Bui Thi Tam, Mai Le Quyen and Nguyen Hoang Tue Quang
Abstract: The underrepresentation of women at the top management level has been a persistent challenge to the hospitality and tourism industry worldwide. While a number of barriers to women’s career advancement in tourism are well-documented, the impact of these barriers is sensitive to different institutional, economic and socio-cultural contexts. Using quantitative research methods, this study aims to investigate barriers to women’s career advancement in the context of the Vietnam hospitality industry, where the collective mechanism is known as a key successful factor for addressing gender issues at workplace. Findings reveal that hotel managers perceive no problem of gender issues at work. However, work-life balance was reported as the only barrier to women’s career advancement, and is suggested as a focal point for gender-related policies and programs. The study also proposes some directions for future researches in order to enrich the methodological aspects and empirical evidences of this research domain.
Keywords: Gender issues, barriers, career advancement, female manager, hospitality industry, Vietnam