Breaking the Glass Ceiling Through Diversity Practices within Organizations

By:

Penny R. Lackey

Dr. Markowitz; Soc 338

May 1, 2003

Assignment #4

Breaking the Glass Ceiling Through Diversity Practices within Organizations

A “glass ceiling” has existed in organizations in the past and is a part of the present corporate structure.This not only describes something that happens in organizations, but also specifically states that the problems women encounter in moving up the career ladder versus men increases at each level in the organization.This invisible ceiling, acts as a barrier that stops women and minorities from advancing to top line management positions.The glass ceiling will continue to prevail in the future, unless steps are taken today to shatter it.To overcome this barrier, women and minorities need to acknowledge and become aware of potential origins and causes before they can move through the “glass ceiling”.Once understanding the problem, then one can come up with solutions to overcome this barrier both individually and within organizations.As Morrison (1992) reports, “Despite the increase of women in the workforce and in management overall, Fortune magazine’s 1990 survey of 799 companies turned up only 19 women among the 4,012 directors and highest-paid executives” (p.15-19). 

The problem of the “glass ceiling” is prevalent across minorities including women.According to Eyring & Stead, (1998), “Of the 1000 biggest U.S. companies, women represent only 16.9 percent of more than 31,000 managers” (p. 245).It is a problem for workers because of many different reasons.One, it doesn’t allow for the same opportunities to reach higher management, despite almost identical formal education and similar work experience as other groups, particularly white males.Also, this can lead to women and minorities being trapped within a stereotypical role, or tokenism, where there is little chance for promotions. Morrison (1992) reports, “Black women, for example, comprise only 2 percent of managers in companies with 100 or more employees compared with 23 percent white women, according to a 1990 Wall Street Journal Article” (p. 15-19).

The “glass ceiling” can consist of various barriers, from cultural to social practices.The barrier to stand out the most would be prejudice, or an opinion, usually unfavorable based on insufficient knowledge, irrational feelings, or stereotypes.As noted by Van Vianen & Fishcer (2002), “Indeed, there is considerable empirical evidence that exclusion mechanisms such as gender schemes, gender stereotypes, or prejudiced attitudes all play an important role and influence judgments and evaluations of women unfavorably” (p. 316).Career planning for the long term that isn’t well thought out, can lead to losing possible opportunities for the needed experience of top executives.Due to tokenism, meaning a small proportion of one social group among another social group makes women and minorities feel pressure to perform because of being isolated and in the limelight of organizations or professions.Also, knowing how to get ahead in corporations is not always common knowledge by everyone employed within a particular organization.Without having the necessary networks or mentors in place, the chances of knowing how to get ahead and moving to the top are next to nothing.

In addition, women and minorities could also be viewed as creating their own barriers, by lack of qualifications, such as hands on business skills, decision making capabilities, and knowing how certain operations run.Further, it is a well known fact that people tend to gravitate towards the similar-to-me bias.This makes for a safe zone for people, when similar characteristics are shared among one another and outsiders are viewed as being different.A barrier that is assumed to be a woman’s role is the raising of children.It is sometimes hard to balance both work and family, the responsibilities can be overwhelming, but it can be done.Women are looked upon as the caregivers of their children, caring for them daily and taking them to the doctor when they are sick.This is often seen as a limit to the job performance of many women, and looked down on as taking time away from work.Usually, managers that are female are more likely to be single without children, similar to their male counterparts. 

Moreover, certain characteristics that organizations and society view that managers should possess are often seen as masculine. There is a perception that women aren’t equipped to handle areas of management, that deal with mergers, acquisitions, firing people, and opening new markets nationally or internationally.The lack of required experience leads women to take the wrong approaches to their jobs.As Still (1992) reports, “Women executives adopted a more individualistic approach to their work- -valuing talent, planning, foresight and risk-taking, all self-oriented characteristics.On the other hand, male executives valued leadership abilities and interpersonal skills, indicating that they were more oriented towards working with others” (p. 3).Also, women are seen as lacking leadership skills, direction, and don’t have the necessary skills to motivate people to aspire to do more in their job performance.Among leadership skills women also tend to lack the ability to delegate tasks, which can give them a poor reputation as a manager.

Consequently, social policy is important for solving the problem of the “glass ceiling”.More women and minorities enter the workforce each year, increasing diversity within the labor market.Younger women, future managers are now entering areas which used to be male dominated.Social policy is also important in terms of bringing diversity to an organization.This helps ensure all customers’ needs are met, and products and services are aimed towards satisfying those customers’.

Climbing the corporate ladder would be easier if some of the following ideas were incorporated into a social policy: women were taught how to get credit for their talent and ideas, encouragement to seek managerial positions was given, networking seminars and mentoring programs were made available, and for those raising children were offered flex time and given more personal days to take off yearly.

Also, if organizations would change their rules and do away with some traditional practices, for example, word-of-mouth hiring practices, then women and minorities would be able to move forward and do away with the practice of the “glass ceiling”.Organizations could allow for some added structuring for employees into a social policy, it could be taken a step further and incorporating on-site childcare for working mothers and fathers. Social policy would enable larger numbers of women and minorities to climb the corporate ladder. Within the corporate structure, there would be more opportunities to be promoted and additional advantages for top executive positions, thus the idea of tokenism would diminish, as so would the “glass ceiling” effect. A social policy could also create changes necessary to overcome gender type screening processes, allowing a diverse pool of applicants for top executive jobs.Similarly, if women and minorities know an organization to be pro-female and have a diverse work ethic, this may aid them to take positions in or among organizations with whom they have the best chance in reaching top line management.

In the early nineties, two trends were occurring, that had a positive impact on women and minorities progress in breaking through the glass ceiling and impacting the future structure of organizations.As Morrison (1992) noted, “One is enforcement of the federal government’s new legislation and “glass ceiling Initiative”.The other is employers’ growing acceptance of their role as partners in removing advancement barriers for women and other non-traditional managers” (p. 15-19).

In creating a policy that deals specifically with the “glass ceiling”, many approaches could be incorporated into practice, thus alleviating one barrier at a time, for the potential of eliminating the problem.One way would be within the organization, to use diversity practices.In a study by Morrison (1992), they discovered many diversity practices being used in organizations.There were a total of 52 diversity practices, within 16 organizations.Some practices were more prevalent among organizations than others.The one that was used in all 16 organizations was an intervention program by management where they personally helped their employees do things to bring diversity to the organization.This Included setting aside traditional forms of recruitment such as word of mouth.As well as making demands that minorities and women were to be included as candidates for positions that were opening (Morrison, 1992).Awareness and accountability for diversity is the main objective to be carried out (Morrison, 1992).The other practices used in diversity practices, such as accountability practices, include establishing employee advocacy groups that consists of either women or minorities (Morrison, 1992).Tenneco Inc. created all women advisory councils and encourages networking (Eyring and Stead, 1998).This group meets with top management to go over policies that directly deal with women or minorities (Morrison, 1992). 

Also, equal employment opportunity (EEO) stats and personnel profiles for making business and employment decisions are used (Morrison, 1992).When managers do performance appraisals, they include goals for diversity within the criteria to be met and goals for incentives (Morrison, 1992).

Another form of diversity practice would be the use of development techniques.Of which there are two such goals to focus on.One is to educate and train employees on diversity and make them aware of problems associated with both diversity and prejudice (Morrison, 1992). 

The other is to train and make women and minorities better prepared to enter management positions.This usually occurs through the use of programs, networking and mentoring (Morrison, 1992).Corning Corporation CEO’s and top executives attend a training program specifically on gender.Then a follow-up program is maintained for three years helping managers to apply the training to their daily lives (Eyring and Stead, 1998).Specific uses in their daily lives would be for example, teams for improvement qualities such as, mentoring programs and career planning (Eyring and Stead, 1998). For diversity programs to be successful, they need to be chosen by the people, including women and minorities.This would be the most effective way to keep the good programs and ideas, and weed out the bad.Dupont Co. uses a rotation process, so women and men can go through at least two or three different functions before reaching top line management (Eyring and Stead, 1998).Other suggestions in creating a social policy would be offering on-site childcare for employees, flex time where employees could choose their start time, more personal days off, and offer training programs on various types of work related problems.A company could also track their female employees’ progress or development, and take charge of their advancement opportunities.Also, women and minorities could be placed in roles responsible for profit and loss.

If employees are allowed to have a say in decision making, step up and attend some training seminars, and apply what they have learned about diversity, prejudice, and the glass ceiling in their daily lives, then we may get closer to shattering that “glass ceiling”.

Bibliography

Anderson, R.L. & Anderson, K.P.(1988).“A Comparison of Women in Small and Large Companies.”American Journal of Small Business,12(3),23-33.

Baxter, J. & Wright, E. O.(Apr 2000).“The glass ceiling hypotheses:A comparative study of the Untied States, Sweden, and Australia.”Gender & Society,14(2),275-294.

Eyring, A. & Stead, B.(Feb 1998).“Shattering the glass ceiling:Some successful corporate practices.”Journal of Business Ethics,17(3),245-251.

Frankforter, S.A. 1996.“The Progression of Women Beyond the Glass Ceiling.”Journal of social behavior and personality,11(5), 121-133.

Morrison, Ann M.1992.“New Solutions To The Same Old Glass Ceiling.”Women in Management Review,7(4),15-19.

Section Leaders, (1996, August 10). “Breaking the glass ceiling.” The Economist, 340(7978),pp. 13.

Still, Leonie V.1992.“Breaking The Glass Ceiling:Another Perspective.” Women in Management Review,7(5),3-8.

Van Vianen, A., & Fischer, A. (2002).“Illuminating the glass ceiling:The role of organizational culture preferences.”Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology,75(3),315-337.