ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s there has been much talk of a glass ceiling preventing women from ‘getting to the top’ in management careers. The barriers to women’s advancement that have been identified include the lack of familyfriendly employment policies, poor access to training and the pattern of career development. However, after some years of the implementation of equal opportunity policies, there is increasing recognition of the informal barriers that inadvertently maintain and reproduce a world in which there are so few senior women managers. This is the case even in the flagship Opportunity 2000 companies. As a result, there is now a concern with the ways in which organisational cultures are themselves gendered and whether gender stereotypes prevent women from being seen as having the appropriate leadership qualities for senior management.
