Upward Mobility Criteria from Croatian Women's Point of View

Little is generally known about the factors affecting the career advancement of women in the world of work. This is especially true for Croatia. Formally and legally, women should have equal opportunities for employment and advancement as their male counterparts have. However, in practice, situations are often different due to socio-cultural, support systems, self imposed barriers and the like. This paper examines factors facilitating and hindering career advancement from the Croatian women’s point of view. Differences between female managers and workers related to the career advancement criteria, which give them an edge in today’s global workplace, are discussed as well. While the top female managers pointed out the personnel competence and soft factors as the most important in climbing the managerial ladder, the other working women did not assign the greatest importance to these factors. This can be explained in the social-cultural context that has been developing in Croatia. Unfavorable consequences of the transition process, the war as well as a decrease in trust in the most of institutions in Croatia jeopardized social and working norms making the personnel competence, self-initiative, pro-activity, responsibility and the similar characteristics without consequentreward in terms of better and higher job positions. But, many Croatian firms faced with global competition and necessity of following transparent business behavior norms have been forced to conduct a proper career advancement policy. Consequently, women employed in such firms stressed above mentioned factors as the most important for career advancement.