Exploring Gender Stereotypes through Managerial Process: Implication for Women Advancement, in Case of WolaitaSodo University

Despite the fact that there have been a number of research works on gender issues in Ethiopia, little has been done on exploring gender stereotypes through managerial process in higher echelons of leadership position of public universities and its implication for women advancement. Thus, the main objective of this study is to critically explore gender stereotypes though managerial process at WolaitaSodo University and its implications for women advancement. Since the study carried out at the single university level, purposive, availability and random sampling was instrumental for the purpose of this study. Comparisons were done by running cross tabulation of dependent variables across possible explanatory variables. One way ANOVA was also used to see the variation between and within the groups. To analyze the relationship between a set of predictor variables and dependent variables, correlation was employed. SPSS statistics 20 and STATA 11 software packages were used to undertake the statistical analysis. The result reveals that lion share of academic leadership positions of the university is occupied by masculine and women managers are more characterized by communal, relation oriented and transformational leadership behaviors and that the women themselves are reluctant to assume additional responsibilities of the university academic leadership positions and develop poor self-image. It is recommended that aloofness of rules and regulation application, support and encouragement, motivation and aspiration, lack of sex discrimination in hiring and promoting women should be continuously maintained to advance more women to leadership positions of the university and to attract more female to the positions.