Measuring women's beliefs about glass ceilings: development of the Career Pathways Survey

Abstract

Measuring women's beliefs about glass ceilings: development of the career Measuring women's beliefs about glass ceilings: development of the career pathways survey pathways survey

A few good women at the top: The China case

“…According to them, resignation toward a glass ceiling explains why women give up or fail to pursue promotions due to social and organizational barriers. Smith et al (2012) interpret women's acceptance of a glass ceiling as their lack of need for power and justification for not showing more commitment to career development. Resilience regarding glass ceilings is an indication of women's perseverance in moving upward, while denying glass ceilings explains why some women believe a glass ceiling does not exist.…”

“…In a recent study of Australian career women, Smith, Crittenden, and Caputi (2012) developed an instrument--the Career Path Survey--that identified four factors related to women's attitudes toward glass ceilings: resignation, acceptance, resilience, and denial. According to them, resignation toward a glass ceiling explains why women give up or fail to pursue promotions due to social and organizational barriers.…”

Seeing herself as a leader: an examination of gender-leadership Frames in women’s leader identity development

“…Some specific studies consider women's perceptions of and beliefs about the "glass ceiling" (e.g., Elacqua, Beehr, Hansen & Webster, 2009;Jackson, 2001;Smith, Crittenden, & Caputi, 2012;Wrigley, 2002) or gender inequality in professional advancement (e.g., Cech & Blair-Loy, 2010), yet the focus of this work is really on women's views about leadership advancement of women at large, in an objective sense. Other work, categorized by Broadbridge & Simpson (2011) as the "women's voice literature", attends more directly to women's subjectivity and inner experiences of management and leadership by studying "women's accounts of their gendered experiences in management and the processes that facilitate and limit their career opportunities" (Broadbridge & Sampson, 2011: p.473;see, for example Billing, 2011;Corby & Stanworth, 2009;Priola & Brannen, 2009), yet such studies primarily report descriptive themes from women's experiences, without taking the next step to develop an understanding of the meaning of these experiences.…”

“…However, this prior research is predominated by a perspective that is external to the women herself, leaving us with limited insight into how women subjectively experience the path to greater leadership in their organizations, in light of this broader context that they navigate. Some specific quantitative studies consider women's beliefs about glass ceilings (e.g., Jackson, 2001;Smith, Crittenden, & Caputi, 2012) and different explanations of gender inequality among women (e.g., Cech & Blair-Loy, 2010), but such work focuses on women's broader beliefs about inequality, and thus tells us little about their own self-views and identities as they move along the leadership path. Recent conceptual work acknowledges the importance of these intra-individual processes in women's development as leaders (e.g., Ely & Rhode, 2010;Ely et al, 2011;Hogue & Lord, 2007), yet we have little empirical evidence for explaining the ways in which gender may have implications in this development of a leader identity.…”

Job Satisfaction and Perceived Gender Equality in Advanced Promotion Opportunities: An Empirical Investigation

“…Smith et al. () review existing measures that seek to capture women's beliefs about barriers to career advancement, but these studies focus exclusively on female survey participants.…”