educated women who have entered the labor market has substantially increased.
The purpose of this research is to identify why the number of women in the top management positions of the Lebanese banks remains minim. As such, the primary object lies in analyzing the correlation between the aspiration and ambition of women to access the highest levels in the organization's hierarchy and the glass ceiling phenomena.
Moreover, this study focuses on the leadership styles adopted by these women; it aims at measuring the impact of the adopted style on the hierarchical advancement in the chosen career.
In Lebanon, the banking sector is eager to reduce professional discrepancies; however, these gaps remain existent between men and women. Several factors, some of which are explicit - such as training & development and mobility, others implicit such as the working schedules and the maternity leaves, interact and interrelate to explain the less favorable career paths that women face.
A close-ended questionnaire has been communicated throughout a secured website to middle management women in 6 banks operating in Lebanon in order to determine the relationship between the identified dependant and independent variables. The hypothesis statements were accepted as true; stipulating that several factors affect the perpetuity of the glass ceiling.