Firm Attributes, Women Top Managers, and Entrepreneurial Outcomes in a Private Sector in Tanzania

This chapter examines the relationship between firm-level characteristics and the recruitment or promotion of women to top managerial positions. Moreover, it assesses the entrepreneurial outcomes of top women managers in Tanzania’s private sector. The chapter generates descriptive statistics and logit regression models on World Bank-generated data from a survey of 424 private firms. The findings indicate that on average, the probability of women becoming top managers was only six per cent (6%), which is so negligible that it signifies a substantial work ahead for Tanzania to achieve gender equality in corporate top management. The results further reveal that women’s progression to the top managerial positions is limited for large- and more formal firms in the export business or in manufacturing, construction, and transportation. Furthermore, the findings indicate that companies without women shareholders did not have top women managers. The study also found women to feature in top managerial positions in small and less formalised firms, mainly with women owners and/or in textile and restaurant. Recruiting more employees with tertiary education was also associated with decreased chances of women becoming top managers. Women- and men-top managers in firms that had women owners achieved higher firm’s growth and profitability than women- and men-top managers in firms owned by men, respectively. Implicitly, there is an overriding need to encourage private firms to attract more women to firm ownership and recruitment of more women in top managerial positions for high entrepreneurial outcomes.