The rise of female warriors: Unveiling the factors behind career progression of Indonesia's army corps

• Published date: 01 August 2024
• Author: Nurhaeni Sikki,Qaisar Ali
• Date: 01 August 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2941

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The rise of female warriors: Unveiling the factors behind career

progression of Indonesia's army corps

Nurhaeni Sikki

1

| Qaisar Ali

2

1

Faculty of Political and Social Sciences,

Universitas Sangga Buana Bandung, Bandung,

Indonesia

2

School of Business and Management,

Institute Teknologi Bandung, Bandung,

Indonesia

Correspondence

Nurhaeni Sikki, Faculty of Political and Social

Sciences, Universitas Sangga Buana Bandung,

Bandung, Indonesia.

Email: nurhaeni.sikki@usbypkp.ac.id

Although modern-day institutions have bridged gender inequality gaps to some

extent by recruiting female employees, there is limited information about the career

progression (CP) of these females especially in military institutions. Accordingly, the

present study aims to investigate the factors affecting the CP of female army corps

employed in developing countries. The fundamentals of the theory of gendered orga-

nizations are operationalized to develop the theoretical model and investigate

whether institutional factors (IFC), sociocultural background (SCB), resource facilita-

tion (RFC), and personal skill and competency (PSC) influence CP of female army

corps. The primary data was collected from 352 females employed in the army corps

and was analyzed using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. The find-

ings confirm that our conceptualized factors (IFC, SCB, RFC, and PSC) influence

CP. Particularly, the results indicate a significant positive impact of IFC and PSC and

an insignificant positive impact of SCB and RFC on the CP of female army corps. This

empirical study contributes to developing gender and talent management strategies

in the workplace by enhancing the CP of females.

KEYWORDS

army career, career progression, female army cops, gender management, job progression factors

1|INTRODUCTION

The recent regionalreports of the World Bank and International Labour

Organization(ILO) indicate enigmatic gender inequality issues and mar-

ginalizationof female career development (ILO, 2023).The stark dispar-

ities in employment and career progression (CP) among females may

significantly reduce countries' progress toward achieving sustainable

development goals (SDGs) of “Agenda 2030”(Olney, 2015;UN

Women, 2021). Accordingly, female CP has always remained in the

limelight due to disparate employmentopportunities and its prevalence

across many sectors of both developed and developing countries

(Shapiro et al., 2008). Regardless of the selection as the head of state,

inclusion in the corporate boards of directors, appointment as institu-

tional leaders, or deployment as femalearmy corps in the defense sys-

tem, females' appointment and their effectiveness to perform these

roles have always remained controversial undermining CP and even

maintaining existing job roles (Ardito et al., 2021;Blanche, 2021;Özbil-

gin & Healy, 2004; Varma et al., 2022).

Although scholars have contextualized multiple factors to female

CP, these composite factors differ among countries, females, and

selection of a relevant profession (Crawford, 1978; Lyness &

Judiesch, 2008). The developing literature on female CP has largely

focused on some of the key sectors of the economy such as health,

education, hospitality, and manufacturing, and concluded that per-

sonal commitment, skills and competencies, nature of the job, and

institutional factors serve as the barriers to CP (Cross et al., 2019;

Ismail & Ibrahim, 2008; Khan & Siriwardhane, 2021; Segovia-Pérez

et al., 2019; Zacher et al., 2019). A few studies have associated per-

ceptions of existing job roles, personal motives, cultural orientations,

and perpetual organizational support to achieving job satisfaction as it

is essential for anchoring female CP (Cabrera, 2009; Chia, 2003;

Nguyen et al., 2021; Yarnall, 1998). Nonetheless, the findings of these

studies have established a few common assertions that female CP is a

crucial issue, varying across countries, and sectors.

CP of females employed in the defense industry, particularly

female army corps, has not received significant attention from

Received: 23 July 2023 Revised: 17 June 2024 Accepted: 18 July 2024

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2941

J Public Affairs. 2024;24:e2941. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of14

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2941