America’s Competitive Secret: Women Managers
Judy B. Rosener
Abstract
The United States has a large number of well-educated, experienced professional women ready, willing, and able to move into the boardrooms and executive suites of corporate America. They represent a great, untapped economic resource and this book argues that this is America’s competitive secret. Drawing on in-depth interviews with top executives and middle managers, and the latest research on working women and organizational change, the author describes the unique contribution of female professionals. Her profiles of top women managers reveal that they cope well with ambiguity, are comfortable ... More
The United States has a large number of well-educated, experienced professional women ready, willing, and able to move into the boardrooms and executive suites of corporate America. They represent a great, untapped economic resource and this book argues that this is America’s competitive secret. Drawing on in-depth interviews with top executives and middle managers, and the latest research on working women and organizational change, the author describes the unique contribution of female professionals. Her profiles of top women managers reveal that they cope well with ambiguity, are comfortable sharing power, and tend to empower others' leadership traits that lead to increased employee productivity, innovation, and profits. The book offers evidence that the changes that help organizations more fully utilize the talents of women are the same changes that will give them an important edge in today’s global workplace. The author explains why the glass ceiling still prevents many competent women from reaching the upper echelons of management. She analyses why women and men are perceived and evaluated differently at work, and provides new insight into the feelings of men who are asked to interact with women in new roles when there are few new rules. The book shows that removing the glass ceiling can no longer be viewed solely in terms of social equity—it is now an economic imperative.
Keywords:
working women,
executives,
middle managers,
organizational change,
productivity,
innovation,
profits,
global workplace,
glass ceiling,
social equity
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 1998 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195119145 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195119145.001.0001 |