Assessing Practices of Gender Equality and Women's Leadership in Public Enterprises in Ethiopia: The Case of Ethiopian Airlines in Addis Ababa

he objective of this research is to assess how gender equality issues are addressed in Ethiopian Airlines, by taking the cases of headquarter, Addis Ababa. To meet the objective of this research data were collected from primary and secondary sources. The primary data were gathered through sets of questionnaires distributed to 140 randomly selected management level employees and 107 were collected. The researcher also conducted interviews with three officials, (Employee Benefit Team Leader, Change Management Officer and Employee Engagement Culture and Gender officer). In addition to this, the researcher also conducted two informal interviews with Human Resource Officers to see the recruitment process and women's representation in leadership positions. Ethiopian Airlines (ET) was established seven decades ago with the aim of providing safe, market driven and customer focused passenger and cargo transport, aviation training, flight catering, and ground services. ET is now becoming the fastest growing and most profitable airline in Africa and biggest public enterprise with extensive international exposure. This study, therefore, focused to assess the current gender equality practice in the organization, share best practices and recommend on identified gaps. In this perspective the study analyzes gender equality and women leadership in middle and top -level management positions. The finding shows that the number of women on top and middle management level is extremely low. On top of this there is very little gender awareness among staff members. However, the study also shows that there are some efforts demonstrated by the organization to address gender issues. For example, the organization gender and culture team are working to communicate gender issue messages to staff members. ET has also conducted all female flight for the forth times to show its commitment and encourage women employees. Finally, based on the findings and the conclusion drawn, recommendations were forwarded to the organization to conduct gender ...