Drive the world (Girls). A comparative case study on female leadership identity in the automotive industry

Abstract: The automotive industry is one of the worst performing in terms of gender equality. Not only are women underrepresented in this industry, but women within the industry have also expressed that they would start their career in another industry if they had the chance. Companies within this industry are attempting to decrease inequalities. This is particularly hard for multinational companies, as they encounter different cultural biases that contribute to inequalities in different ways. Thus, this thesis aims to give a voice to female leaders in the automotive industry within two cultural contexts: Sweden and Brazil. Hence, allowing female leaders to express how their leadership is affected by gender inequalities experienced in their countries, as well as describe how they counter male biases. This thesis utilized Social Identity Theory to understand: how do women in the automotive industry navigate gender and leadership identities in Sweden and Brazil? It was concluded that organizational, team, and leader identities are utilized by women when being leaders. The organizational identity helps women understand and prioritize collective success when in conflict with other teams, whereas their team and leader identities help them to improve as a leader. When gender is taken into account, their leadership identities are modified. On one hand, female leaders in Sweden utilize their identity as women to enhance their leadership identities, and their identity as leaders is only changed when noticing inequalities. In this case, they focus on being a role model regarding equality. On the other hand, leadership identities of Brazilian leaders are enhanced or abandoned depending on the presence of allies. When there are allies, their leadership identities are enhanced, allowing them to utilize negative male biases towards women to perform even better than their male counterparts. However, when there are no allies, they abandon their leadership identities, becoming compliant to male leaders in order to gain their acceptance and support as leaders.