Hi, Katia Lysionak here. I am a career coach, university lecturer, and PhD student originally from Belarus. I am currently conducting my PhD research at ISM University of Management and Economics in Vilnius, Lithuania. My research focuses on female confidence to lead in global organizations with focus on EE and WE female leaders experiences . I am seeking participants for 45-60 mins interviews to contribute to my research. #womenpower

I am looking to hear about your experience.

Why Do We Need This Research?

  • 44 percent of leading companies in CEE do not have a single woman in an executive role (McKinsey, 2021)

  • Women face  27 gender-based leadership barriers at societal, organization, and individual levels (Diehl & Dzubinski, 2016)

  • The labor market situation for women in WE has seen improvements in the past generation. In EE, the situation for women has declined. It is important to note that the lived experiences of women in these two regions are vastly different, though the results may appear similar in numbers. (UNIFEM, 2019)

  • There are predominantly the same set of topics addressed by general leader development efforts and women leader development programs (Sugiyama et al., 2015) failing to recognize the gender difference and sociocultural factors in pathways to leadership. 

What Are Potential Research Contributions?

  • Understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities faced by female leaders from EE and WE regions and its effects on their confidence to lead in global organizations 

  • Identification of critical elements that enhance female leader development interventions

  • Giving voice to EE and WE female leaders lived experiences

  • Promoting gender diversity and inclusion in leadership

  • Enhancing leadership development programs 

  • Informing policy recommendations

FAQs

What is the purpose of this study?

This study is conducted as part of a doctoral research project in pursuit of a PhD in Management at ISM University (www.ism.lt), focusing on understanding the lived experiences of Eastern European and Western European female leaders and their perceptions of leadership self-efficacy within global organizations

What are participants’ criteria?

  • Identify as a woman

  • Have minimum of 3 years of management experience within a global organization

  • Were born in one of the following Eastern European countries (according to UN definition): Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, or Ukraine

  • OR were born in one of the following Western European countries (according to UN definition): Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Switzerland

  • Completed secondary and post-secondary education in the same country as your place of birth

  • Have a working level of English proficiency for the interview

What happens if I decide to participate?

If you do decide to take part you will be given the research information sheet to keep and be asked to sign a consent form via Google forms. You can withdraw at any time without giving a reason. 

  • Acknowledging the delivery of information sheet

  • Signing consent form via Google forms 

  • Participating in 1on1 interview- conducted in English - duration up to 60 mins via online video platform (eg. Google Meets, Zooms, Teams) 

  • Interview data will be automatically transcribed and stored on researcher Google Drive, every effort is going to be made to anonymize the participant input (eg. coding the participants names, coding any company names if mentioned, etc)

What are the benefits of participating?

Whilst there are no immediate benefits for those people participating in the project, it is hoped that this work will be:

  • Giving voice to EE and WE female leaders lived experiences

  • Informing leader development practices and frameworks 

  • Promoting gender diversity and inclusion in leadership

  • Informing policy recommendations

How do you ensure participants privacy?

  • All the information that we collect during the course of the interview will be anonymized and aggregated. You will not be able to be identified in any ensuing reports or publications.

  • The audio transcriptions of the interview made during this research will be used for analysis and discussion in PhD dissertation.

  • The project data might be used for additional or subsequent research