Elham Ebrahimi
Abstract
The aim of this study was to understand the meaning and basic structure of the queen bee syndrome. This understanding was obtained from the analysis of the biological experience of seven women working in one of the country's universities, whose directors were women faculty members. According to the purpose ...
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The aim of this study was to understand the meaning and basic structure of the queen bee syndrome. This understanding was obtained from the analysis of the biological experience of seven women working in one of the country's universities, whose directors were women faculty members. According to the purpose of the research, Husserl descriptive phenomenological method based on Colizzi’s optimized model was used. The main question of this study was: "What is the structure of the queen bee syndrome from the perspective of people who have experienced it?". For sampling, considering the two criteria of Colizzi’s inclusion, non-probability purposive and snowball methods were used to select the sample. Conducting screening questions, seven women working in one of the public universities, which has been managing by female faculty members, were selected as the research sample. After in-depth interviews with these individuals, the eight-step Colizzi’s phenomenological method was used to analyze the data. According to the results, fifteen clusters were classified into five discovered themes. The themes explaining the meaning of the queen bee syndrome from the participants' perspectives were: 1) Injecting and instilling a sense of despair, 2) Communication deadlock, 3) Unfair behavior, 4) Fake management style, and 5) The experienced discriminatory context. In the end, based on the identified themes, a comprehensive description of the meaning and structure of the queen bee syndrome phenomenon was presented.
