glass ceiling
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Glass Ceiling, Organisational Commitment and Well being :
A Comparative Study of Women Executives in
Multinational Organisations
Singh, S.*, Gumber, V.** and Singh, U.***
* Reader, Deptt. of Psychology, M.D. University, Rohtak
** Guest Faculty, Govt. College, Faridabad
*** Lecturer, Dronacharya College, Gurgaon
Position of women has gone under a lot of change from pre-Vedic to
modern times. They have carved a niche for themselves, in what is believed to
be predominately a male domain. They have paved their way in both
traditional and non-traditional fields. Though they have emerged as trend
setters in corporate world, yet engrossed in perceiving high as well as low
‘Glass Ceiling’ phenomena. In this context, the present study was designed to
make a comparative analysis of glass ceiling perceivers and non-perceivers in
relation to organizational commitment and well being. For this purpose, a
total sample of 350 female executives, working at middle level of
management, having atleast five years of managerial experience belonging to
an age-group of 35-40 years was selected. Self-construed Glass Ceiling
Questionnaire, Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (Allen & Meyer,
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1990) and P.G.I. Well-being Scale (Verma & Verma, 1989) were
administered to all the female executives to assess these variables. The results
of study revealed significant differences in their perception of glass ceiling in
work set-up. Moreover, the females who perceived more gender bias in their
set-up had exhibited low normative, affective and continuance commitment.
High Glass Ceiling perceivers also showed poor well being. The obtained
findings are very alarming in the sense that there is a dire need to change the
mind-set of females in relation to their gender-biased perception of work set-
up. Extensive research work is also required to melt this ‘Glass Ceiling Myth’
in order to reshape their attitude and shatter this barrier so that every one in
set up can reach at heights of success.
Keywords: Glass ceiling, Normative, Continuance and Affective Commitment, Well-being.
Position of women has gone under a lot of change from pre-Vedic to
modern times. There have been infact two phases in the life of women-period
of subjection and the period of liberalization. The former stretched for a long
period and the latter has caught its pace. With more and more women
becoming educated and aware of their rights, the times are changing. Adam
for field, Eve for hearth, no longer hold a relevance.
Women have carved a niche for themselves, in what is believed to
be predominately a male domain. They are all trendsetters in their own right.
Earlier they were concentrated mainly in the ‘feminized’ professions, where
at the same time they remained in lower job categories than men. But now the
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scenario has totally changed. These females have made inroads into non-
traditional fields especially in the corporate world. There is an evidence (Cox
& Harquail, 1991; Strober, 1982; Wood, Corcoran & Courant, 1993) that
employers are promoting women systematically by introducing family
friendly policies in work set-up to retain them. However, who choose non-
traditional jobs do face special constraints in the work place like isolation,
limited access to mentoring, sexual harassment and glass ceiling.
The term ‘Glass Ceiling’ is in vogue in the current era of
organisational behaviour. This term has two parts, Glass + ceiling. ‘Glass’ is a
“transparent” and ceiling is “top level.” This situation is referred to as a
‘ceiling’ as there is a limitation blocking upward advancement, and glass
(transparent) because the limitation is not immediately apparent and is
normally an unwritten and unofficial policy. This term was coined by the
Wall Street Journal in 1986 by Carol Hymowitz and Timothy Schellhardt to
describe the apparent barriers that prevent women from reaching the top of
the corporate hierarchy; and it is ten years since the American government
specially appointed Glass Ceiling Commission, published its
recommendations. ‘The Glass Ceiling effect’ is an unseen, yet unreachable
barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper ranks of the
corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements (US Glass
Ceiling Commission, 1995).
Actually, the glass ceiling effect is not generic discrimination rather
it is a discrimination in relation to the inequality of promotion and power
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distribution in private and public organizations. The ‘glass ceiling’ effect is a
specific type of discrimination that effect the higher echelons more than the
lower echelons, to be distinguished from general discrimination operating at
all levels and the specific pattern of discrimination concentrated at the
bottom... known as the ‘sticky floor effect’... which prevents women and
minorities from entering managerial hierarchies. Catalyst (1996) talked about
six major factors that perpetuate glass ceiling and other areas, i.e., lack of
bold leadership, workplace environment, work experience, family obligations,
socialization and education.
Women are often perceived to lack the leadership skills of a
manager. Despite the gains women have made, negative attitudes and
stereotypes of women as managers (higher level) prevail. This barrier creates
stressful situation which adversely affects her commitment towards job which
is an organizational variable (Ryan, Haslem & Postmes, 2007). Commitment,
a key ingradient, in human resource management is defined as a relative
strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in an
organization (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982). In 1990, Allen & Meyer
conceptualized three-dimensional construct of organizational commitment,
i.e., affective, continuance/calculative and normative. The affective
component of organizational commitment refers to employee’s emotional
attachment to, identification with and involvement in the organisation. The
continuance/calculative component refers to commitment based on costs that
the employee associates with leaving the organisation. The normative
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component refers to the employee’s feelings of obligation to remain with the
organization. The current rule of thumb in organization is, the higher up on
organisation’s hierarchy, the fewer the women. Organisational commitment
is found to be highly correlated to women than men. Grusky (1966) proposed
that women are more committed to an organization because they had to
overcome more barriers than men to gain membership. But in the current era,
we come across various incidents of sexual discrimination at workplace, at
home and social circles. These situations of gender discrimination are
popularly referred to as ‘Glass Ceiling Effect.’ This invisible barrier affects
working women the most as it diminishes their chance of advancement and
their promotion at higher levels. Consequently, it slows down their interest
and identification in the job, i.e., their organizational commitment. In the
present study, the ‘Glass Ceiling’ construct has been operationized in terms of
females perception of gender discrimination in their work set-up in terms of
their employment opportunities, salary structure, training and promotion
facilities etc. (Willington 1996). They have been categorized in two
categories, i.e., high glass ceiling perceivers (having high perception of sex-
biased attitude towards their job) and low glass ceiling perceivers (having low
perception of gender discrimination at their work set-up.
Discrimination may be less visible in today’s workplace, but subtle
forms of discrimination occur at every level. Where they occur consistently,
they create patterns of exclusion. This negative perception of ceiling has a
debilitating impact upon the well being of a person. The perceived glass
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ceiling is not free from ill-effects on health. Health, in laymen term, is a
notion of well-being. WHO (1948) defined well being as a state of complete
physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease
or infirmity. Wellbeing is a multidimensional construct and the commonly
proposed tri-partite structure of well-being is in light of life satisfaction,
positive affect and negative affect (Diener, Suh, Lucas & Smith, 1999). It is
affected by work environment. A male or female boss gender related attitudes
about woman as managers can have an effect on the mentoring and support
for advancement they provide to women subordinates. Females in the
management positions may not be viewed favourably by males, who comprise
the bulk of higher-level positions. Interviews with female executives revealed
that male executives were not comfortable being supervised by their women
boss (Catalyst, 1996; Tharenou, 1991). Despite research showing men and
women perform equivalently in leadership roles, male senior leaders often
perceive that women are not as effective as men in case of adverse
circumstances, as deficient in problem solving skills (Catalyst, 2005). Such
gender biased perception of males lowers down the well-being of females and
consequently responsible for their lack of interest and commitment in the
organization. As far as the empirical work in relation to ‘glass ceiling’ is
concerned, it is abundant in relation to wage and salary structure, training and
promotions; but there is a dearth of empirical evidence which reports the
direct relationship between the glass ceiling, organizational commitment and
wellbeing in female employees. It is because of the ‘Breaking up of Glass
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ceiling myth’ labelled as ‘Shattering the Glass Ceiling phenomena (Lanzen
2002). Taking this into view that whether ‘Glass Ceiling’ is a reality or a
myth or their false perception or ground reality of a traditional patriarchal
society, is a big question mark and needs to be pondered over. Taking this
perspective into mind, the present research aimed to study and make a
comparative analysis of glass ceiling perceives and non-perceivers in relation
to organizational commitment and well-being.
Hypotheses :
Following hypotheses were formulated and tested in the present
study :
(1) There would be significant difference between the high and low
glass ceiling perceivers.
(2) There would be significant difference in the organizational
commitment (normative, affective and continuance) and well being
of high glass ceiling perceivers and low glass ceiling perceivers.
Method
Sample
The sample for the present study consisted of 350 female
executives, working at middle level of management, having atleast five years
of managerial experience belonging to an age group of 35-40 years. The
sample was selected from various multinational companies (MNCs) of
Gurgaon and Faridabad.
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Design
A two independent group design was used. One group (n=100) was
of high glass ceiling perceivers or those who could not cross the barrier and
the second group (n=100) was of those women who crossed the barrier (low
glass ceiling perceivers).
Tools
The following tools were used :-
(1) Glass Ceiling Questionnaire : It was self-construed, having 16
forced-choice items. The items were taken on the basis of different
parameters, i.e., equal employment opportunities, assigning
challenging tasks, appropriate job openings at higher levels,
decision making etc. The higher the score, the lower is the glass
ceiling and lower the score, the higher is the glass ceiling.
(2) Organisational Commitment Scale (Allen & Meyer, 1990) : This
scale has 24 items designed to measure the three dimensions of
organizational commitment, i.e., normative, affective and
continuance. Each dimension is assessed on eight statements
presented in a seven-point Likert scale response format. It has high
reliability and validity.
(3) PGI General Well being Scale (Verma & Verma, 1989) : It
measures the general well-being of a person. The higher the score,
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the higher is the well-being. It has a high, i.e., 0.91 test-retest
reliability and 0.98 KR-20 reliability.
Procedure : The participants of the study were personally contacted. After
rapport establishment, they were briefed regarding the nature and objectives
of study. All the tests were individually administered on each subject. They
were assured that their responses would be kept confidential. In the
measurement of glass ceiling, the following method was adopted :
The research study had a total sample of 350 female executives
from various MNCs. Out of 350 females, 100 were categorized as ‘high glass
ceiling perceivers (based upon the median score)’ and 100 as ‘low glass
ceiling perceivers.’ Rest 200 were identified as Mixed Glass Ceiling
perceivers after data collection, the scoring was done as per the manual’s
guidelines.
Results and Discussion
The objective of the present study was to assess and compare the
organizational commitment and well being of high glass ceiling and low glass
ceiling perceivers.
Table No. 1 shows the descriptive statistics of 200 female
executives perceived as high glass ceiling perceivers (H.G.C.P.) and low glass
ceiling perceivers (L.G.C.P.). The obtained mean ( ) and SD () values of
high glass ceiling perceivers was 9.81 and 5.13 respectively while the
respective and in case of low glass ceiling perceivers was 13.75 and 1.46.
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The obtained values clearly showed that low glass ceiling perceivers had less
problems because of low perceived gender discrimination in their work set-up
(as the scoring shows that the higher the scores, the low is the prevalence of
glass ceiling in an organization). Their t-value comes 6.92, which is
significant at .01 level. The obtained results supported the first hypothesis.
The above findings are in the line of findings of Eagly & Karan (2002) who
talked about the principle of ‘role incongruity’ present in the perceiver’s
mind. If an individual has a prejudice towards sex (i.e. women), is going to be
turn out as a ‘glass ceiling sufferer’ rather than a ‘glass escalator’ (Liff &
Ward, 2001). Even traditional views also do not regard women as less good
than men in an overall evaluation (Eagly & Klonsky, 1992).
Another proposed hypothesis was that there would be significant
difference in normative, affective and continuance commitment and well
being of high glass ceiling and low glass ceiling perceivers.
Table No. 2 shows the obtained and SD values of normative,
affective and continuance commitment of high glass ceiling perceivers, i.e.
13.99, 13.99 and 13.50 respectively. With their respective SD as 4.56, 4.26
and 4.41. But in case of low glass ceiling perceivers their respective and
SD were 46.48, 44.85 and 45.41 for mean values and 3.00, 3.31 and 3.05
respectively as SD values. There is a dearth of empirical evidence, which
report the direct relationship between organizational commitment and glass
ceiling. But there are number of theoretical studies (Hadden, 2000; Fiornia,
2002) on ‘Shattering the glass ceiling’ that indirectly report about certain
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strategies to enhance organizational commitment of employees by breaking
the transparent barrier in a work place which hinders them to reach at top
level.
In case of well being, the obtained and SD of high glass ceiling
perceivers were 5.4 and 2.01 respectively followed by 19.98 and 2.74 as
respective and SD of low glass ceiling perceivers. The results clearly
showed that the higher the score, the higher would be the well-being. Shek
(1992) studied Chinese females and found that the quality of existence and
purpose in life as great contributors to psychological well-being. Tannen
(1994) reported that well known negative epithets like ‘dragon lady’ and
‘battle axe’ applied to any powerful woman in work set-up lowers down their
psychological well being. The above findings clearly reveal that females have
to face lot of problems professionally and personally due to the gender-
discrimination.
Females have been trendsetters in various avenues such as industry,
hospitals, schools, colleges, corporate world etc. But this present study has
clearly exhibited that there is a dire need of providing conducive and
congenial climate to female employees in their work set-up which is free from
gender discrimination. The need of an hour is to melt this ‘Glass Ceiling’ and
shatter this barrier to reach at great heights of success.
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References
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Table No.1 Mean, Standard Deviation and t-value of High Glass Ceiling and Low Glass Ceiling perceivers
Respondents N Mean Median SD t-value
High Glass Ceiling
Perceivers100 9.81 10 5.13
6.92**Low Glass Ceiling
Perceivers100 13.75 14 1.46
** p < 0.01
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Table No. 2 Mean, Standard deviation and t-value of high glass ceiling perceivers (HGCP) and low glass ceiling perceivers (LGCP) in relation to organisational commitment (Normative, Affective and Continuance) and well-being.
Variable Mean MD SD t
Normative commitment
HGCP 13.99 15 4.5659.07**
LGCP 46.48 48 3
Affective commitment
HGCP 13.99 15 4.2657.15**
LGCP 44.85 45 3.31
Continuance commitment
HGCP 13.50 12.5 4.4160.21**
LGCP 45.41 46 3.05
Well BeingHGCP 5.4 6 2.01
42.88LGCP 19.98 20 2.74
** p<0.01