Glass Ceiling Effect Essay Example
Glass Ceiling Effect Essay Example

Glass Ceiling Effect Essay Example

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Executive Summary The title “glass ceiling effect as a barrier to achieve true Diversity in Organizations” is a research topic put together in order to investigate and understand problems associated with discrimination of women and minority at work. Globalization has brought about the need for the free movement of not only labor but also goods, services and capital making it easy for people to find jobs and settle anywhere. One of the important features of globalization is having organizations with diverse workforce.

However, many organizations cannot achieve organizational diversity due to a phenomenon called the glass ceiling effect. Glass ceiling is being defined simply as a discrimination against the working minority and women. Organizations have realized how important it is to keep a truly diverse workforce. Some of the benefits associated with having diverse workforce include improved deci

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sion making, innovative ideas and having access to different markets and consumers amongst other things. The change in labor and consumer demographics further makes glass ceiling an interesting issue to explore.

The study has unearthed problems which are seen as the reasons the glass ceiling is becoming a barrier to organizational diversity. Further the study has studied other published literatures and based on that draw some conclusions as to why the glass ceiling still exists despite all the efforts by the government and other stakeholders to break it. Finally, the study looked at the subject matter from the Islamic point of view and offered some conclusions on where Islam stands in relation to the subject matter.

The Glass Ceiling Effect as barrier to achieve true Diversity in Organizations Part 1 Introduction With the increasing interconnection of the global economies through globalization

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movement of work force has become very easy allowing people to find jobs easily not only within their countries, continent but also across the globe. One of the significant features of globalization is having organizations/corporations operating with diverse workforce.

Despite being the practice everywhere across the business world there are still complaints regarding diversity in organization as discrimination still exists against the minority and the women or simply put “the glass ceiling effect”. Changing demographics such as the growing numbers of women and minority and inward migration have brought about the need to address the glass ceiling problems. For example in most European countries there is an aging population which in the longer future will affect the European economies.

Therefore in order for Europe to survive there is the need to allow for migration of non-European workers to Europe and that could only be possible if issues like the glass ceiling are being addressed (world fact book, 2011). Human rights group and non-governmental organizations have established some advocacy campaign programs against the glass ceiling phenomenon world over trying to call for government legislation against the problem as well as educating the public about it. Despite these global campaigns about making way for women and the minority to climb up the ladder of management amongst others, little has since changed.

This paper intends to study and understand how the glass ceiling effect is becoming barrier to achieve true organizational diversity. Before delving into the central theme of the paper it is important to define some important terms in order to simplify understanding of the topic to the audience. The Glass Ceiling The glass ceiling effect got to the print

media for the first time in 1984 in the United States. And by 1991 the glass ceiling effect has become an issue causing problems in the country forcing the U. S government to enact the civil rights act of 1991.

Since then the public became very wary of the term and its effects on the minority and the women (Falk and Grizard, 2003). According to Cotter, Hermsen, Ovadia and Venneman (2001), glass ceiling is defined as factious barrier to the progress of minority and women. It is important to note that the definition given here is general rather than being specific to place of work. However, as mentioned in the introductory part the interest of the paper is on glass ceiling in relation to organization diversity hence another definition of the term is given.

The glass ceiling commission U. S. A (1995), defines glass ceiling as undetected yet unbreakable hindrance that bar minorities and women from moving up to managerial position in organization irrespective of their qualifications and or achievements. Suffice to say it is very shallow to look at glass ceiling from one focal view only which is the barrier against the advancement of women or the minority in work. Unfortunately glass ceiling takes different forms in organizations.

It includes paying staff low or even refusal to pay them their compensation, or it could be in the form of assigning job responsibilities that are riskier and difficult to perform or even assigning official tasks without having to provide resources to complete the task amongst others (Falk et al. 2003). There are many types of glass ceiling but the study intends to discuss only the ones that are

considered important. Bamboo Ceiling: - a kind of discrimination against the women of Asia. The reasons attributed to this are lack superior communication methods, inexperience and laziness.

Concrete Ceiling: - a type of discrimination against the minority women. The reasons associated with the problem are illiteracy and racism which more often than not are not true. Expatriate Ceiling: - situations where women and the minority would break the first tier of the glass ceiling but couldn’t go further. The women and the minority are blocked from going training in order not to be promoted. Organizational Diversity The term "organizational diversity" refers to employing or engaging people (men and women) from different ethnic and racial backgrounds and experience working together in an organization.

Studies have shown that corporations or organizations with diverse workforce are found to be more innovative and productive than the ones with no diverse workforce at all (Hunt, Osborn and Schermerhorn, 2005). Furthermore Hunt et al. (2005) posited that in this era of fierce competition it is not only unwise but also foolishness not to hire talents simply because of their ethnic, racial, age or religious backgrounds. Thus far it is very clear that corporations/organizations with diverse workforce can gain competitive advantage using their human resource capital.

Therefore at this juncture it is valid to say that no organization can claim to be diverse in nature when that organization discriminates against certain people. However, organizational diversity is not without its challenges and benefits. Challenges Communication issues: - more often than not miscommunication contributes a lot to the problem that people experience at work. People understand one message differently even though the message is virtually saying the

same thing. Because people can’t work without having to make use of communication there is bound to be misunderstanding which in turn will lead to chaos (Judi, 2003).

Cultural biases: - these are the negative feelings toward particular people because they are members of some group or even because of their race, ethnicity etc. This includes prejudice and discrimination (Taylor, 1991). Assimilation: - this means that people working for an organization will be forced to learn how to absorb the organization’s way of doing work. Therefore assimilation in that aspect is never a problem. However, assimilation tends to be problem when staffs are forced to learn the organizational practices and then refused the chance to express or contribute their quotas.

The whole idea causes the feeling that people despite their efforts to settle and help the organization are not in any way welcome. Benefits Ability to solve problems successfully: - cultural diversity has been found to be a very good way to solving organization’s problem. By having people with different background working together helps in bringing different views toward solving organization’s problems. Other benefit includes having a good decision making technique in an organization (Hunt et al. 005) Innovation: - as people from different cultural background converge to work together and share ideas brings about creativity, enhance services and or improved product development (Max, 1989). Access to markets: - companies with diverse workforce have advantage in terms of having access to different markets. Diverse workforce will help companies take good care of their customers (Max, 1989). After it become very apparent that organizations can’t do without diversity, organizations started to look for ways to manage diversity in

their organizations with least effect of disruption.

The key to managing this cultural diversity at the place of work is by using activities such as the melting pot approach and the salad bowl approach. Just as the name implies the melting pot approach is a metaphor which focuses on having diverse people coming to work together by adopting one common culture. People’s differences will melt away together in order for them to find common ground where all can function with no problems. The Salad bowl approach is no different from the melting pot approach. It only differs in the sense that people are accepted with their cultural differences.

Essentially, people are encouraged to mix irrespective of their backgrounds and differences. Part 2 Literature Review The purpose of this section is to provide a review of the researches that have been published in areas related to this topic. The literature is divided into two parts namely glass ceiling and cultural diversity. Glass Ceiling Effect The share of women and the minority in the management position has been very low. A study conducted by International Labor office Geneva (2004) stated that by 1996-99 the numbers of women and minority in management cadre has been 1-5 percent in 48 countries out of the 63 countries surveyed.

But by the year 2000-02 there was a significant increase of 20-40 percent of women in management cadre. This shows an increase in the number of women in managerial positions which came as a result of government legislation and awareness campaigns on the need to incorporate both men and women together in the place of work. Furthermore a study conducted by Bareto (2009) for American

Psychological Association suggested that reason women are not making progress in becoming managers could be as a result of incremental progress.

She further averred that the incremental progress in the sense that it will take years for women to go from one position to another. This she said dissuades many women into giving up on becoming managers or worse still forcing them to quit their jobs because of frustration. Forcing many experienced and skilled women to quit has its own consequences. This phenomenon was studied by center for work policy (2010) which reported that by not incorporating women with high skills and experience organizations and the society will suffer a great deal with low quality of work force and sometime even lower productivity.

While many studies focus on understanding why women can’t progress in their work, other studies try to understand whether there is any relationship between women progress at work and the environment where they’re working. A study found some correlation between the two variables. According to Stone (2008) at the heart of it all is a model called the masculine competitive model of organization. In these kinds of organizations dominated by male they try by all means to make the working environment unfriendly for women. The author believed that the above reason is the main reason women don’t make progress at work.

While the research in question tends to agree with the findings of Stone, it is of utmost important to look at the issue from another angle. A study conducted on top managers of 200 top performing firms by Ibarra and Hansen (2009), found that 1. 5% which represent 29 are CEO’s out of the

2000. This according to them represented an even smaller percentage of women CEO as compared to the fortune 500 research which found 2. 5% of women were CEO. In addition to that in order to understand the phenomenon well, the research further studied the number of women enrolment in University within the U. S.

To their surprise the study found that out women comprise 57% of college students and more than 50% of law school graduates but they are nowhere near the men. From the above study it could be concluded that women posses the right knowledge and skills but they couldn’t make any progress because of the discrimination. So if women have the right qualification then what could be the problem why they are not making any progress at work? Some studies suggested that the discrimination could well be because women are known to have extra concern for their families and that contribute a lot in determining how far they can go at work.

In relation to the above research, a study conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that having high concern for their families dissuade many women from pursuing an advanced career at work. The study suggested that if women were to be given an opportunity to serve in the high level managerial positions will easily provide them an opportunity to have more flexi time which in turn will allow them to balance between family and work. Other studies argue that lack of friendly human resource policies such as friendly family policies are found to be at the root of the problem.

The study suggested that if corporations would provide women with maternity benefits and

provide the whole family with medical insurance amongst other things will certainly encourage women to pursue an advanced career in the corporations they are working (Burke, 2001). However, some studies suggested that performance could be at the heart of the problem why women can’t break the glass ceiling effect. A study conducted shows entirely a different result in that women are found to be more diligent than men. The result found that 72% with 2 or more women on he board conduct a very well organized board meeting as compared to 42% of all men on the board do (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2010). The study further discovered that women that were promoted to managerial position were found to perform better than their male counterparts. The above studies demonstrated quite rightly that performance has never been the reason women can’t progress. Consequentially, one study in particular suggested that poor/low reward/ compensation was at the root of the problem. The research posited that not providing an equitable benefit package for women as compared to men contribute a lot to the problem.

When the needs of women are not very well taken care of they feel unwanted and would decide to quit (Falk et al. 2003). At this juncture it is very imperative to understand the actual reason the glass ceiling persists. Accordingly, the pipeline theory explains that the reason the glass ceiling menace persist is as a result of the fact when women are placed in a waiting position (pipeline) to become managers it takes up to 25-30 years and just when they are about to appointed some flimsy excuses are used to block their progress.

By then

after waiting 25-30 years women will have no energy left to fight the male counterpart or even the organizations in which they are working for over the discrimination. In addition to that another study suggested that male use sexual harassment as an avenue to scare women away from taking job in a male dominated work place (Cornwell, Rose and Singh, 2007). According to Martell and Christopher (1998) they identified stereotypes as the problem why women can’t progress at work. They further reported that women are seen as lacking the right characteristics to succeed while at managerial position.

Martell et al. (1998) examined another research and then draw conclusion that a study found some high correlation between successful middle managers having characteristics of men rather than women. Organizational Diversity An organization that is diverse in nature will stand to benefit more in terms of decision making and innovation. Diversity doesn’t only bring innovation and good decision making process to an organization but it also improves the performance of the staff and organizational loyalty (Reichenberg, 2001).

Diversity in the past was seen by organizations as a big problem to having a successful workforce. However, the change in demographics and the impact of globalization has brought the need for companies to keep a diverse workforce. A study on challenges of diversity reported that by keeping a diverse workforce chances are companies will benefit from a lot from different markets and customers (keil, 2010). Organizations are competing in a fierce market world where every opportunity is pursued and that only when a company is having the right strategies in place it will succeed.

Research suggested that companies can also use their diverse

workforce as an organizational asset in order to compete. These companies who are able to use their diverse workforce as leverage in the business world stand a better chance of making profit irrespective of the environment they operate (Reichenberg, 2001). In the same vein another study conducted made an insightful revelation about the size of representation of people of color and women at work.

According to study conducted by Taylor and Fiske (1976) they found that in a situation where women and people of color are under-represented they always experience negative outcomes. Not only that another researcher believes that by incorporating people of color and women in a place work will allow enhance organizational productivity in that all will be encouraged to work maximally (Cox, 1993). Accordingly, another interesting study on cultural diversity was conducted in order to understand the relationship between cultural diversity and work groups.

The study found an overwhelming relation between the two variables in that when group members have common values and goals, cultural diversity enhances better performance (Jehn, Northcraft and Neale, 1999). Cultural diversity has an impact across the whole organization. Diversity is mainly represented in the lower cadre of organizations and some studies try to understand the rationale behind such composition of workforce. The result of the research shows that there are obviously three variables which if not met will hardly allow women and people of color to progress at work.

These variables include integration and leaning, access and legitimacy as well as fairness and discrimination. The authors believed that in the absence of afore mentioned variables in an organization, it will be difficult for the minority and women to progress beyond

junior level managers (Ely and Thomas, 2000). Thus far, from the reviewed literature it can be concluded that the glass ceiling effect has been receiving lots of attention from researchers and academicians alike.

The literature has provided an overwhelming insight on why the glass ceiling effect persists. This paper has found the pipeline theory and the masculine competitive model of organization very crucial to the reason glass ceiling persists in our societies. Both the pipeline theory and masculine model explored the research question in greater details citing issues like harassment, frustration and lack of intent of the managers to incorporate women and the minority into their workforce. The theory and the model appear to be in touch with the reality of the situation.

Although other studies suggested some reasons that are also valid but in my opinion they didn’t explore the subject matter as well as both the theory and the model. Other studies suggested reasons such as unfriendly family policies, lack of maternity benefits and flexible time, insufficient reward and lack opportunities were the main reason why the glass ceiling still exists. Overview of the present Study Glass ceiling is an area that needs to be explored further as there are many issues that need to be understood before a conclusion can be drawn.

The paper in question can’t address the whole issue nevertheless it can make lots of contribution to the area. In my opinion there are other important reasons glass ceiling effect persists which have not been touched by the literature reviewed in this paper. These in my opinion are reasons glass ceiling persist: The truth of the matter is that management of an organization

requires risk taking and cordoning of unethical issues which women cannot do.

Most managers of big corporations are known to be big risk takers and sometime they secretly support some unethical issues if their organizations are going to benefit. Being a manager requires much more than qualification it requires boldness and firmness in the event of success and crises. Women have been found to be vulnerable and weak and therefore most board members can’t afford to have women as their CEO or manager. Men are seen as more dedicated managers and can do anything to set their businesses up and functioning irrespective of the stakes involved.

Other equally important issue why glass ceiling persist is that women at work will never support any form of corrupt activities as was reported in some of the studies conducted. Men are more inclined to commit corrupt activities and therefore having women as manager means that there won’t be any corrupt activity. Furthermore women have been identified as family makers and keepers as such more often than not the society discouraged them in pursuing their careers at the expense of their families. Looking at the situation from Islamic point of view Islam is against discrimination of any kind.

Allah says “O Mankind! We have created you from a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honorable of you in the sight of Allah is he who is most pious among of you. Verily, Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware. ” Noble Qur'an (49:13). Another example was prophet Mohd’s (SAW) wife Khadija was a business woman and she was never at any time

discouraged by the prophet. Therefore going by the above Hadith it can be concluded that in as much as their chaste will not breached women should be allowed to work.

In addition to that to break the glass ceiling effect women and the minority should try as much as possible to invest whenever necessary in corporations so that it will be easier for them to be part of the decision making body of these organizations which in turn will allow them to have a say on who should be promoted to what position. Why Glass Ceiling Matter? Globalization and the continuous changes in labor demographics and consumer demographics make the issue an economic priority for managers, researchers and organizations to study and understand.

For any company that wants to do well in the global market place must be aware of the above mentioned issues. The shift toward knowledge economy where innovation and knowledge is the key has also brought about the need for nations, managers and organizations to take advantage of the cultural diversity. I can categorically say that glass ceiling is an important issue that needs to be addressed if only we want to be successful. However, efforts must continue to be put by the government, society, organizations and all stakeholders in fighting the menace.

At this juncture it is my sincere belief that no organization can claim to be diverse in nature unless it accommodates the minority and the women unconditionally. If the problems should be overcome there is the need for utmost sincerity on the part of managers, board members and organizations. In peroration, it is also my opinion that since the proportions of women

is getting bigger than that of men a time is coming where organizations will be left with no option than to provide women and minority the opportunity to serve or else phase out from the business world. References

Brownell, Judi (2003). Developing Receiver-Centered Communication in Diverse Organizations. Listening Professional, 2(1), 5-25  Cox, Jr. , Taylor (1991). The Multicultural Organization. Academy of Management Executive, 5(2), 34-47. Cox, T. Jr. 1993. Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research, and Practice. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. De Pree, Max. Leadership is an Art. New York: New York, New York Doubleday Business 1989. Ellemers, N. & Barreto, M. (2009). Collective action in modern times: How modern expressions of prejudice prevent collective action.

Journal of Social Issues, 65, 749-768. Fine, Marlene G. (1996). Cultural Diversity in the Workplace: The State of the Field. Journal of Business Communication, 33(4), 485-502. Greenberg, J (2011). Behavior in Organizations, (2011), NJ: Pearson Education. 10th Global Edition. Hermina Ibarra and Morten, T. Hansen (2009). Women CEO’s why so few? Harvard Business Review. Jehn, K. A. , Northcraft, G. B. and Neale, M. A. 1999. Why differences make a difference: A field study of diversity, conflict, and performance in workgroups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44:741-763.

Karen Lyness and Madeline Heilman (2007). Why has the glass ceiling become impenetrable: A published study in The Journal of Applied Psychology. Manuela Barreto, Michelle K. Ryan, and Michael T. Schmitt (2009). The Glass Ceiling in the 21st Century: Understanding Barriers to Gender Equality. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009. 334 pp. ISBN 978-1-4338-0409-0. $49. 95 Miller, Joffre J. "The “Glass Ceiling” and the “Wage Gap”—debunking the myths. " Scribd. Wayland Baptist University, 05 Aug 2009. Web 27 Apr

2011.

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