Abstract
The obstacles that minority groups face can often result in perceptions that success is beyond one’s control, further resulting in feelings of powerlessness, dependency, detachment, and resentment. Unlike their white counterparts who face ‘glass ceiling’, ethnic minority women who have less support and even fewer opportunities to advance, encounter “concrete ceiling” or “concrete walls” which are more difficult to break. Societal and organizational structures often put prejudicial barriers in their path which overlook merit, thereby impeding their advancement to senior positions. Being constantly overlooked, despite being competent, can negatively impact their leadership aspirations. So how do these women shield themselves from the frustration and marginalization that comes with the racial and gender prejudice they face and how do they achieve career success? To understand this, we interviewed 50 ethnic minority women in senior leadership positions. Deviating from the norm in business and management literature, we adopt a positive psychology perspective and delineate elements of Hope to examine their career goals, their motivation to reach these goals (agency) and how they go about achieving these (pathway). We found that the women in our study were hopeful in their goal pursuit, aware of the disadvantages they faced, anticipated these, and successfully identified pathways to achieve their goals and advance their careers. We develop a conceptual model based on our findings which has theoretical implications for both diversity and career success literatures.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.