Women at Workforce

As the graph’s short remark shows, most industries have men as a majority of their chief executives. This general pattern of gender proportion at managerial level can be explained by role conflict, gender stereotype or norms associated with a gender and lastly by the influence of informal communication channels on power politics within an organization. Then I will focus more specifically on differences among industries for female executives’ percentage, significantly lower in manufacturing or engineering sectors than nonprofit or healthcare sectors.

Firstly, likewise anyone in a professional world, women are expected to behave in a certain pattern for their personal and professional position. A chief executive can be at the same time a mother of three children, and these different roles can conflict one another during execution. The social perception of roles at household and their conflict with roles at work stand out more for women rather than men. According to OECD, whereas all OECD countries except for the United States provide paid maternity leave, only half of them offer paternity leave, with fewer days off.

The role perception based on one’s gender can determine also one’s communication methods. If a gender stereotype functions as a norm within an organization, it creates a desirable behavior which is considered to be consistent with a role. When Marie Antoinette did not conform to what is supposed to be right behavior for her role as a queen, given from the organization she belonged to, she had to face the loss of her position. If women are considered to be less directive and more compassionate, this would influence the conformity of people in the organization when she exhibited strong assertiveness, contradictory from the given role expectation. Therefore, her chance to get a higher status with power would be lowered.

A group has both formal and informal organizational channel for its information dissemination. The network