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The primary function of a suspended ceiling is to improve the appearance of a ceiling area and conceal the various services that may be fixed to the underside of a floor slab or roof. The numerous types of ceilings available can also provide one or more of the following functions:

It is commonly recognized that the transition to democracy in Korea was associated with economic progress. However, not many scholars have given attention to the role of bureaucracy during the process of democratization, due to the fact that bureaucracy is usually thought of as belonging to politics, not democracy. As a refutation of this general view, first, this chapter argues that bureaucracy has been an important contributor to political modernization. Since the post-1945 period, the ‘ceiling’ strategy, which limits the total number of civil servants, was introduced into the personnel management method and system of checks and balances to limit undue political influence over staffing and to control bureaucratic expansion. Second, through this strategy as policy, the bureaucracy legitimately tried to avoid undemocratic political power by standardized process and allow coordination. The ceiling policy is originally the product of historical context during colonial and authoritarian period, but the bureaucracy utilizes it as the instrument to reduce corruption. The contribution of this chapter is provoking the new insights about democratization from bureaucrat’s perspective which is rarely highlighted.

Air permeability of ceiling linings is an important element in understanding air and moisture flux from living spaces into the roof cavity. Ideally, these two spaces are decoupled to avoid transportation of moist indoor air into the attic space, where it can lead to condensation on the cold roof cladding. The purpose of this paper is to experimentally characterise the air permeability of a variety of common ceiling types. The results are given as leakage functions. Characteristic leakage data are also given for several ceiling penetrations. A case study illustrates the relevance of these data.

A specially designed test facility allows the installation of different ceiling types of up to 38 m² in area. Laminar flow elements are used to measure the volumetric flow across the ceiling while recording the pressure difference. The experimental data are fitted to the leakage function equation Q =c (ΔP)ⁿ. Ceiling penetrations are characterised in a similar way. For the case studies estimating the transport of moisture into the roof cavity, indoor climate data have been obtained using humidity and temperature sensors.

Air leakage functions are given for a number of common ceiling linings and ceiling penetrations. These data can be used in simulations aimed at modelling moisture flux into the roof cavities. In the case study, the authors also give indoor climate data of residential dwellings in New Zealand.

This paper addresses the need for robust ceiling air permeability data in whole-house temperature and moisture transport simulations.

The glass ceiling is a metaphor used to characterize the gender inequality of women at the top in most large western organizations. This situation has prompted many business organizations, NGOs and governments to encourage large organizations to promote more women into the executive suite and onto boards of directors. While there is little controversy about this initiative, this paper argues that there should be because it directly challenges the principle that merit should outweigh diversity. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper reviews research that purports to show that women are unfairly under-represented in the most senior positions in large western organizations. It also reviews the arguments that more senior women would improve the performance of these organizations. This research is then used to develop a model of why there are markedly fewer women than men at the top of large organizations.

This study finds that most of the research studies purporting to show that there is a bias against promoting women to the top of large western organizations are unsound because they are poorly designed and/or fail to accommodate alternative explanations for this effect. Thus, the current number of women who run these organizations may be a good reflection of their contribution to the management of these organizations. These findings suggest that many of the policies that are promoted to help women break through the glass ceiling are misguided.

Large organizations should think carefully about following the advice of special interest groups who vigorously promote this social cause.

Social policy advocates need better research from which to advance their cause that there are currently too few women in senior management positions of large organizations.

This is one of only a handful of papers that challenges the current orthodoxy that artificial glass ceilings are restricting the potential contribution of women to the better management of large organizations.

This study aims to undertake an in-depth analysis of glass ceiling literature and suggest some directions for future research.

A systematic review of the glass ceiling literature was carried out using academic databases like Scopus, EbscoHost and Proquest.

Social and cultural stereotypes give rise to individual barriers in the form of lack of selfconfidence and lack of ambition for managerial posts. Social norms also create organizational barriers in the form of “think manager think male” stereotype and discriminatory corporate policies. These organizational barriers further lower the self-confidence of women and exaggerate work-family conflict. Policy barriers in the form of lack of stringent laws and policies also create glass ceiling for women employees. Glass ceiling leads to various consequences which have been further classified as organizational and individual level consequences. The study also highlights that contextual variables like level of education, age, social class, marital and motherhood status influence the perceptions towards the role of different factors in creating glass ceiling.

This review highlights that though several levels of barriers exist for women aspiring for a managerial position, the main problem lies in conscious and unconscious stereotypes that often find their way in the organizations through gendered culture and gender discriminatory corporate practices. Therefore, organizations should firstly work on reorienting the attitudes of its employees towards women employees by conducting gender sensitization programmes for all the employees at the workplace. These gender sensitization programmes should aim at making people aware about the unconscious stereotypes that somehow find way in their speech and actions. Secondly, the organizations should work on extending the family friendly programmes to every employee irrespective of gender and every one should be encouraged to avail those policies so that female employees do not suffer from bias due to lack of visibility. Thirdly, organizations should work on introducing scientific procedures for performance evaluation to ensure removal of any form of bias during the process of appraisal. By creating a positive and equitable work environment for women employees, firms can combat their feelings of stress and burnout and can significantly improve their bottomline. The positive steps that will be taken by organizations will put forward a positive example for the society as well.

Even though more than three decades have passed since the term “glass ceiling” made inroads in the management literature, till date, there has been no study that holistically reviews various dimensions of glass ceiling literature. Hence, this is the first study that systematically reviews the existing literature on glass ceiling. Based on the review, the study also proposes an integrated conceptual framework highlighting interrelationship between various causes and consequences of glass ceiling and sheds light on the directions along which future studies can be carried out.

Present research seeks to examine the reality of the glass‐ceiling phenomenon in South Africa's four major retail banks.

Investigates women's low numbers in their top management jobs. A total of 40 women managers were interviewed for their in‐depth responses, which were content analyzed.

Results indicate that the glass ceiling considered a myth by many, is real and is nurtured by the organizational culture, policies and strategies besides women's own inadequacies. Only the most decentralized organizations, characterized by a culture that supports women's top positions, will help in breaking down the glass ceiling, along with women's own efforts to grow, develop and empower themselves through academic and career development.

It is limited to South Africa's four largest retail banks only and provides limited awareness about certain work practices that are insufficient tools to break down the glass ceiling, hence, future research may construct such tools and examine the extent to which the glass ceiling exists in different countries and the influence of the local culture in it is formation.

The paper provides clarity for organizational leaders to identify growth barriers existing in their organizations, leading their women workforce towards a glass ceiling.

It distinguishes between a glass ceiling and a job barrier and recommends organizations to practise cultural change and decentralization to break it down. This is a research paper and clarifies the difference between common career barriers and the glass ceiling by attempting to elucidate the existence of the glass ceiling.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the current status of women in management and explanations offered for this status in light of a rare empirical field study of the “glass ceiling” phenomenon the authors conducted about 20 years ago.

The authors review the study’s key arguments, unexpected results, and implications for organizational effectiveness (which have been largely ignored). The authors then review what has transpired and what has been learned about the glass ceiling phenomenon since.

The nature of glass ceilings has remained essentially stable over a 20-year period, although further explanations for them have flourished.

More scholarly examinations of ways to shatter glass ceilings and thereby enhance organizational effectiveness are recommended.

Organizations, human resources directors, and internal decision makers need to adopt practices that foster “debiasing” of decisions about promotions to top management.

Societies need to encourage organizations to adopt ways to shatter glass ceilings that continue to disadvantage women.

A systematic review and analysis of the present-day implications of an early study of the glass ceiling phenomenon has not previously been conducted.

Providers of cloud computing storage services (CCSS) charge offers in several unit bundles for a lump sum per bundle. This non-linear pricing approach is known as a bucket-pricing plan (BPP). If a customer exploits the purchased bucket, he/she can opt for the next higher bucket or refrain from further CCSS use. CCSS suppliers are faced with an optimization problem concerning the number of buckets as well as their lower and upper storage volume boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model, which supports CCSS suppliers in deriving a BPP-structure and which maximizes their profit in varying market constellations.

The authors develop a multi-period model of tariff choice decisions of private customers of CCSS. The model is applied in Monte Carlo simulations to determine profit-maximal tariff structures as a function of different market characteristics such as median demand saturation, demand heterogeneity, average price per storage unit and bucket ceiling allocation (identical size of each bucket within the frame set by the lower and upper overall boundary, varying sizes of the buckets offered, so that the interval between two ceilings consecutively increases for subsequent buckets) and type of a customer’s utility function.

The simulation analysis suggests that demand heterogeneity and average price per unit are the most influential factors for CCSS tariff structure optimization. Price plans with more than two buckets tend to generate higher profits than simple schemes with two buckets only if demand heterogeneity is low and the average price per storage unit is high and/or median saturation level of customers is low.

Despite the popularity of BPP among providers of CCSS for consumers, there is a lack of scholarly modeling work on the profit implications of the number of buckets entailed in a scheme and the size/ceilings of the various buckets on offer. The model suggested in this paper is a first step toward narrowing this research gap.

The purpose of the paper is to review and analyse different glass ceiling studies conducted in different Asian countries during the three decades after the introduction of the metaphor. It also describes the antecedents and the consequences of the glass ceiling.

The method chosen for the study was a computerised search of available materials using the keywords relating to glass ceiling in Asia and latest reports from international organisations.

The perception of glass ceiling existence in Asian countries has been sorted out region-wise. Different factors for glass ceiling have been categorised under different theories.

The study includes a multiregional aspect of glass ceiling, which will be useful for further studies in this area. The limitation of the study is that it did not assess the awareness and influence of glass ceiling in each industry.

Since the study showed glass ceiling practices in different countries in Asia, it might help policy makers for making proper decisions for breaking of glass ceiling.

The study may be a part of empowering women as it analyses areas of inequality and finds out antecedents.

This paper is the first to shed light on glass ceiling on a multicultural and multiregional aspect.

The purpose of this paper is to present a longitudinal, qualitative study exploring changes in the attributional constructions of sense-making in the perceptions and lived experiences of the glass-ceiling among a cohort of female mental health nurses in the National Health Service who participated in a 12-month multi-faceted career and leadership development pilot programme compared to a matched control group.

The authors interviewed 27 female mental health nurses in the UK who participated in a multi-faceted development programme specifically designed to support female nurses secure career advancement and 27 members of a matched control group who did not experience the programme. Participants engaged in semi-structured telephone interviews at three separate time points (six months apart) over a 12-month period.

Programme participants differed in their attributional constructions of sense-making in relation to the glass-ceiling over time compared to the matched control group, e.g., triggering understandings and awakenings and re-evaluating the glass-ceiling above when promoted. Findings are used to theorise about the glass-ceiling as a concept that shifts and changes over time as a function of experience.

Practical implications include important organisational outcomes in relation to fostering the career advancement and retention of talented female leaders at all career stages.

The authors present the first known longitudinal, qualitative study to explore changes in attributional constructions of sense-making in perceptions and experiences of the glass-ceiling among female nurses over time compared to a matched control group.