Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,7, Heilbronn University, language: English, abstract: Women are still significantly underrepresented in Top Management positions and leadership is still associated with the male gender as leadership theories traditionally focus on men. This is especially evident in China which has one of the world’s highest female labor participation but a female share of only eight percent on the corporate boards. Although Chinese women’s tertiary educational attainment is now equal to the tertiary education of Chinese men they still face many barriers on their way to the top. The strong influence of Confucian values perceiving women as inferior to men remains noticeable until today and women find themselves exposed to a strongly patriarchal business environment. As being traditionally the main care-givers of their families they are deemed to be expensive potential mothers and thus gender- preference can be observed. second Classical leadership theories of the Western culture as well as of the Chinese culture are introduced to provide a common understanding of their approaches. Further the situation of women in the past and of today is being compared as well as their leadership styles, access to managerial leadership positions and the barriers they face. Since educational attainment of both genders does not explain why women are rarely found on the upper managerial ranks, other reasons that could be a barrier for women’s career advancement are examined in this research.

The existing scholarship on women in China suggests that gender inequality still exists against the background of the country’s reform and opening in recent years. However, the situation of women in enterprise ownership and leadership seems to indicate that despite such notions of disadvantage amongst women, some of them are playing a more active and significant role in China’s economic development. Based on a series of interviews with female enterprise owners, wives of enterprise owners and women managers conducted in diverse locations in three difference provinces of China, Tiger Girls examines the deeper realities of women entrepreneurs in China, and by extension the role of leading women in the workforce. By analyzing information on these women’s personal experiences, careers and families, this book investigates their status at work and at home, as well as their connections with local politics. The research results suggest that although traces of gender inequality can still be found in these women’s lives, they appear to be actively engaged in the business establishment and operation and gradually casting off the leash of domestic responsibilities. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Studies, Chinese Business, Chinese Economics and Asian Studies. Minglu Chen is ARC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Government and International Relations at Sydney University, Australia.

Finding Women in the State is a provocative hidden history of socialist state feminists maneuvering behind the scenes at the core of the Chinese Communist Party. These women worked to advance gender and class equality in the early PeopleÕs Republic and fought to transform sexist norms and practices, all while facing fierce opposition from a male-dominated CCP leadership from the Party Central to the local government. Wang Zheng extends this investigation to the cultural realm, showing how feminists within ChinaÕs film industry were working to actively create new cinematic heroines, and how they continued a New Culture anti-patriarchy heritage in socialist film production. This book illuminates not only the different visions of revolutionary transformation but also the dense entanglements among those in the top echelon of the party. Wang discusses the causes for failure of ChinaÕs socialist revolution and raises fundamental questions about male dominance in social movements that aim to pursue social justice and equality. This is the first book engendering the PRC high politics and has important theoretical and methodological implications for scholars and students working in gender studies as well as China studies.

China’s late Chairman Mao Zedong once said “Women hold up half the world”, but in several respects the full emancipation of women still remains a global challenge. This book, based on extensive empirical studies on Chinese female leaders in different fields, develops a “female professional status attainment theory”. It summarizes the conditions for Chinese women to become leaders in various professions as the following: increased human, economic and social capital; gender equality awareness; gender-friendly environment; and improved work-life-balance. The book also proposes supporting policies for the development of high-level female talents female leaders in three different sectors: women in politics, in professional fields, and in enterprise management. With the comprehensive perspectives of female leaders’ development that addresses women’s unique needs in organizations, this book is a good choice for researchers and readers who are interested in China’s top-level talent development, gender equality and women’s professional attainment.

This edited collection highlights the unique cultural and socioeconomic elements of China and the strong influence of those elements on women leaders in the nation. The authors present perspectives on women leaders’ current state of working conditions and balancing of personal and professional lives in diverse contexts while discussing commonalities and differences across sectors in China and drawing comparisons with Asian and non-Asian contexts. Chapters will explore cultural contexts that hinder career advancement, family roles for women, government policies and educational opportunities that support women's development, and finally the future for women in China. The book provides a thorough assessment of the situation of women in China for scholars in leadership, management, international relations, and human resource development.

A rare window for the English speaking world to learn how scholars in China understand and interpret central issues pertaining to women and family from the founding of the People’s Republic to the reform era.

A feminist movement clashing with China’s authoritarian government. Featured in the Washington Post and the New York Times. On the eve of International Women’s Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for thirty-seven days. The Feminist Five became a global cause célèbre, with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages. But the Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists, and online warriors prompting an unprecedented awakening among China’s educated, urban women. In Betraying Big Brother, journalist and scholar Leta Hong Fincher argues that the popular, broad-based movement poses the greatest challenge to China’s authoritarian regime today. Through interviews with the Feminist Five and other leading Chinese activists, Hong Fincher illuminates both the difficulties they face and their “joy of betraying Big Brother,” as one of the Feminist Five wrote of the defiance she felt during her detention. Tracing the rise of a new feminist consciousness now finding expression through the #MeToo movement, and describing how the Communist regime has suppressed the history of its own feminist struggles, Betraying Big Brother is a story of how the movement against patriarchy could reconfigure China and the world.