lemtsehay Moges & Biruk Hundito
Even though women have equal ability to perform in different aspects of organizational tasks as that of men, they were underrepresented in different leadership and decision making positions. So, the purpose of this study was to investigate women’s participation and barriers in leadership and decision making positions in Hadiya zone sport offices, SNNPR, Ethiopia. The study used one stage cluster sampling technique that means the researcher used simple random sampling to select woreda sport offices and collected data from all employees in the selected sport offices. Likert scale questionnaires, interview and document analysis were used as data collection instruments. The quantitative data collected by the researcher was analysed using IBM SPSS (software package for social science) version 26. The data were analysed by descriptive statistics using the mean values of likert items. In addition inferential statistics using for mean, standard division, ANOVA and bivariate Pearson’s correlation were used to analyse likert items at significance level of 0.05. The finding of the study indicated that there was less participation of women in leadership and decision making positions when compared to men. The organizational factors hindered proportion of participation with correlation coefficient and the p-value of -0.588 and 0.000 respectively. Similarly sociocultural factors had influenced participation with correlation coefficient of -0.343 and the p-value 0.007. But personal factors were positively related even though it was negligible and insignificant as correlation of 0.193 and p- value of 0.140 indicted. The interpretation of interview also indicated that organizational, sociocultural and personal factors were influencing participation of women in leadership positions. Therefore, the organization should work in minimizing the mentioned factors.