A Grounded Theory Study of Gender Dynamics in Business in Moroccan Private Schools

Abstract

This study combines empirical research into the management of private schools in Morocco with a critical review of some of the dominant theoretical frameworks developed by North American and European researchers to understand the impact of gendered social structures on attitudes of and towards female private school owners and their approach to their managerial activities and the business output as a whole. The first part of the thesis excavates the legacy of Morocco’s complex colonial and post-colonial history with specific reference to the private school sector and provides a critical foundation of the research subject contextualisation. Using grounded theory, my empirical research starts with the replication of Geert Hofstede’s 2013 Value Survey Module (VSM), initially to a pilot study of 76 (67 female and 9 male) private school teachers and management teams in the region of Agadir in Morocco. Analysis of the results of the VSM found that its definition of Masculinity and Femininity produces incoherent results when applied to these settings. Further, the score for Morocco published by Hofstede in 2003- and the one obtained as part of this (2017-2019) research were on opposing poles 53 and 11.5, respectively. The limitations of the results of the VSM required further empirical research through ethnographic observations and interviews with the owners and/or managers of these private schools. This qualitative research found that women, more than men, tended to distance themselves from set characteristics attributed to a gender, and instead put forward the common interest of the organisation as their critical value motivation. Success and motivation were not gender-bound, and gendered norms were seen as circumstantial and not fundamental. The research found that male and female dynamics were governed by economic imperatives rather than by gendered norms. I use this historically grounded reading of Moroccan-specific gender dynamics to challenge the universalist assumptions of cross-cultural management approaches such as Hofstede’s. My research provides the basis to deepen our understanding of the context and impact of gender dynamics within business organisations in other regions of Morocco. It is research that remains alive to the impact of globalisation on southern political economies—in and through being anchored to the specifics of historical, linguistic, and cultural places.