Search results

This paper seeks to investigate the roles of small and large projects in the development and evolution of a commercial company and why companies with a history of taking on large projects tend to eventually fail with large projects.

In terms of small and large projects, analytic models are established to: describe investors' behaviors; depict the dynamics between CEOs and their boards of directors; and reveal how profit ceilings exist for large projects.

After making the concepts of small and large projects precise, the paper establishes several analytic models for the investigation of the behaviors of various market participants. Then, it develops an explanation for why some decision makers like to take on large projects and why most new startups fail because of a lack of funds. A theory is given to show how investors value small projects more than large projects and why the current trend of moving manufacturing operations from industrialized nations to third world countries does not seem reversible in the foreseeable future, as long as international transportation costs stay low and the global economic system stays open and competitive. Among other results, it is also shown that: the higher the level the CEO's initial ability is, the more likely he would initiate and manage small projects, and the more labor effort he will devote to these projects; the CEO's additional effort spent on the small projects helps him gain non‐pecuniary benefits, which he can use to gain additional bargaining power over the board; to realistically maximize his private utility, the CEO would spend more of his time and effort on small projects; each large project has a glass ceiling for its maximum level of profits; companies taking on large projects cannot afford to devote much of their scarce resources to expand their market share and appearance; and to increase their profit potential, these companies have to control their spending so that their profit can be maximized by lowering their unit selling price p_s; for small projects, the profit potential for the company is unlimited.

This work is the first to employ models of human behaviors to research the interactions and dynamics between projects of different scales. It provides a theoretically reliable distinction between small and large projects.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to identify hurdles in women’s rise up the organizational ladder through the epistemic concept of the glass ceiling phenomenon. The secondary aim is to determine how the glass ceiling effect results in women’s failure to secure equal representation in high-ranking executive positions in comparison to males. The study intends to come up with empirical evidences to advance plausible justifications and support for the organizations to manage their workforce with the sense of egalitarianism.

The questionnaire is administered to a sample of 210 respondents including CEOs, directors, managers, assistants, accountants, doctors and teachers from public and private sectors. The variables that influence the glass ceiling phenomenon are gender (female) represented on the board of directors (BODs), stereotypical behavior and training and development of females to measure the glass ceiling effect. Further, this influence is examined regarding the selection and promotion of the females as candidates, as well as female effectiveness at work. To verify the glass ceiling phenomenon, multiple linear regression analyses with the ordinary least square method are used.

Drawing on the perspective of the social role theory, the authors identify plausible causes of the glass ceiling phenomenon in the Asian context. The results show the presence of glass ceiling, particularly characterizing its effects on the selection and promotion of the female candidates and their effectiveness. The authors found that glass ceiling was negatively related to both female effectiveness and “selection and promotion.” It was also identified that research variables such as lesser women’s representation on the BODs, training and development and stereotypical attitude toward women promote glass ceiling.

The larger sample and data collection from different cultures would have assured more generalizability. The glass ceiling is affected by numerous variables; other factors can also be explored.

Organizations must consider competitive females in their selection and promotion decision making. Asian countries, especially developing countries such as Pakistan, need to develop policies to encourage active participation of the female workforce in upper echelon. The equal employment policies will reduce the dependency ratio of females, consequently driving the country’s economic growth.

Societies need to change their stereotype attitudes toward women and encourage them to use their potential to benefit societies by shattering glass ceilings that continue to place women at a disadvantage. Developing a social culture that advances women empowerment will contribute to social and infrastructure development in Asian countries.

This paper adds a thought-provoking attitude of organizations in South Asia, especially in Pakistani societies that play a role in creating a glass ceiling, more so to shatter it even in 2016. This study compels firms in Pakistan and other Asian regions to use unbiased practices by investigating the impact of glass ceiling on female effectiveness that has not previously been conducted in the Asian context. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study of glass ceiling in Pakistani context is first in the literature.

This paper aims to clarify that corporate social responsibility (CSR) has come a long way by the prevailing business case approach, but increasingly hits a glass ceiling. The glass ceiling metaphor refers to the inherent limitations created by a business case approach towards CSR.

The main findings are based on an analysis of existing literature on strategies for CSR. The findings are illustrated with a case from the Dutch National Research Program on CSR.

The very term corporate social responsibility suggests that the debate about CSR is all about responsibilities of corporations. Maybe it once was, but nowadays it is much more about new market opportunities and a business‐wise approach to ecological and social problems. CSR has evolved into a marketable asset of companies, in which profit‐oriented managers and entrepreneurs are willing to invest. This “commodification” of CSR has helped to make it acceptable in the business world, but this comes at a considerable price from the perspective of the social responsibility of business. It is especially argued in the paper that a business case approach results in opportunism, leaves institutional blockades intact and drives out the intrinsic motivation for engaging in CSR.

Because of the chosen conceptual research approach, the propositions put forward in the paper need further grounding in empirical research.

In order to shatter this glass ceiling, managers have to deal with a paradoxical situation. They should maintain their appreciation of economic constraints and at the same time combine this with a sincere recognition of moral values. This at least requires that managers should show commitment to certain social values, be able to defend it in good and bad times and prepare all employees to deal with the inherent dilemmas of bearing different responsibilities.

Although the paper builds on earlier articles on limitations of a business case approach, it is the first paper to argue for a glass ceiling of CSR created by the inherent limitations of such an approach.

The present study aims at contributing to the knowledge of organizational communication and cross‐cultural leadership by examining the relationship between cultural values and expected female leadership styles in non‐profit organizations in Taiwan and the US.

In total, 307 Rotarians in Taiwan and the US completed a survey meant to reveal their cultural values and expected female leadership styles. In addition, the method of semi‐structured interviews was used to raise the participants' consciousness of and critical reflections upon social practices regarding female leadership.

The research results are threefold. First, among the three major leadership styles, Rotarians in both countries expect female leaders to display transformational leadership. Second, laissez‐faire leadership style can be better explained by the variables of cultural values and country than transformational and transactional leadership styles. Finally, to successfully confront gender discrimination, female leaders need to oftentimes behave much more progressively and actively and sometimes make necessary compromises of their female qualities to overcome the barriers just like climbing over the Himalayas.

The research findings imply that national culture is not the only factor to account for the expected female leadership styles. Future studies of leadership concepts and styles should include more variables such as organizational culture, political system, language, and feminine or masculine characteristics. Based on the results, the so‐called “glass‐ceiling effects” have been broken bit by bit; yet, female leaders still need to “climb over the Himalayas” and pass through a tortuous, demanding, and exhausting path in order to move upward.

As the first study of its kind, this study has filled the gap by expanding leadership studies to cross‐cultural contexts, thus contributing to the body of human knowledge of cross‐cultural leadership in non‐profit organizations of Rotary Clubs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine identity intersectionalities of age, ethnicity, and gender among US professional women of color working in upper management as they challenge the glass ceiling in order to change organizations from the inside out.

Featured are narratives of 36 midlife‐aged, middle‐class African‐American, Asian‐American, and Hispanic women who have built careers in mediated message industries. Feminism and Foucauldianism provide theoretical underpinning.

The findings illuminate how midlife‐aged women of color paradoxically resist and accept master narratives of “less than” in striving to change organizations and achieve their maximum potential. Organizational glass ceilings remain impenetrable, but women of color are optimistic that benefits of diverse upper‐level managements ultimately will be embraced. Moreover, overlapping public and private spheres continue to further complicate career advancement.

Method‐inherent limitations include recognizing that narratives are not generalizable but serve as a point of departure for future study. Implications for theory building are offered, as well as ongoing research suggestions – such as probing intra‐group differences and expanding dialog to include other unique identity groups.

Of key import for public policy decision making are research participants' voices – how, as beneficiaries of socio‐political movements and legislation spanning nearly five decades, they still seek to negotiate organizational hierarchies and balance public and private work spheres.

Heretofore, little scholarly attention has focused on midlife‐aged women of color and glass ceiling barriers in conjunction with monitoring organizational change. This exploratory study was designed to address the gap; encouraging policymakers and organizational leaders to consider these women's unique identities and experiences.

Women in public accounting firms are still proportionally much fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men, whereas recruitment at junior level tends to be increasingly gender‐balanced. This paper aims to analyse the relationships between the glass ceiling and motherhood. The mechanisms explaining the difficulties encountered by auditor mothers in their hierarchical progression within the Big Four in France are identified.

From 24 interviews with male and female auditors of various hierarchical levels, one seeks to reveal the specificity of the difficulties encountered by auditor mothers.

It is argued that, throughout their careers, they are confronted with a dilemma that often leads to their being excluded and excluding themselves from the group of “those who may become partners”. It is shown that public accounting firms place both implicit and explicit obstacles in their way, tied to a desire to neutralise the effects, deemed costly, of motherhood. Moreover, the expectations of the organisation and society as a whole conflict on many points and confront female auditors with a dilemma: how to be a good mother and have a bright career? It appears that women who want to better manage this dilemma shape working practices imposed on the whole team and implement tactics to adapt their work‐life balance (specialisation and lateral move to staff departments). This leads to individual trajectories that break out of the organisational model and account for the scarcity of women in the upper management levels in audit firms.

The paper gives voice to male auditors and shows that managing the professional life/private life dilemma is difficult for fathers as well as mothers, in the long term. Moreover, rather than thinking in terms of horizontal and vertical segregations, this paper invites one to question the concept of the glass ceiling and consider the construction of the scarcity of women in the accounting profession.

The term “glass ceiling” was coined by two Wall Street Journal reporters in 1986 to describe the “invisible but impenetrable barrier between women and the executive suite.” In the decade since, women have made undisputed progress in gaining entry to higher management in corporate America. For example, between 1982 and 1992 the number of female vice presidents increased by 75% and the number of female executive vice presidents more than doubled, according to one recent study (Korn/Ferry International, 1993). However, until Catalyst undertook an enumeration in 1996, no systematic research had been conducted to document the extent to which women have actually advanced to positions of senior leadership. Previous studies had estimated the figure at 3% to 5% (Catalyst, 1990; Korn/Ferry International, 1979), but researchers could not verify the accuracy of these estimates as they were derived from surveys of various sample populations. Even the US Glass Ceiling Commission failed to provide a baseline measure of women's representation at various levels of corporate management. (Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, March 1995).

Women′s progress up the corporate ladder is still limited by a “glass ceiling” despite the myriad of Government policies and programmes which have been introduced to ensure that their talents and skills are recognised. Reviews the reasons for this existence of the “glass ceiling” and the role managerial women may have played (consciously or unconsciously) in sustaining it by having inappropriate qualifications and experience for the top positions. Women can help themselves to overcome this career hurdle by: acquiring appropriate business skills and know how; taking up line‐management positions rather than management service roles; gaining the necessary experience through “apprenticeship” and “acting positions”; seeking career counselling; volunteering for leadership and executive positions; and acquiring the ability to measure their operating effectiveness in the workplace. Women also need to be aware of the emergence of new barriers to their progress. The current socio‐economic situation is creating different “glass ceilings” in the form of the downsizing of organizations, new differentiated and self‐directed career paths, the advent of the contractual worker, and the care of aged parents.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the most common general metaphors for women’s leadership: the glass ceiling, sticky floor and the labyrinth. The authors discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these metaphors for characterizing women’s current situation as leaders.

In addition to reviewing the literature on the status of women leaders, the authors also discuss recent research on the power of metaphor to illustrate concepts and influence social judgments.

The authors conclude that the labyrinth is the most useful metaphor for women leaders, because although there has been slow steady improvement in women’s access to leadership, women continue to face challenges that men do not face: gender stereotypes that depict women as unsuited to leadership, discrimination in pay and promotion, lack of access to powerful mentors and networks and greater responsibility for childcare and other domestic responsibilities.

Although the glass ceiling metaphor implies that women face obstacles once they have risen to very high levels of leadership and the sticky floor metaphor implies that women are prevented from any advancement beyond entry level, the labyrinth reflects the myriad obstacles that women face throughout their careers.

The labyrinth metaphor not only acknowledges these challenges but also suggests that women can advance to very high levels of leadership.