Factors Obstructing Boardroom Gender Diversity: a Malaysia Perspective

Look, Chun Tat (2020) Factors Obstructing Boardroom Gender Diversity: a Malaysia Perspective. Masters thesis, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

A key challenge for Malaysian companies today is to practice boardroom gender diversity policy. Organisation should attract and retain more qualified women to sit in company boardroom. Since women make up more than half of the population in Malaysia, it is necessary to implement gender diversity and inclusion initiative in facilitating. Malaysia is moving into high-developed country status. In order to increase the women’s participation rate in Malaysian companies’ boardroom, it is essential to analyse the barriers that most women faced in advancing their career path. The purpose of this study is to analyse the factors or barriers such as gender discrimination, organisational culture, glass-ceiling effect and family consideration towards boardroom gender diversity practice in Malaysian companies. Moreover, this study also intended to determine whether the intervention from Malaysian government will be effectively moderate the issue of low women director rate in Malaysian companies’ boardroom. Five research questions and eight hypotheses have been developed and tested in order to accomplish the objective of this research. Convenience sampling method was used in this research, 241 sets of questionnaire have collected from the target respondents who are currently working in Malaysian companies nationwide. The data collected was analysed by using Statistical Package for Social Science Software (SPSS) version 25 and Hayes’s PROCESS MACRO Model 1 to perform Reliability Analysis, Normality Analysis, Descriptive Analysis, Pearson Correlation Analysis, Multiple Regression Analysis and PROCESS MACRO Analysis. This study disclosed that gender discrimination, organisational culture, glass-ceiling effect and family consideration are significantly and negatively related with boardroom gender diversity practice in Malaysian companies. At the final stage of this research, research objectives and research questions were achieved and justified based on the statistical analysis and literature review. The contributions of this research to future researchers, the government and employers were highlighted as well. Moreover, the limitations of this study have identified and recommendations have suggested for further improvement in future research. Keywords: Corporate Governance; Gender Diversity; Boardroom; Gender Discrimination; Organisational Structure; Glass-Ceiling Effect; Family Consideration, Government Intervention.