Understanding Socio-Cultural and Organisational Constraints on Women's Leadership: A Case Study in Indonesian Higher Education

Abstract

In Indonesia, especially in Java, in a range of time, the numbers of women occupying senior leadership positions in state higher institutions are low. My experiences working in such institutions supported this phenomenon. This caused my curiosity to find out why female lecturers did not occupy higher leadership positions. I also wanted to know about the nature of the institution operating towards this situation. I assumed that there were barriers from Javanese culture and from their workplaces. In order to find out whether my assumptions were the case, I conducted case study research in an engineering higher education institution in Indonesia to find out why this situation existed, given that one of the articles in the 1945 Constitution of Indonesia states that every citizen has the rights to work and earn money. Data from this case study research were collected through interviewing sixteen senior teaching staff comprised 12 female lecturers, 6 of them were in the lower level of leadership positions, and four men in senior managerial positions. Data were also obtained through accessible documents of the institution, and also from direct observations. The key findings revealed that the involvement and interactions of the research participants in their social fields, at macro, meso, and micro levels, influenced the way the participants made decisions and acted towards each level. Especially, it showed how habitus played out in their lives, affecting their thoughts, behaviour and actions, and leading to their perceptions and beliefs about who could be senior leaders in this institution. It revealed that there were tensions and contradictions the women participants experienced due to the expectations from each level of social field. In the meso level of social field, that is their workplace, the tensions and contradictions amplified.