Psychological Capital Gender and Social Class Intersections in MENA Women's Directorship Experiences

This paper aims to explore how women from working class with typical local career background and privileged-defined women directors from western influenced backgrounds in combination may lead to distinct or common pathways towards women directorship experiences and trajectories. A qualitative study was undertaken of a mixed Middle Eastern sample of women directors from Egypt, Morocco, Dubai, Oman and Saudi Arabia from varied economic sectors were interviewed. Two rounds of interviews were conducted with 6-month time duration in between. Women directors from bourgeoisie social class and multi-cultural exposure in the West reflected contemporary directorship models stressing the importance of tribe's power, nepotism calculations, ease of networking, less negative feelings, and less faced obstacles, yet a smaller number of board directorships. In contrast, women directors from working class background emphasized the importance of merit and hard work, labor market reputation, and importance of work mentor in defining effective women directorship models