Smashing the Glass Ceiling 1

Smashing the Glass Ceiling 1

Smashing the Glass Ceiling:

Female and Minority Executives in the Healthcare Industry

NAME

PROFESSOR

COURSE

DATE
Smashing the Glass Ceiling: Female and Minority Executives in the Healthcare Industry

  1. Introduction
  1. Recruitment and retention are key to meeting organizational goals
  2. To ensure that minorities and females ascend to top management positions, a strong emphasis must be placed on recruiting, as shown in the study by Flores and Combs (2013).
  3. Succession planning and mentoring are needed to ensure retention and advancement (Broscio, 2014; Maryland, 2008).
  1. Failure to recruit and retain female and minority executives often derives from communication failures.
  2. Large organizations tend to face greater challenges in implementing diversity and equality management (DEM) practices, presumably due to more complexity in the communication network (Richard, Roh, & Pieper, 2013).
  1. Additional research is needed to the impacts of and challenges to minority and female leadership.
  2. Research suggests that female-led organizations tend to outperform male-led organizations (Dezso & Gaddis Ross, 2012).
  3. Further research is needed to assess the impact of state diversity laws on minority and gender diversity management (Kmec & Scaggs, 2014).
  1. Successful performance management is needed to foster minority and female ascension.
  2. Minorities and females face unique challenges as they endeavor to rise to executive positions and careful mentoring and career planning can help to facilitate this process and navigate those difficulties (Sexton, Lamak, & Wainio, 2014).
  1. Technology and organizational innovation may be used to cope with a changing healthcare environment and females and minorities may capitalize upon this innovation.
  2. Due to familial responsibilities and to a more employee-centered approach, female managers may be more likely to use technology to enable telecommuting or other performance-enhancing innovation related to improved patient care and better work-life balance for employees.
  1. In order to achieve organizational goals relating to the installation of minority and female executives, a wide-scale ideological and organizational change must occur.
  2. Despite years of calls for more diversity at the highest executive levels across industries, leadership positions are still overwhelmingly held by males, requiring a vast effort at change management to produce more effective results (Gathers, 2003; Wolfman, 2007).
  1. Youth and community outreach will augment recruiting and retention efforts.
  2. Programs to be implemented in schools beginning at the elementary and middle school levelswill help to recruit minority and female students into the field, preparing them for executive positions.
  3. Shadow programs, according to Larrieux, Izzicupo, Kapadia, and Latorre (2012), are highly effective in bringing minority students into the healthcare field.
  1. Conclusion

References

Broscio, M. A. (2014). Career management in today’s healthcare environment. Journal of Healthcare Management, 59(6), 395-398.

Dezso, C. L. & Gaddis Ross, D. (2012). Does female representation in top management improve firm performance: A panel data investigation. Strategic Management Journal, 33, 1072-1089.

Flores, K. & Combs, G. (2013). Minority representation in healthcare: Increasing the number of professionals through focused recruitment. Hospital Topics: Research and Perspectives on Healthcare, 91(2), 25-36.

Gathers, D. (2003). Diversity management: An imperative for healthcare organizations. Hospital Topics: Research and Perspectives on Healthcare, 81(3), 14-20.

Kmec, J. A. & Skaggs, S. L. (2014). The ‘state’ of equal employment opportunity law an managerial gender diversity. Social Problems, 61(4), 530-558.

Larrieux, S. L., Izzicupo, A., Kapadia, X., & Latorre, J. (2012). Northeastern University and Edward M. Kennedy School’s ‘shadow day’ program: Impact on minority students in healthcare careers. Journal of Best Practices in Health Professions Diversity: Research, Education, and Policy, 5(2), 799-809.

Maryland, P. A. (2008). Gender and leadership in healthcare administration: Practitioner application. Journal of Healthcare Management, 53(5), 302-303.

Richard, O. C., Roh, H., & Pieper, J. R. (2013). The link between diversity and equality management practice bundles and racial diversity in the managerial ranks: Does firm size matter? Human Resource Management, 52(2), 215-242.

Sexton, D., Lemak, C. H., & Wainio, J. A. (2014). Career inflection points of women who successfully achieved the hospital CEO position. Journal of Healthcare Management, 59(5), 367-383.

Wolfman, T. G. (2007). The face of corporate leadership: Finally poised for major change? New England Journal of Public Policy, 37-72.

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