University of Wollongong Research Online
University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections
2012 Connections between women's glass ceiling beliefs, explanatory style, self-efficacy, career levels and subjective success Paul Smith University of Wollongong
Recommended Citation Smith, Paul, Connections between women's glass ceiling beliefs, explanatory style, self-efficacy, career levels and subjective success, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, 2012. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/3813
Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected]
CONNECTIONS BETWEEN WOMEN'S GLASS CEILING
BELIEFS, EXPLANATORY STYLE, SELF-EFFICACY,
CAREER LEVELS AND SUBJECTIVE SUCCESS
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements
for the award of the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
from the
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG
By
PAUL SMITH BSocSc(Hons); BSc(Ed)
School of Psychology
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
2012
CERTIFICATION
I, Paul Smith, declare that this thesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. The document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution.
Paul Smith
31 October 2012
2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I would like to greatly thank my two supervisors, Associate Professor Peter
Caputi and Dr Nadia Crittenden. Their knowledge, patient guidance and thoughtful critiques have been invaluable. This research project would not have started without the encouragement of Dr Crittenden.
My fellow doctorial candidates, especially Stewart Vella, Kate Williams, April
Ash, Sunila Supavadeeprasit and Adrian Gillespie have been regular sources of advice and good humour, as well as invigorating conversation, frequently over cups of coffee. The cheerful greetings from Dr Gerard Stoyles helped brighten many a day when I was facing statistical conundrums.
I will be continually thankful to the hundreds of anonymous women and men who volunteered to take part in my research.
Above all, I wish to thank my family. My daughter Sarah achieving her Masters and my son Gavin with his PhD surely led the way for me. To the most important person in my life, my wife Linda, I cannot thank you enough for your strong belief in my life goals, giving me inspiration that has lasted 38 years.
3
ABSTRACT
The glass ceiling metaphor is frequently used in scholarly and popular literature to describe the obstacles and barriers in front of women seeking promotions to the top levels of organizations. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature on the causes and consequences of glass ceilings, as well as explore ways to dismantle glass ceilings. It consists of five papers: a theoretical paper plus four empirical papers describing cross-sectional studies. The papers are linked as they each take a cognitive approach: the first three papers investigate glass ceiling beliefs and the next two papers investigate explanations about workplace situations, positive and negative. The studies follow a growing trend to examine the roles of positive psychology constructs in organizational psychology. Positive psychology constructs investigated throughout this thesis include resilience, optimism, occupational self-efficacy, work engagement, career satisfaction, wellbeing and happiness.
The research program captured in these papers makes two major contributions to the literature. First, there is the development and validation of two new instruments which are relevant to women and men working in any organization. The first instrument, the Career
Pathways Survey (CPS) measures beliefs about glass ceilings. The other instrument, the
Workplace Explanations Survey (WES), measures optimism in organizations by assessing
workplace explanations. Consequently, the second contribution of this thesis is the
identification of a range of significant relationships between glass ceiling beliefs and
workplace explanations with subjective career success indicators, occupational self-efficacy
(OSE), gender and career levels.
The first paper (Chapter 2) presents a unique approach to reviewing literature on glass
ceilings. The review examines many of the diverse metaphors and labels that are used to
highlight insights into the career advancement of women. This paper includes a classification
of metaphors based on whether or not they imply characteristics of women help perpetuate
4
the gender imbalance in leadership positions.
The second paper (Chapter 3) describes the development of the CPS which allows
quantitative comparisons of women's beliefs about glass ceilings. Analysis of data from two
samples of women (N = 243 and N = 307) yielded a four-factor model of attitudes to glass ceilings: Resilience, Denial, Acceptance and Resignation. The factors demonstrated good internal consistency. The CPS was developed in response to the scarcity of instruments in this area, as well as psychometric concerns about the available measures.
The major purpose of the third paper (Chapter 4) was to test the concurrent validity of
the CPS by exploring how women’s glass ceiling beliefs are related to five major indicators
of subjective career success: career satisfaction, happiness, psychological wellbeing, physical
health and work engagement (WE). Regression analyses based on data from 258 women
working in Australian organizations showed Denial was positively associated with career
satisfaction and WE; Resignation was negatively related to happiness, emotional wellbeing
and physical health; Resilience had positive relationships with happiness and WE;
Acceptance was negatively related to WE. Our findings provide support the concurrent validity of the CPS.
The fourth paper (Chapter 5) contains an extensive literature review of explanatory style questionnaires and their ability to predict successful performance and resilience in organizations, two constructs likely to help women break glass ceilings. Concerns about low internal consistency and poor face validity of items are highlighted. This chapter then describes the development of the WES which is designed to measure optimism while working in organizations. Factor analysis of data collected from 348 participants showed that the WES contained three factors for explanations of negative situations: internality, stability and globality. There were also two factors for positive situations: internality/stability and globality. The factors have good reliability levels.
5
The study outlined in the fifth paper (Chapter 6) examines the relationships between
management level, gender, workplace explanatory style, career satisfaction, happiness and
OSE. The findings from 270 women and men working in Australian organizations provide
evidence for the concurrent and convergent validity of the WES. Women were more likely to
cite global reasons for problems as well as giving themselves credit for positive events at
work. Managers were more likely than staff/supervisors to blame themselves for negative
events. Regression analyses indicated stability, globality (negatives) and internality/stability
were significant predictors of OSE. Internality and globality (negatives) predicted career
satisfaction while both forms of globality predicted happiness.
The thesis finishes with a summary of the findings, implications (practical and social), limitations and conclusions of this research program. It is recommended that future research carry out longitudinal and experimental studies to collect evidence on the causal directions for the relationships found in the current series of studies. Hopefully, this will play a part in helping to dismantle glass ceilings.
6
PUBLICATIONS FROM THE THESIS
Published Manuscripts Chapter 2 Smith, P., Caputi, P., & Crittenden, N. (2012). A maze of metaphors around glass ceilings. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 27, 436-448. doi: 10.1108/17542411211273432
Chapter 3 Smith, P., Crittenden, N., & Caputi, P. (2012). Measuring women's beliefs about glass ceilings: Development of the Career Pathways Survey. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 27, 68-80. doi: 10.1108/17542411211214130
Smith, P., Crittenden, N., & Caputi, P. (2009). Measuring women's attitudes to building a career. Proceedings of the 44th Annual APS Conference, 167-172.
Chapter 4 Smith, P., Caputi, P., & Crittenden, N. (2012). How are women's glass ceiling beliefs related to career success? Career Development International, 17, 458-474. doi: 10.1108/13620431211269702
Chapter 5 Smith, P., Caputi, P., & Crittenden, N. (2012). Measuring optimism in organizations: Development of a workplace explanatory style questionnaire. Journal of Happiness Studies. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1007/s10902-012-9336-4
Manuscript under Review Chapter 6 Smith, P., Caputi, P., & Crittenden, N. (Submitted). Connections between management level, gender, workplace explanatory style, occupational-self-efficacy and subjective success. Gender in Management: An International Journal.
Kim Eggleton, the publisher of Gender in Management: An International Journal, asked for this paper to be submitted after she had received a recommendation from the Editor of the
7
Journal of Managerial Psychology.
THE WORK PRESENTED IN THIS THESIS HAS UNDERGONE PEER REVIEW FROM THE FOLLOWING JOURNALS: • Applied Psychology: An International Review • Sex Roles • Journal of Managerial Psychology
PARTS OF THIS THESIS HAVE BEEN PRESENTED AT THE FOLLOWING: • 44th Australian Psychological Society Annual Conference, 2009, Darwin, Australia. • Society of Australasian Social Psychologists Annual Conference, 2011, Sydney, Australia
SUBMISSION OF BOOK CHAPTER A request has been received from Dr Adelina Broadbridge and Dr Sandra Fielden, the Editor and former Editor of Gender in Management: An International Journal to contribute a chapter to a forthcoming book. The chapter will be based on Chapters 3 and 4 of this thesis.
In all work that has been presented, published and submitted for publication, the majority of the work is directly attributable to me as a PhD candidate. My supervisors have fulfilled their role in consultation and editing of papers. All investigations, analyses and reporting have been carried out solely by me, in keeping with the requirements of my candidature.
8
CONTENTS
Certification...... 2
Acknowledgements...... 3
Abstract...... 4
Publications from Thesis...... 7
Table of Contents...... 9
List of Tables...... 13
List of Figures...... 14
List of Abbreviations...... 15
CHAPTER 1 Introduction
1.1 Women are making slow progress breaking glass ceilings...... 16
1.2 Aims of current research...... 18
1.3 Outline of Chapters...... 20
CHAPTER 2 A maze of metaphors around glass ceilings
2.1 Introduction...... 24
2.2 The growth of alternatives to the glass ceiling metaphor...... 25
2.3 Metaphors related to women working in organizations...... 26
2.4 Metaphors related to working women with families...... 32
2.5 Discussion...... 37
2.6 Conclusion...... 39
CHAPTER 3 Measuring women’s beliefs about glass ceilings: Development of the
Career Pathways Survey
3.1 Introduction...... 40
3.2 Measuring women’s beliefs about glass ceilings...... 42
3.3 Development of instrument...... 45
9
3.4 Study 1 Method...... 47
3.4.1 Participants...... 47
3.4.2 Instrument...... 47
3.4.3 Procedure...... 48
3.5 Results...... 48
3.5.1 Data analysis...... 48
3.6 Study 2 Method...... 50
3.6.1 Participants...... 50
3.6.2 Instrument...... 52
3.6.3 Procedure...... 52
3.7 Results...... 52
3.8 Discussion...... 54
3.9 Conclusions...... 57
CHAPTER 4 How are women’s glass ceiling beliefs related to subjective career success?
4.1 Introduction...... 58
4.2 Theoretical background and hypotheses...... 61
4.3 Method...... 67
4.3.1 Participants and procedure...... 67
4.3.2 Measures...... 67
4.3.3 Data analysis...... 70
4.4 Results...... 70
4.5 Discussion...... 75
4.5.1 Practical implications...... 77
4.5.2 Limitations and future research...... 78
10
4.5.3 Conclusions...... 79
CHAPTER 5 Measuring optimism in organizations: Development of a workplace
explanatory style questionnaire
5.1 Introduction...... 81
5.2 Evolution and variation of explanatory style questionnaires...... 84
5.3 Explanations for positive or negative events?...... 88
5.4 Internal consistencies of explanatory style questionnaires...... 90
5.5 Face validity of hypothetical scenarios...... 94
5.6 Development of the Workplace Explanations Survey...... 95
5.7 Method...... 99
5.7.1 Participants and procedure...... 99
5.7.2 Measures...... 99
5.8 Results...... 100
5.8.1 Data analysis...... 100
5.9 Discussion...... 105
CHAPTER 6 Connections between workplace optimism, occupational-self-efficacy, management level, gender and subjective success
6.1 Introduction...... 110
6.2 Explanatory style and success in organizations...... 112
6.3 Self-efficacy and success at work...... 115
6.4 Organizational benefits from satisfied and happy employees...... 117
6.5 Present research...... 119
6.6 Method...... 120
6.6.1 Participants and procedure...... 120
6.6.2 Measures...... 120
11
6.6.3 Data analysis...... 122
6.7 Results...... 123
6.8 Discussion...... 131
6.8.1 Limitations and implications for future research...... 133
6.8.2 Implications for organizations, managers and communities...... 134
Chapter 7 Summary and conclusions
7.1 Summary...... 135
7.2 Practical implications...... 139
7.3 Limitations and suggestions for future research...... 140
7.4 Concluding remarks...... 141
References...... 143
Appendices
Appendix A: Career Pathways Survey (Study 1)...... 171
Appendix B: Career Pathways Survey (Study 2)...... 178
Appendix C: Workplace Explanations Survey...... 191
12
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Classification of glass ceiling related metaphors and labels...... 36
Table 3.1 Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and intercorrelations for Study 1
…………………………………………...... 49
Table 3.2 Factor loading for the 4-factor structure of the CPS in Study 2 (N = 307)...... 53
Table 3.3 Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and intercorrelations for Study 2
...... 54
Table 4.1 Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and intercorrelations...... 72
Table 4.2 Hierarchical regression results predicting various indicators of subjective success in working women (N = 258)...... 74
Table 5.1 Structural formats and internal reliabilities of 15 explanatory style questionnaires
...... 92
Table 5.2 Hypothetical events in the WES...... 98
Table 5.3 Factor loading for the 3-factor structure of the WES (Negative events)...... 102
Table 5.4 Factor loading for the 2-factor structure of the WES (Positive events)...... 103
Table 5.5 Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and intercorrelations...... 105
Table 6.1 Means, standard deviations and intercorrelations Among Study Variables
(N = 270)...... 124
Table 6.2. Statistical comparison of study variables in women and men...... 125
Table 6.3. Statistical comparison of study variables in staff/supervisors and upper
management...... 127
Table 6.4. Statistical comparison of study variables in women and men in upper management ...... 128
Table 6.5. Hierarchical regression results predicting various indicators of subjective success
(N = 268)...... 130
13
List of Figures
Figure 3.1. Women’s beliefs about glass ceilings: A four-factor model...... 47
Figure 4.1. Research model for study...... 66
Figure 6.1. Conceptual model and empirical approach of study...... 119
14
List of Abbreviations
ASQ Attributional Style Questionnaire
CAVE Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CFA Confirmatory Factor Analysis
CoPos Composite Score for Positive Explanations
CoNeg Composite Score for Negative Situations
CPCN Composite Score (Positive - Negative) Explanations
CPS Career Pathways Survey
ES Explanatory style
LOT-R Life Orientation Test - Revised
MATWES Managerial Attitudes Toward Women Executive Scale
OSE Occupational self-efficacy
WAMS Women As Managers Scale
WE Work engagement
WES Workplace Explanations Survey
WWC Women Workplace Culture Questionnaire
15
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
1.1 Women are making slow progress breaking glass ceilings
Glass ceiling is a metaphor often used to describe the invisible array of barriers and obstacles
in front of women which slow down or prevent the promotion of women to leadership and
top management positions (Burke & Vinnicombe, 2005; Eagly & Carli, 2007; International
Labour Office, 2004; US Department of Labor, 1991). The international existence of glass
ceilings has been supported by many surveys which show the low numbers of women in high
corporate positions, such as CEOs, directors on boards, general managers and executive
managers (Wood, 2008). There is also abundant evidence of glass ceilings in politics
(Okimoto & Brescoll, 2010), academia (Bilimoria, Joy, & Liang, 2008), medicine (Carnes,
Morrissey, & Geller, 2008), engineering (Watts, 2009) professional services (Kumra &
Vinnicombe, 2008), manufacturing (Australian Manufacturing Worker's Union [AMWU],
2011), sport management (Knoppers & Anthonissen, 2008) and agriculture (Pini, 2005).
The World Economic Forum (WEF) regularly measures the Gender Gap Index by
assessing equality between men and women in the following areas: corporate participation
and opportunity, political empowerment, educational opportunity and physical wellbeing. Of
the 58 countries reviewed in 2007, none was found to have achieved gender parity (Wood,
2008). Moreover, the proportions of women on boards of major companies are consistently
below 20 percent in the US (Catalyst, 2011), Canada (Catalyst (2012) and UK (Thomson,
Graham, & Lloyd, 2008).
It is easy to find evidence of the under-representation of Australian women as
corporate leaders (L. Still, 2006). Barns and Preston (2010) challenged the 2006 WEF Gender
Gap Index assessment that placed Australia as the tenth best performing nation in the world.
16
They found the gender gap in career advancement was still strongly entrenched (Barns &
Preston, 2010). Even though women made up 44 per cent of the Australian workforce in
2010, there were only six women in charge of an Australian Stock Exchange Top 200 company (Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency, 2010). Infrequently, there are strong opposing views. For example, the Royal Australian Institute of Architects
(2004) rejected the existence of glass ceilings in architecture. Countering this positive view,
the president of Australian Female Lawyers (McLeod, 2008) argues that Australian law firms
are strongholds of gender inequality. A recent report from the AMWU, one of Australia's
largest trade unions, showed 75% of the women in Australian manufacturing industries have
never received a promotion and they believed this would not happen within five years, even
though women make up 25% of the manufacturing workforce (AMWU, 2011). In higher
education, only 14.5% of the professors in Australia's 39 universities are women (Broderick,
2009).
A gender imbalance in politics is still clearly apparent in many countries. This is
visible even though at least 16 countries have chosen female presidents or prime ministers
over the last two decades (Eagly & Carli, 2007; O'Malley, 2010). Given that the US has never
elected a female president, Powell and Butterfield (2011) examined perceptions of 768
business students in the US about their readiness for a female president. They found
American voters are not ready to accept a woman as president and the results were summarized as “think president – think male” (Powell & Butterfield, 2011, p. 394).
Moreover, the female representation in the US Congress is only 17 per cent (Fox & Lawless,
2009) and women make up 28 per cent of President Obama's 21 member cabinet (Forsythe &
Zhao, 2011). In China, a country where Mao Zedong said “women hold up half the sky”
(‘Holding up’, 2012), there are no female governors of the country's 35 provinces and
Premier Wen's 35-member state council has four female members (Forsythe & Zhao, 2011).
17
Ismail, Rasdi and Jamal (2011) compared gender inequality in selected developed and
developing countries by calculating the percentage of female politicians at the top levels of
government. The results for developed countries were: Norway (36%), Australia (30%) and
Japan (12%). For developing countries they found: China, (21%), Philippines (20%) and
Malaysia (15%). Ismael and her colleagues (2011) argue that their findings show that glass
ceilings in politics are still strongly prevalent and are independent of the economic status of
the country.
When Julia Gillard became Australia's first female Prime Minister in 2010, there was
a record high level of 60 women in the Australian Parliament. However, this representation
only reached 26 per cent. Similar situations exist at lower levels of Australian government.
An action plan put out by the Local Government Managers Australia (2007) stated that
women comprise only five per cent of General Managers/CEOs across Australian local
government. Furthermore, women make up less than 30 per cent of mayors in Australian
cities (Maginn, 2010).
1.2 Aims of current research
Theoretical explanations and research into glass ceilings can be found in a plethora of fields.
Researchers have used a wide range of perspectives such as management (Wood, 2006;
Wrigley, 2002), leadership (Adams, Gupta, & Leeth, 2009; Embry, Padgett & Caldwell,
2008), industrial and labour relations (Bagilhole & Cross, 2006), human resources (Phelan,
Moss-Racusin, & Rudman, 2008), vocational behaviour, (Gupta, 2008), sex roles (Rudman &
Kiliansky, 2000; Sczesny & Kuhnen, 2004), applied psychology (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007;
Lyness & Thompson, 1997) and evolutionary psychology (Browne, 1998; Nicholson &
White, 2006). Clearly, many explanations have been suggested to make sense of glass
ceilings. However, prejudice and discrimination against women in the workplace are most
frequently identified as the major causes for the low proportions of women in senior
18
management (Barreto, Ryan, & Schmitt, 2009; Eagly & Carli, 2007; Powell, 2012; Weyer,
2007). The initial direction for the current research into glass ceilings was inspired by Eagly
and Karau's (2002) role congruity theory of prejudice against female leaders. This theory
posits a dichotomy of stereotypes (communal versus agentic) which can be supported by both men and women, and this forms the basis of beliefs about glass ceilings (Eagly & Carli,
2007).
It is necessary to note that in this thesis, the terms belief, attitude, perception and opinion are used interchangeably. This approach follows the analysis provided by Reber's
(1985) dictionary of psychology. In addition, the terms gender and sex are also considered to be interchangeable. Whilst some scholars (e.g., Powell, 2012) make a clear differentiation between these terms, the majority of the references (e.g., Boughton & Street, 2007) cited in the thesis do not take this approach.
Only a handful of instruments were found that measured beliefs about women breaking glass ceilings, i.e., being promoted. Psychometric concerns have been expressed about these instruments (Cordano, Scherer, & Owen, 2003) and they provide only unifactorial assessments. A primary aim of the current research was to develop a multifactorial measure of glass ceiling beliefs. Hence, the development and validation of the
Career Pathways Survey (CPS), a four-factor instrument, is presented in this thesis. The CPS facilitated a study to address another research aim: to explore the connections between gender stereotypes (via measuring glass ceiling beliefs) with range of major subjective success variables.
The present research project also follows a growing trend to include positive psychology constructs in organizational psychology and management studies (Luthans,
Avolio, Avey, & Norman 2007; Marchant et al., 2009; Peterson, Park, Hall, & Seligman,
2009). This thesis investigates the roles of three of these constructs in an attempt to increase
19
our understanding of glass ceilings: explanatory style (ES) optimism, occupational self- efficacy (OSE) and work engagement (WE). To carry out this exploratory research, it was necessary to achieve another major aim: the development and validation of the Workplace
Explanations Survey, a new measure of workplace-specific ES.
Considerable recent research has focussed on finding relationships between these three constructs and success in different types of organizations (Abele & Spurke, 2009;
Chughtai & Buckley, 2011; Seligman, 2011). However, no studies could be found that explored the relationships between these variables and women's career levels. Therefore, this thesis aimed to investigate the connections between gender, career levels, ES optimism and
OSE with indicators of subjective career success. The positive psychology construct of WE was included in the exploration of the relationships with glass ceiling beliefs.
The empirical studies in this thesis were based on cross-sectional data and therefore conclusions about causal directions could not be made. Nevertheless, the series of studies were linked by the overall aim of finding significant relationships which provide insights for future experimental and longitudinal research into the causes for the persistence of glass ceilings and their psychological and physical effects on women.
Chapters 2 to 6 are linked as they describe papers which use a cognitive approach to investigate gender inequality in organizational leadership. Taken together, the Chapters 2, 3 and 4 investigate women’s beliefs about glass ceilings while Chapters 5 and 6 explore the explanations given by women and men about problems that occur in organizations.
1.3 Outline of Chapters
This section comprises of a brief description of each of the following six chapters:
Chapter 2 is a theoretical paper which takes a unique approach to reviewing literature on glass ceilings. This review discusses the evidence and implications linked to many
20
metaphors and labels that have been used to highlight diverse theories about glass ceilings.
Metaphors are classified according to whether or not they infer women play a role in creating glass ceilings. We conclude most metaphor-linked explanations focus on discrimination and prejudice towards women seeking leadership positions. A small number of metaphors target characteristics of women as causes for the gender inequality in leadership and upper management.
The purpose of the two studies described in Chapter 3 was to develop the CPS which allows quantitative comparisons of women's beliefs about glass ceilings. A 34-item version of the CPS was completed by 243 women from all levels of management, mostly in Australia.
An expanded 38-item CPS was administered to another sample of women (N = 307).
Analyses of data from both studies yielded a four factor model of attitudes to glass ceilings:
Resilience, Acceptance, Resignation and Denial. The factors demonstrated good internal
consistency. The CPS allows a comparison of positive attitudes towards seeking promotions
via Resilience and Denial scores, and provides feedback on negative attitudes towards
seeking promotions via Resignation and Acceptance scores. This new measure can be
recommended for studies of women's and men's attitudes towards gender inequality in
organizational leadership and could play a role in identifying sexist cultures in organizations.
Chapter 4 outlines a study which provides evidence for the concurrent and
convergent validity of the CPS. The findings show how women's glass ceiling beliefs are
related to career level and five major indicators of subjective success: career satisfaction,
happiness, psychological wellbeing, physical health and work engagement. Data from a
cross-sectional study of 258 women working in Australian organizations were analyzed. The
study described in this chapter is the first to shed light on the connections between these
success variables and women's beliefs about glass ceilings.
Chapter 5 contains a review that compares and contrasts 15 often used explanatory
21 style (ES) questionnaires that measure optimism by analysing explanations for hypothetical scenarios. The most commonly used instrument, the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), has been shown to predict success in business, education and sport. However, these predictions were achieved by using composite scores of subscales. The review reveals the
ASQ and many other explanatory style questionnaires have low internal consistency.
Furthermore, the majority of these measures use situations that have poor face validity for corporate applications, while some work-specific scenarios are only relevant to narrow domains such as selling insurance. This chapter also presents a study which developed the
Workplace Explanations Survey (WES), a new instrument that fulfils the need for a work- related explanatory style measure that could assess levels of optimism in any organizational setting. It is anticipated the WES will stimulate research into workplace optimism and provide insights of the role explanatory style optimism might play in women and men achieving promotions in organizations. The WES could be incorporated into optimism training of women and men, thus boosting both individual and organizational success.
The study in Chapter 6 tests the validity of the WES by examining the relationships between management level, gender, OSE, career satisfaction, happiness and five dimensions of workplace explanatory style (internality, stability, globality for negative events; internality/stability and globality for positive events). Data from an Australian sample of 270 women and men working in organizations were analyzed. The findings suggest there are only small differences in the ways women and men explain positive and negative events in workplaces. In addition, managers cited internal causes for problems more than staff and supervisors. Findings from regression analyses supported hypotheses as various factors of the
WES were significant predictors of career satisfaction, happiness and OSE.
Finally, Chapter 7 brings together the conclusions drawn from the initial literature review of glass ceiling theories and the empirical investigations carried out for this thesis.
22
This chapter includes a summary of the relationships between women's career levels and
wellbeing with glass ceiling beliefs and work engagement. The connections between
women's career levels and wellbeing with workplace explanatory style and occupational self-
efficacy are also summarised. The significant relationships that provide directions of further research are highlighted. It is hoped empirical studies might be stimulated by the findings reported in this thesis.
23
CHAPTER 2
A maze of metaphors around glass ceilings
2.1 Introduction
Glass ceiling became a popular term after it was used in The Wall Street Journal by journalists Hymowitz and Schellhardt in 1986. It is an everyday metaphor used to describe the invisible barrier in front of women seeking to move up organizational hierarchies (Powell,
2012). This phenomenon is responsible for the scarcity of women holding leadership and senior management positions in many areas, but particularly in business and politics
(Catalyst, 2011; Okimoto & Brescoll, 2010). A popular belief is that leadership and success are linked to a person having the “right stuff” (Wolfe, 2008). Eagly and Carli (2007, p. 83) argue that blaming gender differences for the existence of glass ceilings in organizations leads to the unacceptable view that women are made of the “wrong stuff” for leadership positions. Furthermore, explanations that target characteristics and behaviours of women as being a major cause of glass ceilings have been described as taking a “blame-the-victim” approach (Barnett & Rivers, 2004; Janoff-Bulman & Wade, 1996). These theories possibly legitimize and help to perpetuate the phenomenon of glass ceilings (Barnett & Rivers, 2004).
This concern has been a catalyst for the present paper.
The aim of this review is to explore and assess the evidence and implications linked to many metaphors and labels that have been used to highlight diverse theories about glass ceilings. For the sake of brevity and clarity, the analysis in this paper will include labels as being within the category of metaphors. A second aim is to examine the degree to which women are blamed for the gender imbalance in leadership by classifying metaphors according to whether or not they suggest the characteristics of women play a role in creating glass ceilings. O’Neil et al. (2008) have warned that “research related to women's careers is scattered across a variety of fields” and “(t)his diffuse and somewhat fragmented literature
24
dilutes and disperses cumulative knowledge, giving rise to a plethora of interrelated
knowledge...inhibiting their coherent integration” (p.728). Therefore, we decided a novel
approach was needed for a review.
In their metaphorical analysis of careers, Buzzanell and Goldzwig (1991) argue that metaphors play a major role in discovering and describing patterns of career behaviour and help stimulate new ideas, as well as masking them. Consequently, this paper posits that the analysis of glass ceiling related metaphors will shed light on the many causes proposed for the dominance of men in upper management. Further, this is a unique approach to reviewing literature on glass ceilings. We acknowledge that metaphors related to problems in women’s career advancement have been discussed by other authors. For example, an analysis of a range of metaphors can be found interspersed within Eagly and Carli’s (2007) detailed review of how women become leaders. In another scholarly work on women and leadership, Stead and Elliott (2012) provide a chapter on metaphors that considers only six examples.
Therefore, the current paper is considered unique as it is structured to allow the compact comparison of a diverse range of metaphors about the causes and consequences of glass ceilings. In addition, we have also been unable to find any review of metaphors that classifies them according to whether women are or are not responsible for gender inequality in workplaces.
2.2 The growth of alternatives to the glass ceiling metaphor
Some scholars argue that the glass ceiling metaphor is no longer appropriate as women have achieved a host of senior leadership positions, including national leadership. Consequently, more accurate metaphors are suggested such as “labyrinth” (Eagly & Carli, 2007) and
“firewall” (Bendl & Schmidt, 2010). Browne (1998), a proponent of an evolutionary psychology view that women are generally not predisposed for leadership, maintains that the
25
most appropriate label would be “gossamer ceiling” because a workplace barrier only exists
for women who are not prepared to break it. However, the predominant position is that the
most powerful and memorable image of the barriers preventing or hindering women in
achieving promotions in their careers is provided by the glass ceiling metaphor (Barreto et al.,
2009; Burke & Vinnicombe, 2005). Nevertheless, a study of the literature on glass ceilings
reveals a maze of metaphors, each used to encapsulate a theory or research finding about
gender differences in career advancement.
Since the initial appearance of the glass ceiling metaphor in 1986, it has undergone many modifications to emphasise specific problems and obstacles related to the careers of women. Sometimes a new metaphor is simply used to emphasize gender inequality in specific occupational area. For example, “perspex ceiling” (AMWU, 2011) focussed attention on women in manufacturing industries whilst “grass ceiling” describes the scarcity of women
leaders in agricultural organizations (Alston, 2000). It was also used by Australia's Sex
Discrimination Commissioner (Broderick, 2010) to illustrate the inequality in the media
coverage of Australian women's achievements in sport. Other adaptations of the glass ceiling
metaphor highlight problems that exist for women in a broad range of careers. These will
now be reviewed in two sections. First, we consider those metaphors that are related to
women in the workplace. Second, the large group of metaphors related to working women
with families is discussed.
2.3 Metaphors related to women working in organizations
Ryan and Haslam (2005) identified an additional hurdle for women seeking promotion within
organizations, the “glass cliff”. They posit women are often promoted to precarious
leadership positions. This phenomenon only takes place after women are in leadership
positions and therefore relates to women who have broken through the glass ceiling. The
26
existence of a glass cliff in an organization indicates that promotion may increase the risk of
failure for female leaders. Haslam and Ryan (2008) carried out experimental studies with
management graduates, high school students and business leaders to support their view. Their
results suggested there is an increased likelihood of women being chosen ahead of an equally
qualified male when an organization's performance is declining. Adams et al. (2009)
investigated CEO appointments in US corporations between 1992 and 2004 asking whether
female executives were over-represented as leaders of organizations in precarious financial
positions. They found a reverse pattern whereby females are more likely to be appointed to
CEO positions in times of financial success and therefore rejected that a glass cliff problem
existed (Adams et al., 2009). This finding is challenged by Ryan and Haslam (2009) who
point out that Adams and her co-researchers examined 1500 companies and only 61 (4%) had
female CEOs.
A less commonly used metaphor in career advancement theories is the “glass
escalator” (Ng & Wiesner, 2007; Williams, 1992). It describes discrimination against women
in female dominated occupations where men can experience a gender privilege by receiving
more rapid promotions than their female colleagues (Ng & Wiesner, 2007). Other
construction related metaphors allow us to complete an organizational structure. “Glass floor”
is a term used to describe a phenomenon that can occur at the lowest levels of organizations
where staff are likely to have low educational qualifications and little likelihood of promotion
(Barnet-Verzat & Wolff, 2008). Barnet-Verzat and Wolff report that gender inequality at this
level can be more severe than at the top levels of organizations where glass ceilings exist.
Guillaume and Pochic (2009) investigated the existence of horizontal segregation of careers
based on gender. They found strong evidence for this inequality known as “glass walls” by measuring the feminization rate of careers and compared careers where women represented
greater and less than 30% of the workforce. Careers dominated by women have also been
27 labelled “velvet ghettos” (Guillaume & Pochic, 2009). Davidson (1997) used the term
“concrete ceiling” to describe the embedded discrimination that prevents black and ethnic minority women being promoted. Finally, “glass door” describes the initial hiring barrier that can exist for women wishing to enter an organization (Cohen, Broschak, & Havemen, 1998, p. 723). Studies have found the glass door is more likely to be opened to women by organizations when a higher proportion of women are already employed (Cohen et al., 1998).
In her influential study of women in organizations, Kanter (1977) proposed that skewed sex ratios act as barriers and result in women's lack of influence in organizational decision making. She argued women become “tokens” when they occupy a small minority of executive positions and this "tokenism" leads to pressure not to fulfil negative stereotypes about women. Further, women also face possible sexual harassment when they are in a small minority (Kanter, 1977). Women who are regarded as token leaders may be subject to increased scrutiny and scepticism similar to the reactions given to an outsider (Haslam, Ryan,
Kulich, Trojanowski, & Atkins, 2010). Kanter (1977) coined the term “homosocial reproduction” to describe insiders replicating themselves by selecting new colleagues with similar backgrounds and demographic characteristics. Having this homogeneity may improve communication and understanding and an organization that is male-dominated might then argue it improves effectiveness and feels more comfortable promoting males instead of females (Tharenou, 1997). Research has suggested that tokenism can be changed into a
“critical mass” and achieve an environment in which women leaders are not regarded as being recruited for symbolic value. Thomson et al. (2008) argue that corporate and political groups are likely to become supportive of women leaders when there are at least three women in the leadership group. It was recently found in a study of 317 Norwegian firms that attaining a goal of at least three women on a corporate board was significantly correlated with higher levels of organizational innovation (Torchia, Calabro, & Huse, 2011).
28
Associated with the concept of tokenism is “built-in legitimacy” (Eagly & Carli,
2007, p. 157). It is argued women leaders can be seen as lacking the legitimacy that is given
to men, and this can be rectified if it is recognized that a women chosen for a leadership
position was indeed the best candidate (Eagly & Carl, 2007). “Homophily” is closely linked to Kanter's term of homosocial reproduction. It describes the similarity to the dominant group and results in the recruitment and promotion of others who are similar (Tharenou, 1997).
Homophily also describes the tendency to interact with those who share similarities in opinions and behaviours and has been used to explain why “old boys clubs” and “old boys networks” are so common (Benschop, 2009). Fine (2010) argues the homophily phenomenon is an extension of the saying ‘birds of a feather flock together’. Gender is nearly always a component of homophily (Benschop, 2009) and this leads to sex segregation of workplaces
(Wood, 2006). There is also the “new old boys network” (Gamba & Kleiner, 2001, p. 102) resulting from the growing influence of the Internet which allows primarily groups of younger men to build business contacts. However, this observation obviously predates the growth of social networks such as Facebook which also allow women opportunities to build networks for career development.
Fassinger (2008) posits women can face a “chilly workplace climate”. This unwelcoming environment is reinforced by double standards, especially in unfair evaluation practices which discriminate against women who show assertiveness. Another barrier listed by Fassinger involves women being excluded from information and social networks that enhance promotion opportunities. She argues being denied entry to the old boys' club, tokenism, and “shadow jobs” (women being subjected to extra scrutiny) are a negative group of barriers frequently acting against women. However, Fassinger (2008) maintains the harshest barrier against women manifests as sexual harassment, a common and largely unreported problem in US colleges. Women (and men) can overcome a chilly workplace
29
climate by “fitting in” with the help of mentoring relationships (Drury, 2012).
The social and economic penalties against ambitious and successful women are
labelled "backlash effects" (Phelan et al., 2008). An experimental study by Phelan et al.
(2008) showed that women who express assertive characteristics in job interviews were likely
to be disadvantaged. The importance of making a good impression extends much beyond job interviews (Phelan et al., 2008). "Self-promotion" (making superiors aware of achievements) is an important "impression management" strategy to ensure career promotions (Kumra &
Vinnicombe, 2010). This process is part of the social capital theory which contends that career benefits result from the accumulation of relationships. Studies have shown it is less acceptable for women than men to promote and take credit for their workplace achievements and women can risk censure from colleagues “for fear they may be perceived as unfeminine, pushy, domineering and aggressive” (Kumra & Vinnicombe, 2008, p. S71). The backlash against assertive women in careers has led to the popularity of coaching courses such as the
Bully Broads Boot Camp in California (Eagly & Carli, 2007). Founded in 2001 by a female
CEO, the training sessions are designed to help boost careers of women executives by helping them to modify aggressive tactics (Pinker, 2008). Eagly and Carli (2007) suggest these camps are another example of gender double standards as bullying by male managers is far more acceptable.
“Queen bee” is a metaphor used by scholars and the media to describe another source of negativity toward women, except it is between women (Mavin, 2006) The label was first proposed by Staines, Travis and Jayerante (1973) to describe successful women who did not support the women's liberation movement. Consequently, it was to signify women in senior management who fail to help other women in their pursuit of promotion. The negativity was extended to infer a queen bee “will sting if her power is threatened by other women” (Mavin,
2006, p. 271). Mavin (2006) argues that the continued use of this metaphor helps to
30
perpetuate another "blame or fix the women" perspective, maintaining the status quo of
gender inequality.
Tharenou (1997) cites "career tournaments" as being important in the career
advancement of women and men. This theory links promotions to winning a series of
progressively more selective competitions. Those who do not win early are eliminated or
restricted to consolation rounds. Ongoing promotions/wins are strongly helped by starting
opportunities and therefore these tournaments usually discourage late emerging skills. O'Neil
et al. (2008) note that women and men are likely to be competing in different career
tournaments. They also argue that women are less likely to be given high visibility projects
which act as catalysts for career advancement. Moreover, low level starting placements restrict women's advancement more than men's (O'Neil et al., 2008). The "Matthew Effect"
was proposed by sociologist Merton (1968) to explain the career paths of scientists whereby
early success leads to disproportionate advantages in career development and ongoing
success, combining to produce steeper "career trajectories". The effect is based on a verse in
the New Testament which states those who are successful will then receive more
opportunities to achieve more success (Gladwell, 2009). Judge and Hurst (2008) found this
effect existed across a wide spectrum of careers and Gladwell (2009) showed that it played a
major role in the success of professional sportspeople. The Matthew Effect seems appropriate to help explain the difference in career trajectories of women and men.
“Sticky floor” is a metaphor with two interpretations. First, it has been used to account for women being held back in lowly paid jobs at the bottom levels of organizations
(Kee, 2006). It was initially used in 1995 to describe how the careers of women in academic medicine were stalled due to a lack of institutional resources and support (Carnes et al.,
2008). More commonly, sticky floor is related to the theme that women self-sabotage their careers and are responsible for self-imposed barriers in workplaces. This pattern is obvious in
31
a growing number of popular books written by women. Titles of these books make it clear
that women have to supposedly make major changes in their career strategies and play the
game like men. Some titles are: Play Like A Man, Win Like A Woman: What Men Know
About Success That Women Need To Learn (Evans, 2001); Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner
Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers (Frankel,
2004); It's Not A Glass Ceiling, It's A Sticky Floor: Free Yourself From The Hidden
Behaviors Sabotaging Your Career Success (Schambaugh 2007).
In sum, this section of the paper has identified only three metaphors related to organizations that place responsibility on women for the gender imbalance in leadership: self- promotion, queen bee and bully broads. However, many popular books purporting to help women in their career advancement, espouse a common theme that women have placed self- imposed obstacles in their career pathways and these are often linked to the sticky floor metaphor. In contrast, this section showed that the majority of metaphors used in the literature on women’s career development are used to identify antecedents and consequences of discrimination and prejudice against women in the workforce. Such images include tokens and tokenism, glass escalators, glass cliffs, glass floors, shadow jobs, backlash effects, glass walls, glass doors, concrete ceilings, chilly workplace climate, critical mass, built-in legitimacy and homophily (or homosocial reproduction) which leads to the formation of old
boys clubs and networks, as well as the internet-based new old boys networks. Also identified were a range of metaphors that could be considered neutral according to our classification criterion. These include career tournaments, career trajectories and the Matthew Effect.
2.4 Metaphors related to working women with families
There is an extensive body of literature on the work-family conflict that faces women (O'Neil et al., 2008; Tharenou, 1999). It is apparent that metaphors play a major role in describing
32
and explaining the competing demands of work and family life for women. One of the most
commonly used examples is the "second shift", a term popularized by Hochschild (1989) to describe working women having far greater involvement than their husbands/partners in home and family responsibilities, i.e., doing unpaid labour. The application of the metaphor has been expanded to include not only mothers but all women's work overload and time scarcity (Marecek, 2003). Even though Hochschild's (1989) study was based on US data, similar trends are found in other countries. In India, the nation with the world's highest number of working women, women are responsible for most household work and childcare.
This second shift has been linked to high levels of depression, obesity and chronic illnesses in
Indian women who work outside the home (Desai, Majumdar, Chakraborty, & Ghosh, 2011).
In Australia, Craig (2007) analyzed data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time
Use Survey from 4000 households and found strong evidence for working mothers having
greater workloads than men.
Another frequently used metaphor, the “maternal wall”, gives a clear image of how
women’s careers are negatively affected by the breaks in employment necessary for
motherhood (Crosby, Williams, & Biernat, 2004; Williams, 2004). Barnett (2004) uses three
different images to explain why it is commonly believed that women are suited for the home and not the workplace. Colleagues, both male and female, can view women who accept
promotions as being derelict in their maternal responsibilities, encapsulated in the image of a
woman being the "ideal homemaker". Conversely, the maternal wall can influence men into neglecting family leave as they might be seen as not fully committed to work and their dual role as breadwinner and "ideal worker" (Barnett, 2004). Similarly, another stereotypical image initially appears to place women in a highly favourable light. This has been called the
"women are wonderful effect" (Eagly & Carli, 2007, p. 215). Women are regarded as superior to men in areas such as friendliness and caring. However, such positive portrayals
33
help reinforce attitudes that women are better than men in childcare and household work, and
are thus less suited to leadership (Eagly & Carli, 2007). The dual connotations of the women
are wonderful effect is akin to the dichotomy of benevolent and hostile sexism proposed by
Glick and Fiske (1996).
“Mommy track” is a term coined to criticize an article by Schwartz (1989) in the
Harvard Business Review. She proposed businesses should provide two pathways for
working women: a career-primary-track and career-and-family-track. The latter was quickly
relabelled as the mommy track by the New York Times (Maracek, 2003). Whereas Schwartz,
(who was the first CEO of Catalyst, a women's think tank), was advocating this pathway as a temporary choice for some working women, media commentators used the term to belittle women's involvement and commitment to the workplace. The image has taken on a new alternative meaning as it is used by women who extol full-time motherhood (Maracek, 2003).
Belkin (2003) was the first to use "opt-out revolution" to describe the small trend of women leaving professional, often prestigious jobs to concentrate on raising their children.
This so-called exodus attracted much media attention and has been cited as evidence that women really don't want high powered positions (Boushey, 2008). L. Still (2006) uses a
major tenet of evolutionary psychology to explain this phenomenon, that is, on average, men
and women value different things. She argues that women are affected by evolutionary
selected drives to protect their children and this has a stronger influence in the US than in
other industrialized countries because of poor child care services. Therefore, she concludes
opting out is a predictable response of American women (L. Still, 2006). Stone (2007) carried out interviews with 54 women who had left prestigious jobs to raise their children. She suggests the major reason for their decision was gender inequality at home as their spouses were not willing to adapt their own careers to take more involvement for family
responsibilities. Research by Moe and Shandy (2009) found women who opt-out not only
34 give up their independent income, they experience loss of power and then face many difficulties if they attempt to re-enter the workforce. Women returning to their careers after a break typically suffer a "wage penalty" (Moe & Shandy, 2009). However, Fassinger (2008) argues that highlighting the excessive demands on working mothers can reinforce the stereotype that women are unreliable workers (Fassinger, 2008).
Hom, Roberson and Ellis (2008) challenges the claims of a corporate exodus by women executives and professionals as the evidence is more anecdotal than based on empirical evidence. Instead of a groundswell of women leaving their careers, Boushey (2008) showed it only involves a minority of women. She analyzed data collected between 1979 and
2005 for US women to determine the "children effect" on women's employment and found the recent decline in employment of mothers (supposedly evidence for the opt-out revolution) was statistically insignificant. The difference between women's employment in managerial and professional careers of women with and without children has been labeled by Percheski
(2008) as the "child penalty". She found it decreased between 1960 to 2005 for US women contradicting the claims that mothers were increasingly leaving the workforce.
There are assorted metaphors connected to opting out. First, the “leaky pipeline” implies women leave careers at many different stages (Bilimoria et al., 2008). It has been cited as a major reason for a supposed shortage of female aspirants for high level management (Carli & Eagly, 2001). Kekelis, Ancheta and Heber (2005) propose a compound metaphor of “hurdles in the pipeline” to explain why women fail to reach the top positions in technology careers. A major hurdle is lack of career guidance (Kekelis et al., 2005). Next,
"off-ramps" and "on-ramps" are terms specifically used to describe women leaving and returning to work (Hewlett & Luce, 2005). Mainero and Sullivan (2005) challenged conventional explanation for the opt-out revolution by proposing a "kaleidoscope career" model. This involves women shifting the pattern of their careers by rotating different aspects
35
of their lives to arrange their roles and relationships in new ways. They argue that firms
introducing “family-friendly” policies, such as parental leave, is not a sufficient step forward
to help women to fully develop their careers. To benefit from kaleidoscope thinking,
organizations need to look away from linear career paths and provide opportunities for all
workers to take a career interruption and return at a later point (Mainero & Sullivan, 2005).
Summarizing, this review has found only a few metaphors that infer women do not
want to gain top level positions in organizations. These are opt-out revolution, leaky pipeline,
off-ramps and mommy track. Other metaphors highlighted obstacles for working mothers,
especially second shift, maternal walls, child penalty and wage penalty. Stereotypes such as
ideal homemaker and the women are wonderful effect can also hinder the career
advancement of women.
Table 2.1. Classification of glass ceiling related metaphors and labels
Metaphors/labels inferring women play a role Metaphors/labels inferring women do not creating glass ceilings play a role in creating glass ceilings
gossamer ceiling, opt-out generation, leaky perspex ceiling, grass ceiling, glass pipeline, off-ramps, mommy track, queen bee, cliff, second shift, maternal wall, glass bully broad, sticky floor, self-promotion escalator, glass floor, glass wall, glass door, concrete ceiling, tokens, tokenism, homophily, homosocial reproduction, built-in legitimacy, critical mass, old boy’s club/network, chilly workplace climate, fitting in, shadow job, hurdles in the pipeline, backlash effects, child penalty, wage penalty, ideal homemaker
36
2.5 Discussion
The primary aim of this paper was to examine a wide range of theories about glass ceilings.
While this review is not exhaustive, we have adopted a unique approach by analyzing
metaphors related to obstacles hindering women reaching the top levels of organizations. We
sought to review very diverse views of glass ceilings, whilst still achieving a coherent
integration. Our integrating theme was to focus on two contrasting approaches that explain the gender imbalance in leadership positions. Essentially, the first group of theories argues characteristics of women have led to far fewer women than men climbing to the top of organizations. We suggest the theories linked to these metaphors may legitimize and even
help to perpetuate the phenomenon of glass ceilings, especially when cited by those who
argue women are not made of the “right stuff” for leadership. The second theoretical group, which contains a majority of the metaphors analyzed in this paper, posits stereotypes and
discrimination against women are largely responsible for causing the glass ceiling in front of
women. The two groups produced by this classification are shown in Table 2.1. Our strategy of looking for metaphors as signposts of theories and research about women’s career advancement is a novel way of sampling the literature. Therefore, the findings from the present study lead us to conclude the majority of explanations for glass ceilings cite stereotypes and discrimination against women.
A discussion of our findings needs to consider the use of metaphors in this area. It is not surprising that many metaphors are used in explanations related to glass ceilings as
“(m)etaphors structure our most basic understandings of the world and shape our actions and beliefs” (Mason, 2011, p.51). How is this achieved? First, metaphors play an important role in learning by providing novel insights (Hager, 2008). Second, metaphors are a “powerful means to catch our attention” and direct it toward important issues (Maasen & Weingart,
2000, p. 2). As many benefits are to be gained by communicating with metaphors, it needs to
37 be asked whether they have helped to quicken the dismantling of glass ceilings. The evidence suggests the answer is ‘no’.
Evidence highlights the slow progress of women achieving equality in leadership positions. For example, a report by Catalyst (2007) stated that it would take over 70 years for women to achieve equal numbers with men in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies.
Between 2009 and 2011, the proportion of women directors of Canada's top 500 corporations only rose from 14.0 to 14.5 per cent (Catalyst, 2012). The situation is similar in the United
Kingdom and the UK Equal Opportunity Commission predicted that it would take another 65 years for women to achieve parity with men as directors of Britain's top companies (Thomson et al., 2008). It is also difficult to argue that constant progress is being made. The percentage of executive officer positions held by women in US management dropped from 14.4 to 14.1 per cent in 2010-2011 (Catalyst, 2011) and the number of female directorships of the top 100
UK companies fell between 2005 and 2006 (Thomson et al., 2008). In Australia, the proportion of female politicians in the Parliament of the most populated state recently dropped from 28 percent to 20 percent (Chappell, 2011).
This analysis has directed us toward identifying a limitation of the current paper. We did not assess the popularity, the level of usage and awareness of each metaphor listed in the review. Future research should investigate whether women are more aware than men of glass ceiling related metaphors. Studies could also consider whether CEOs, directors and senior managers in organizations with high proportions of women in management have a greater awareness of glass ceiling metaphors, and whether they use these terms more commonly.
Therefore, it is suggested future empirical research investigate relationships between gender, management level, how often the metaphors are used, plus how well people recognize the link between specific metaphors and obstacles preventing gender equality at the top levels of organizations.
38
2.6 Conclusion
Several metaphors such as glass ceiling, tokens, maternal wall and second shift have been part of the popular lexicon for three decades. The apparent contradiction between the plethora of glass ceiling related metaphors and the slow rate of increase in the proportion of women as leaders, suggests that even memorable metaphors based on extensive empirical research are doing little to help counter the perception that women are not made of the “right stuff” for leadership. Clearly, to cite another metaphor, “the managerial playing field continues to be tilted in favor of men” Powell (2012, p. 119). The challenge is immense for women and men who want to hasten the end of glass ceilings.
39
CHAPTER 3
Measuring women's beliefs about glass ceilings:
Development of the Career Pathways Survey
3.1 Introduction
There is strong evidence of the under-representation of women in leadership positions in
many countries such as Australia (Davidson, 2009; Maginn, 2010; Still, M., 2006), China
(Tan, 2008), France (Barnet-Verzat & Wolff, 2008), South Africa (Booysen & Nkomo, 2010;
Mathur-Helm, 2006), United Kingdom (Davidson, 2009; Thomson et al., 2008) and United
States (Eagly & Carli, 2007; Fassinger, 2008). The glass ceiling metaphor is frequently used
to describe the obstacles and barriers in front of women seeking promotions to the top levels
of organizations (Burke & Vinnicombe, 2005; International Labour Office, 2004; McLeod,
2008). This chapter describes the development of a measure of women's thoughts and
attitudes towards glass ceilings, the Career Pathways Survey (CPS).
Undoubtedly, a wide range of theoretical explanations have been proposed to make
sense of glass ceilings (Barreto et al., 2009; Eagly & Carli, 2007). A comprehensive review
of these theories is beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, the following examples highlight the great diversity of causes proposed for glass ceilings. Some evolutionary psychologists
explain glass ceilings as a by-product of natural selection, resulting from hard-wired adaptations that increased the success of the human species over the last 20,000 years
(Browne, 2006; Buss, 1995). Most commonly, the scarcity of female leaders is linked to
ongoing prejudice and discrimination against women in the workplace (Weyer, 2007). For
example, Fassinger (2008) cites women being denied access to the old boys' club, tokenism,
shadow jobs (women being subjected to extra scrutiny), plus a lack of mentors and role
models as forming a package of barriers acting against women. Women who become mothers
40
often encounter an array of prejudice against career advancement that creates a maternal wall
(Crosby et al., 2004). Several researchers emphasize gender differences as the major reason
for gender inequality in leadership. Olsson (2002) gives a qualitative analysis which uses
ancient Greek heroes Ulysses and Xena as a double-metaphor for different ways men and
women search for satisfying careers. Hakim (2006) proposes her preference theory citing gender differences in life goals, values, abilities and competitive behavior. O'Connor (2001) hypothesizes that the existence of glass ceilings is largely due to 'different needs' between women and men. She sums up these differences with more metaphors: women prefer career trees whilst men are much more likely to climb career ladders.
The genesis of the CPS began in my review of the literature on the causes of glass ceilings. Of particular value in understanding the glass ceiling phenomenon is the role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders (Eagly & Karau, 2002). This theory is based on the key proposition that most beliefs about the sexes are related to communal and agentic attributes. Communal characteristics, which are strongly associated with women, include being nurturant, helpful, kind and sympathetic whilst men are strongly linked to agentic attributes such as being assertive, ambitious, independent, forceful and self-confident
(Embry et al., 2008; Heilman and Okimoto, 2007; Phelan et al., 2008). Agentic characteristics are usually seen as being essential for successful leadership (Duehr & Bono,
2006; Eagly & Carli, 2007; Weyer, 2007).
Eagly and Karau's theory (2002) is based on two categories of stereotypes: descriptive stereotypes (expectations about what members of a group are actually like) and prescriptive stereotypes (what they should ideally be like). An interplay of these stereotypes results in women being seen as less suitable for leadership roles as they are most likely thought to exhibit communal characteristics, while leaders need to fulfil the descriptive stereotype of being agentic. A second incongruity acts as an extra obstacle for women aspiring to be
41
leaders. Eagly and Karau (2002) point out that female leaders are likely to be evaluated less favourably when they exhibit agentic behaviours because this contradicts the prescriptive stereotype that women should be communal. These two forms of prejudice are at the foundation of the phenomenon of glass ceilings (Eagly & Carli, 2007; Eagly & Karau, 2002;
Weyer, 2007) and their influence is pervasive because women as well as men can accept these stereotypes (Eagly & Karau, 2002).
Eagly and Karau's (2002) theory of prejudice against women leaders makes an excellent paradigm for much more research into glass ceilings. After identifying the major role of gender stereotypes, beliefs and attitudes in supporting and perpetuating the problem of glass ceilings, we reviewed the literature on women's beliefs about glass ceilings. The decision to focus on women and exclude men was made after it was found that there was a scarcity of studies of women's thoughts and beliefs about glass ceilings.
3.2 Measuring women's beliefs about glass ceilings
Women's opinions about the causes of glass ceilings are usually reported in qualitative studies (e.g., Kumra & Vinnicombe, 2008; Mathur-Helm, 2006; Wrigley, 2002). Three qualitative studies stand out for their in-depth interviews as they resulted in the publication of scholarly books (Goward, 2001; Morrison, White, & Van Velsor, 1992; Stone, 2007).
Morrison and her colleagues (1992) interviewed 82 managers at Fortune 100 companies, mostly from mid-management levels, and Goward (2001) interviewed 32 self-employed
Australian women who were winners of the prestigious Telstra Awards which are given annually to recognise high achievers in Australian business. Goward identifies a common reason for these women striving out on their own: many of the women had ended unhappy marriages. Since the mid 1990s, the number of female business operators in Australia has been growing at three times the rate than that for males (Goward, 2001). Stone (2007)
42
reported the results of detailed interviews with 54 women who opted out of high profile
careers to focus on family life. She found a major reason for this life change was the refusal of husbands to modify their own careers (Stone, 2007). Clearly, Morrison et al. (1992),
Goward (2001) and Stone (2007) only investigated the glass ceiling thoughts of very
successful business women and therefore, we cannot extend their findings to women who
work at lower levels of organizations.
Our review of research related to glass ceilings found the following instruments:
Women As Managers Scale (WAMS; Terborg, Peters, Ilgen, & Smith, 1977) Managerial
Attitudes Toward Women Executives Scale (MATWES; Dubno, Costas, Cannon, Wankel, &
Emin, 1979) and Women Workplace Culture Questionnaire (WWC; Bergman, 2003). There are also three unnamed instruments used by Jackson (2001), Wood and Lindorff (2001) and
Elacqua, Beehr, Hansen and Webster (2009).
The MATWES is a 38-item questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale from 'highly agree' to 'highly disagree'. Concurrent validity was assessed by administering the scale with the WAMS yielding a correlation of .73. The MATWES was developed “to serve as a practical research tool for identifying organizational climates potentially hostile to the introduction of women into positions of executive responsibility (Dubno, 1985, p. 236).
Everett, Thorne and Danehower (1996) used the MATWES in a study of cognitive development of MBA students, stating that high scores indicate negative attitudes toward female managers. No other scoring criteria could be found. There have been strong concerns about the validity and reliability of the 21-item WAMS (Cordano et al., 2003; Crino, White,
& DeSanctis, 1981).
The WWC is a 24-item measure with four factors: Perceived burdens on women (11 items, α = .87); Personally experienced burdens (9 items, α = .84); Sexual harassment (4 items, α = .80); Inadequate organizational support (3 items, α = .71). The first two factors
43
share four items that have high loadings on both factors. Even though all items have fixed
response alternatives, the WWC uses a wide range of behavioral descriptors as well as 2, 4
and 5-point rating scales. Bergman (2003) recommends further research with women with
lower levels of education and in a wider range of job positions as most of the women tested
with the WWC worked within two faculties of a single university.
Jackson (2001) developed a questionnaire to assess women’s perceptions about glass
ceilings. It was completed by 47 women and limited to women who were in upper or mid-
level management positions and only within organizations with a minimum of 400 employees. Jackson acknowledged the limitations of her pilot study, recommending that a
larger sample from a much wider geographical area be surveyed. Women's perceptions to
career barriers were measured by a 52 items, each rated on a 5-point response scale. Six
scales with a total 45 items were generated: Perception and stereotyping; Work-family
conflict; Old boy network; Valuing women and tokenism; Management style; Career
development opportunity. No details of factor analysis or reliability levels were given
(Jackson, 2001).
Wood and Lindorff (2001) also attempted to quantify explanations from women (n =
156), as well as men (n = 351) about career progress. Attributions for overall career progress were measured by 14 items, on a 5-point rating scale. Factor analysis identified a four-factor model. The factors were: Personal qualities (α = .74), Gender-based policies (α = .60), Social
network resources (α = .44), and Political awareness (single item). A 15-item instrument was
used to investigate the glass ceiling in a large insurance company (Elacqua et al., 2009). The
instrument was designed by staff with the guidance of a psychologist. Elacqua and her
colleagues provide no details of factor analysis. Analysis of the responses from 685 managers
(n = 221 women) in the company who completed the questionnaire enabled the construction a
13-pathway model linking manager's beliefs about interpersonal and organizational factors
44 with glass ceilings (Elacqua et al., 2009).
No study could be found which extensively examined opinions from women at all stages of career advancement. This observation, plus the limitations of the instruments discussed above, prompted us to undertake the present study. The aim of this study was to construct an instrument that allows quantitative analyses of women’s beliefs about glass ceilings.
3.3 Development of instrument
Wrigley's (2002) qualitative study of why women deny the existence of glass ceilings helped guide us in the development of a four-factor model of women's attitudes towards glass ceilings. Consequently, this led us to develop a new measure of women's beliefs about glass ceilings. Wrigley argues that denial of glass ceilings by women is a factor that perpetuates the problem of glass ceilings. This insight has not been found elsewhere in the literature. After in-depth interviews with 27 female managers, Wrigley (2002) proposed a new theoretical concept called 'negotiated resignation' which she describes as a form of denial. She identified examples of comments that contradicted previous denials about glass ceilings and observes that these contradictory comments were only made by women who had not reached the top level of management. Thus, Wrigley believes that rationalizations based on negotiated resignation help women resign themselves to work in organizations where glass ceilings exist. This combination of denial and resignation could lead to women giving up on seeking promotions. However, she fails to point out that resignation could also have no connection to denial, and a woman’s decision not to seek promotions might be for valid reasons, such as discrimination if they seek leadership roles.
Most of the participants in Wrigley's (2002) study were seen as ambitious and there is no discussion of women rejecting the intense commitment usually needed for corporate success. Women who do reject this commitment reflect a different definition of success. Not
45
wishing to be promoted is a rational and healthy option for women who share this belief.
These beliefs result in an acceptance of glass ceilings by women and this theory has strong support among evolutionary psychologists (Browne, 2006; Buss, 1995; Pinker, 2002) and
O’Connor (2001) who proposes a different needs theory for women and men. Thus, it is
necessary to separate Wrigley’s (2002) concept of ‘negotiated resignation' into three factors:
denial, resignation and acceptance. We have also identified a fourth factor, unnamed in
Wrigley's study. Many of the women in the interviews expressed a resilience to eventually
break through glass ceilings. We incorporated resilience with the previous three factors into
the development of a questionnaire that could take into account the complex factors related to
attitudes to glass ceilings. The Career Pathways Survey was designed for women at all levels
of careers, from staff to top management.
The process I undertook to generate items for the Career Pathways Survey (CPS)
began in 2002 and extended to 2011. During this time I delivered at least 250 half/full-day
workshops for a wide variety of private and government organizations around Australia (at
least 4000 participants) and I was the keynote speaker at five National and State conferences
for women (approximately 1500 attendees). I spoke on topics such as stress, optimism
(explanatory style), communication and leadership.
I received detailed feedback from women about their thoughts on glass ceilings,
during and after every presentation. I also received 100+ emails from working women which
would later give me many insights in 2008 when I began constructing the CPS. Between
2004 and 2011, I deliberately asked all women at my presentations for feedback about their
views on glass ceilings. The responses continued to be generous, both during and after all
presentations. The process whereby I continued to collect all statements made by women
about women’s career pathways was thorough, ongoing and comprehensive as it stretched
across at least 200 organizations across Australia. Even though the item generation was not
46
conventional, hopefully, this played a role in increasing the face and ecological validity of the
items.
When I began my literature review for this thesis in 2008, I had already collected 75
statements that could be used as CPS items. Many other statements that expressed near
identical views to the 75 statements were not included. The 75 statements were then reduced
to 60, leaving those that most closely matched the diverse research reported by the highly respected book by Eagly and Carli (2007) and other relevant literature (eg., Heilman &
Okimoto, 2007). Finally, 40 items were selected from these groups allowing 10 items per
factor, with no items being too similar in content. After the first study with the CPS was
carried out in 2009, six items were eliminated and replaced by items developed from the
ongoing literature review.
The CPS attempts to assess levels of four factors: Resignation, Acceptance, Resilience
and Denial. The relationships between these factors are shown in Figure 1.
High
ACCEPTANCE DENIAL
‘We don’t want ‘There’s a level what men want.’ playing field.’ Satisfaction with career level
RESIGNATION RESILIENCE
‘We give up, ‘Let’s change it.’ it’s too painful.’
Low Low High Desire to pursue career promotion
Figure 3.1. Women’s beliefs about glass ceilings: A four-factor model.
47
Resignation about glass ceilings is based on statements that indicate why women give up or
fail to pursue promotions because of social and organisational obstacles. Examples include:
'Women are seldom given full credit for their successes'; 'Women in senior management positions face frequent putdowns of being too soft or too hard'. Acceptance of glass ceilings is a collection of items showing why women are satisfied and happy not seeking high level positions. It can be argued the items say why women don't want what men want, if the masculine definition of success is high levels of power. Alternatively, agreement with this factor could be interpreted as seeking justification for not showing more commitment to career development. Examples include: 'Women reject the need to work incredibly long hours'; 'Women prefer a balanced life more than gaining highly paid careers'. Resilience of glass ceilings is based on statements that show how women feel they can and will go forward.
Examples include: ‘When women are given opportunities to lead they do effective jobs’; ‘A supportive spouse/partner or close friend makes it easier for a woman to achieve success in her career’. Denial of glass ceilings is composed of items that show why some women believe glass ceilings are now myths and non-existent. Examples include: 'Women and men have to overcome the same problems at the workplace'; 'Women have reached the top in all areas of business and politics'. Two studies were conducted to investigate the four-factor structure of the CPS. Study 1 resulted in a preliminary version of the Career Pathways
Survey. The follow-up study was carried out to confirm the factor structure and introduce new items with high face validity.
Study 1
3.4 Method
3.4.1 Participants
One hundred and fifty women in Australia were contacted via a newsletter from the first
48 author and the snowball sampling method used to recruit a total of 243 female participants.
Of the 243 women in Study 1, 73.3% worked in organizations; 40.7% occupied staff positions; 32.5% worked in middle or top management; 6% were self-employed; 70.8% were up to 50 years old; 84.7% were married or in a relationship; 37% had no children; 50.6% lived in urban areas
3.4.2 Instrument
Each item on the CPS reflects a perception about how women face difficulties in their career progress. This survey allows women to rate their level of agreement with each statement on a seven-point Likert scale, with anchors of strongly agree (1) and strongly disagree (7). Eight of the 40 items were written in a negative direction. The CPS questionnaire package began with a site for women to register demographic details on age, career level, locality
(urban/rural), marital status and number of children. Completion of the survey was reported to take less than 10 minutes.
3.4.3 Procedure
The invitation to participants included an Information Sheet and those agreeing to participation subsequently entered a secure, supervised website that enabled them to access the survey and submit their responses anonymously. Ethics clearance was obtained from the
University's Human Research Ethics Committee. Participants completed the questionnaire in the two month period that the contact website was kept open.
3.5 Results
3.5.1 Data analysis
The factor structure of the CPS was analysed using SPSS Version 15.0. Four factors were
49
extracted by principal axis factoring and a promax rotation with Kaiser normalization.
Assumptions of a factor analysis were met using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of
sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity. Factor solutions of three, four and five
factors were explored. The final factor solution was meaningful as it was consistent with
Wrigley's (2002) theory of negotiated resignation and Eagly and Karau's (2002) role
congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. The factor solution also supported the
agentic/dichotomy proposed by many researchers such as Heilman and Okimoto (2007) and
Phelan et al. (2008). Further, it was the only one with satisfactory internal consistency, as
each factor had a Cronbach alpha reaching or exceeding .70.
Five of the 40 items failed to load on any the four factors using the loading criterion
of 0.3 and above. The items consequently rejected were: 'It's a strong disincentive when other women are badly hurt trying to gain leadership positions' (This item was expected to load on
Resignation factor); 'Women enthusiastically develop social networks to enhance career
success' (This was expected to load on Acceptance when reverse scored); 'Discrimination
against women is a major problem only in non-Western countries' (This was expected to load
on Denial); 'Government regulations cannot ensure women have equal job opportunities with
men' and ‘Women usually struggle to be selected as team leaders' (Both of these items were
expected to load on Denial when reverse scored).
The four factors identified, in order of descending variance, were as follows:
Resignation contained nine items with a Cronbach alpha of 0.79; Resilience initially had
eight items and a Cronbach alpha of only 0.59. When one cross-loading item was rejected,
reliability for this factor lifted to 0.71; Denial was made of eight items yielding a reliability of
0.75; Acceptance contained 10 items with an internal consistency of 0.71. The overall
reliability of the instrument was calculated to be 0.78. Table 3.1 provides descriptive statistics
and the correlations between the mean responses for each factor. There is some evidence that
50
the factors are correlated. However, there is no evidence of redundant factors and the factors appear to be independent.
Table 3.1. Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and intercorrelations for Study 1
N = 243
______
Factor M SD 1 2 3 4
______
1. Denial 3.77 1.09 (.75)
2. Resilience 2.42 .86 .08 (.71)
3. Resignation 3.90 .51 .16* .23** (.79)
4. Acceptance 4.19 .89 .19** .17* .10 (.71)
______
Notes. *p < .05; **p < .01. Coefficient alpha reliability estimates are listed on the diagonal in parentheses.
Study 2
3.6 Method
3.6.1 Participants
Women were contacted using the snowball sampling technique after the first author
approached women's networks around Australia, as well as the human resource managers of
large Australian organizations. Of the 307 women in Study 2, 92.8% lived in Australia/New
Zealand; 84% worked in organizations; 52.1% occupied staff positions; 29.0% worked in
middle or top management; 18% were self-employed; 81.4% were up to 50 years old; 68.7%
were married or in a relationship; 50.5% had no children; 76.7% lived in urban localities;
64.5% had graduated from university.
51
3.6.2 Instrument
In study 2, the CPS contained six new items about glass ceilings that were generated after our ongoing research identified concepts that would have high face validity. The participants provided data on age, years in present career, career level, years in present career level, paid hours per week, residence (country), locality, marital status, number of children, and age of youngest child.
3.6.3 Procedure
Participants completed the questionnaire in the six month period that the contact website was kept open.
3.7 Results
The factor structure of the CPS was analysed using SPSS Version 17.0. Four factors were extracted by principal axis factoring and a promax rotation with Kaiser normalization. The four factors identified, in order of descending variance, were as follows: Denial contained 10 items with a Cronbach alpha of 0.81; Resignation had 10 items and a Cronbach alpha of 0.71;
Resilience was made of 11 items yielding a reliability of 0.70; Acceptance contained 7 items with an internal consistency of 0.72. The four factors accounted for 35.23% variance. The decision to add six new items to the original 34-item CPS was supported as they had loadings ranging from .31 to .62. Two of the original 34 items failed to load on any the four factors using the loading criterion of 0.3 and above. The items consequently rejected were: 'Unfair preferential treatment can be given to both women and men' (This item was expected to load on Denial factor); 'Women with high goals are not likely to achieve their work ambitions'
(This was expected to load on Resignation). Table 2 lists the content and factor loadings of the 38 items which now make up the CPS.
52
Table 3.2. Factor loading for the 4-factor structure of the CPS in Study 2 (N = 307) ______
Factor Loading ______
Item No. Item content 1 2 3 4
Denial 30 Women starting careers today will face sexist barriers. -.69 9 Women and men have to overcome the same problems at the workplace. .59 39 It will take decades for women to reach equality with men in high level management positions. -.59 10 Even women with many skills and qualifications fail to be recognized for promotions. -.58 13 Women have reached the top in all areas of business and politics. .56 1 Women face no barriers to promotions in most organizations. .55 11 Women leaders are seldom given full credit for their successes. -.52 15 Women in senior positions face frequent putdowns of being too soft or too hard. -.45 7 Women who have a strong commitment to their careers can go right to the top. .49 4 Talented women are able to overcome sexist discrimination. .39
Resignation 36 Women executives are very uncomfortable when they have to criticise members of their teams. .60 26 Women leaders suffer more emotional pain than men when there is a crisis within their teams. .53 37 Being in the limelight creates many problems for women. .49 20 Women are more likely to be hurt than men when they take big risks necessary for corporate success. .48 31 Women believe they have to make too many compromises to gain highly paid positions. .42 8 Jealousy from co-workers prevents women from seeking promotions. .40 34 Even very successful women can quickly lose their confidence. .40 35 Women know that work does not provide the best source of happiness in life. .34 18 If women achieve promotions they might be accused of offering sexual favours. .33 5 Smart women avoid careers that involve intense competition with colleagues. .32
Resilience 38 The more women seek senior positions, the easier it will be for those who follow. .60 33 Higher education qualifications will help women overcome discrimination. .51 27 Women have the strength to overcome discrimination. .50 40 When women are given opportunities to lead they do effective jobs. .47 24 Daughters of successful mothers are inspired to overcome sexist hurdles. .47 6 Women are capable of making critical leadership decisions. .41 21 A supportive spouse/partner or close friend makes it easier for a woman to achieve success in her career. .38 32 Successful organizations seek and want to retain talented female staff. .37 16 The support of a mentor greatly increases the success of a woman in any organization. .36 25 Women's nurturing skills help them to be successful leaders. .35 3 Networking is a smart way for women to increase the chances of career success. .31
Acceptance 19 Women are just as ambitious in their careers as men. -.76 12 Women have the same desire for power as men do. -.62 23 Motherhood is more important to most women than career development. .46 22 Women are less concerned about promotions than men are. .44 2 Women prefer a balance life more than gaining highly paid careers. .43 28 Women reject the need to work incredibly long hours. .36 14 Women commonly reject career advancement as they are keener to maintain a role raising children. .33
53
The descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of the factors are presented in Table 3.3. As
found in Study 1, there is evidence of correlations between the factors. However, none reach
very high correlations.
Table 3.3. Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and intercorrelations for Study 2 N = 307 ______
Factor M SD 1 2 3 4 ______
Denial 3.49 1.03 (.81) Resilience 5.63 .65 .07 (.70) Resignation 3.86 .82 -.30** .09 (.71) Acceptance 3.32 .96 .06 .17** .38** (.72) ______Notes. *p < .05; **p < .01. Coefficient alpha reliability estimates are listed on the diagonal in parentheses.
3.8 Discussion
Our literature review had identified the need for a reliable measure of women's attitudes
towards glass ceilings. Moreover, there is a need to provide more insights as the most commonly used measures in this area, the WAMS and MATWES, are unifactorial, only delivering single scores. The CPS provides greater feedback as it gives the scores for four separate factors. It allows a comparison of negative attitudes towards seeking promotions via
Resignation and Acceptance scores. It also gives feedback on positive attitudes towards seeking promotion via Resilience and Denial scores. We believe this will give important feedback for researchers, organizations, and most importantly the women who complete the
CPS. The four scores from the CPS can make them more aware of the reasons for seeking or rejecting career advancement.
We carried out two studies with women (N = 243 and N = 307), mostly from
54 Australia, and the findings provided psychometric support for the CPS. Principal axis
factoring confirmed the existence of four factors: Resilience, Acceptance, Resignation and
Denial. These were the factors predicted by our theoretical model of glass ceilings attitudes.
The results show that the initial version of the CPS and the revised 38-item CPS have good
reliability levels. The 38-item measure is recommended as it contains more items with high
face validity than the previous 34-item version.
The main theoretical contribution of the two studies is the support given for the
existence of four groups of stereotypic thinking about glass ceilings. These groups of
attitudes may represent state-like psychological constructs. There is a major practical
implication as the CPS can be recommended for future quantitative research into the causes and consequences of glass ceilings. It is being used in our ongoing studies of the relationships between glass ceiling beliefs, work engagement, career satisfaction, wellbeing and the under-
representation of women in leadership positions.
There are several limitations of the present research. However, each of these
limitations provides a direction for future research. First, and of most concern, both our
studies included only moderate numbers of respondents from top level management. Second,
most of the participants were based in Australia and there is a need to carry out international
comparisons across different countries. There is also a strong need for longitudinal studies to
assess the stability of glass ceiling beliefs over time, as well as when women change jobs and
careers. Furthermore, the CPS could be used to determine if there are differences of women’s
glass ceiling beliefs across employment sectors, especially where women dominate (e.g.,
public relations and social services) and in male dominated careers (e.g., finance). The
generation of CPS items, whilst comprehensive in its sampling of organizations around
Australia, was not conventional and may be seen as a limitation. Finally, further studies are
55 needed to investigate the construct and concurrent validity of the CPS. We are planning to
use the CPS in combination with measures of work engagement, occupational self-efficacy,
explanatory style and hope.
There are a variety of other practical implications if organizations use the CPS to test
their female staff. It could assist to clarify which employees and new recruits will appreciate
and benefit from ‘move-ahead’ tasks, thereby supporting vertical development (i.e.,
promotion) and those who prefer ‘stay-here’ tasks, seeking horizontal development (for
example, a personal assistant being offered training to learn another language, increasing her effectiveness communicating with the manager’s clients).
Following a suggestion made by M. Davidson (personal communication, October 2,
2009), we also see the value of using the CPS to assess men’s attitudes towards glass ceilings. The WAMS and MATWES were designed to assess the attitudes of both women and men. Male dominated organizations could be evaluated with the CPS to determine whether an anti-female culture exists. The CPS could be used to test the effectiveness of training programs designed to change sexist workplace cultures. Our ongoing research aims to help women be aware of the deeper attitudes and reasons why they have rejected any ideas of seeking promotion. Wrigley (2002) believes cognitive dissonance explains why some women might give superficial reasons to justify their decision not to pursue promotions.
Women who gain high scores for Resignation and Acceptance would be suitable candidates for research interviews to ascertain the strength of their anti-career advancement beliefs.
It might be argued that the CPS should contain a strategy to minimise social
desirability effects. This concern has not been discussed in the literature in relation to other
popular measures such as the WAMS and MATWES. This is not unexpected as it seems very
uncertain what constitutes as a socially desirable response. However, when investigating
56 cultures of individual organizations it may be helpful to allow participants to submit their
responses anonymously.
3.9 Conclusions
The findings reported in this study support our proposal that women can have beliefs about
glass ceilings based on four different groups of stereotypic thoughts: Denial, Resilience,
Resignation and Acceptance. The measure we have developed, the CPS, allows quantitative assessment of these different attitudes. Possibly, the CPS will be able to identify gender
differences in these attitudes towards glass ceilings. We hope that future research with the
CPS will make a contribution to solving a problem that hurts all of us, women and men. This
is made clear in the challenge from the US Labor Secretary in 1991 when she introduced the
findings of the first ever government study into glass ceilings. She stated that glass ceilings
disadvantage society as a whole as they effectively restrict leadership to only one-half of the
population (US Department of Labor, 1991).
57 CHAPTER 4
How are women's glass ceiling beliefs related
to subjective career success?
4.1 Introduction
The obstacles that lead to the under-representation of women in leadership and upper level
management positions are commonly described in scholarly works and the media as glass ceilings (Barreto et al., 2009; McLeod, 2008; Weyer, 2007). There is a strong need for ongoing investigations into the causes and consequences of glass ceilings, especially in corporate organizations. Catalyst, an American organization that focuses on women's issues, predicted it will take 73 years to reach parity with men in the boardrooms of the top 500 companies in the US (Catalyst, 2007). Furthermore, the UK Equal Opportunity Commission calculated it would take 65 years for women to achieve equality with men as directors of
Britain's top 100 companies (Thomson et al., 2008).
The Career Pathways Survey (CPS; Smith, Crittenden & Caputi, 2012b) is a multi- factorial instrument which quantitatively assesses four sets of beliefs about glass ceilings:
Denial, Resilience, Acceptance and Resignation. We identified these four groups after a review of the literature on women's career advancement, and in particular, the extensive research reported by Eagly and Carli (2007). The CPS was constructed with items related to the four groups of beliefs about glass ceilings and all items have been reported in the literature (Smith et al., 2012b). In addition, these dimensions were supported by exploratory factor analysis of data collected from two samples of women (N = 243 and N = 307). Both studies found each factor has satisfactory internal consistency with Cronbach alphas ranging from 0.70 to 0.81 (Smith et al., 2012b). It is necessary to note that in this study we use belief,
58 attitude and opinion interchangeably. This approach has been adopted in accordance with analysis provided by Reber's (1985) dictionary of psychology.
The CPS provides scores for four groups of beliefs about glass ceilings. Denial is defined as the belief that men and women face the same issues and problems in seeking leadership. Examples of items in the CPS assessing Denial are: ‘Women have reached the top in all areas of business and politics’, 'Women starting careers today will face sexist barriers'
(reverse scored). Resilience is defined as the belief that women are able to break glass ceilings. Examples of this factor are: ‘The more women seek senior positions, the easier it will be for those who follow’, 'Women are capable of making critical leadership decisions'.
Resignation is the belief that women suffer many more negative consequences than men when pursuing career advancement and thus, there are overwhelming reasons for women not attempting to break glass ceilings. Two CPS items measuring this factor are: ‘Women are more likely to be hurt than men when they take big risks necessary for corporate success’,
'Jealousy from co-workers prevents women from seeking promotions'. Acceptance is the belief that women prefer other life goals, such as family involvement, over developing a career. Therefore, Acceptance is summed up as a pro-family/anti-career advancement set of beliefs. Examples of items in the CPS assessing acceptance are: ‘Women reject the need to work incredibly long hours’, 'Women are less concerned about promotions than men are'.
The aim of the present study was to collect evidence for the concurrent criterion validity of the CPS by investigating the relationships between women’s glass ceiling beliefs and a range of important indicators of subjective career success (career satisfaction, happiness, psychological wellbeing, physical wellbeing and work engagement). Extensive reviews by Lyubomirsky et al. (2005) and Fisher (2010) give strong support for the organizational benefits to be gained by the rapidly growing research into subjective (or
59 intrinsic) success. Career satisfaction was included in the current study as it is the major
indicator of subjective career success (Judge & Hurst, 2008; Ng, Eby, Sorenson, & Feldman,
2005). However, other studies have also emphasised the roles of common indicators such as
happiness, emotional wellbeing and physical health (e.g., Armstrong-Stassen & Cameron,
2005; Burke, Burgess, & Fallon, 2006; Carr, 1997; Clark, 1997; Orser & Leck, 2010). It
should be noted that throughout the thesis, emotional wellbeing is used interchangeably with
psychological wellbeing, psychological health, mental wellbeing and mental health. Also,
physical wellbeing is used interchangeably with physical health. This practise is common in
the literature (e.g., Ng et al., 2005; Wright & Cropanzano, 2000). In short, emotional
wellbeing refers to the existence or lack of psychological problems such as worry, fear, anxiety and depression (Ware, Kosinski, & Keller, 1996). Physical wellbeing relates to the existence or lack of illnesses (Ware et al., 1996).
The four constructs of subjective success have been found to be related to work performance (Fisher, 2010; Judge & Hurst, 2005). To obtain a clear and broad investigation of subjective career success, all four constructs were therefore selected as dependent variables. Further, work engagement was chosen as one of the subjective career success variables in this study as it has become a major concept in occupational health psychology
(Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter, & Taris, 2008). Moreover, having an engaged workforce is
consistently rated by human resource managers as a priority for organizations (Chughtai &
Buckley, 2011). Described as the opposite of burnout, engagement is a fulfilling work-related
state of mind, characterized by the positive components of vigour (energetic, persistent, resilient), dedication (enthusiastic, proud) and absorption (fully concentrated, engrossed)
(Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). Increasing work engagement of both staff and management
could result in large economic benefits for organizations. (Gallup Consulting, 2009; Saks,
60 2006).
In our previous exploratory investigation of the CPS, the findings of two studies
supported the hypothesized four-factor structure (Smith et al., 2012b). Several studies have examined relationships between the career levels of women with subjective success
indicators (e.g., Armstrong-Stassen & Cameron, 2005; Burke et al., 2006; Carr, 1997; Clark,
1997; Orser & Leck, 2010). Importantly, we are the first to examine the connections between
subjective career success and women's attitudes towards glass ceilings. Because this study is based on cross-sectional data, we will not be able confirm causal directions. Instead, we are searching for significant relationships with glass ceiling beliefs, and such findings will guide follow-up longitudinal and experimental studies.
4.2 Theoretical background and hypotheses
We propose that glass ceiling beliefs can lift or diminish desires to be promoted. These beliefs may lead to career pathway choices and long-lasting behaviors within organizations.
These predictions are in line with Beck's (1976) proposals about the important roles played by attitudes and beliefs. In his influential book on cognitive behavior therapy, Beck (1976) argued attitudes form the basis for expectancies and self-instructions to achieve our goals.
The important role of beliefs in formating short-term and long-term behaviour (both positive and negative) has become a keystone of cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior therapy
(Hawton, Salkovskis, Kirk, & Clark, 1989). Further, work beliefs predict goal striving and wellbeing (Sheldon & Cooper, 2008). Consequently, we posit that glass ceiling beliefs may affect a range of wellbeing and performance variables.
The theoretical underpinnings of the CPS are based on a framework of optimism and pessimism toward the likelihood of women being promoted to leadership and upper
management positions. The formulation of hypotheses in this study is linked to two models of
61 optimism. We have incorporated Scheier and Carver's (1985) model of dispositional
optimism with the explanatory style model of optimism (Peterson & Seligman, 1984;
Seligman, 1991). Dispositional optimism is defined as a stable expectancy that good things
will happen in life (Scheier & Carver, 1992). Scheier, Weintraub and Carver (1986) explored
the connections between optimism and ways of coping with negative situations. They found
optimism was associated with acceptance and problem-focused coping, i.e., resilience, while
pessimism was positively related with resignation, i.e., giving up (Scheier & Carver, 1992).
There is considerable evidence that dispositional optimism influences psychological and
physical wellbeing (Augusto-Landa, Pulido-Martos, & Lopez-Zafra, 2011; Scheier, Carver,
& Bridges, 1994).
In a different approach to optimism, Seligman and many researchers have operationalized optimism as a stable style of explaining negative events. In short, an optimistic explanatory style is the tendency to explain problems with specific, temporary and external causes. Conversely, a person with a pessimistic explanatory style is likely to cite global (non-specific), long-lasting and internal causes for negative situations (Seligman,
Reivich, Laycox, & Gillham, 1995). Extensive research has found that explanatory style
optimism has long-term positive effects on mental and physical health (Peterson, Seligman,
& Vaillant, 1988; Peterson & Steen, 2009), as well as success in business, working in
organizations and job satisfaction (Proudfoot, Corr, Guest, & Dunn, 2009; Seligman, 1991;
Seligman & Schulman 1986; Welbourne, Eggerth, Hartley, Andrew, & Sanchez, 2007).
Optimism, whether it is a positive outlook or an explanation for a negative situation, leads to
positive emotions, motivation and a commitment to achieve work-related goals (Luthans et
al., 2007). In sum, extensive empirical evidence has been found by many researchers that
optimistic (and pessimistic) thoughts strongly influence the development of subjective
62 success constructs such as career satisfaction (Luthans et al., 2007), work engagement
(Bakker et al., 2008; Gallop Consulting, 2009) and happiness, emotional and physical wellbeing (Augusto-Landa et al., 2011; Scheier & Carver 1992). Throughout the thesis, emotional wellbeing is used interchangeably with psychological wellbeing, psychological health, mental wellbeing and mental health. Also, physical wellbeing is used interchangeably with physical health. This practise is common in the literature (e.g., Ng et al., 2005; Wright &
Cropanzano, 2000). In short, emotional wellbeing refers to the extistence or lack of psychological problems such as worry, fear, anxiety and depression. Physical wellbeing relates to the existence or lack of illnesses.
The two theories of optimism, the dispositional model (Scheier & Carver, 1992) and the explanatory style model (Seligman, 1991), plus the above mentioned findings on subjective success, provided the basis of the following conceptualization of women's beliefs about glass ceilings. We propose a dichotomy for the CPS factors. First, Resilience and
Denial are optimistic as they share the view that women can reach the top levels of organizations. Second, Resignation and Acceptance involve pessimism as they both imply the gender imbalance in leadership is not likely to change because most women do not have leadership goals in the workplace. Consequently, we suggest glass ceiling beliefs can be antecedents for the above range of subjective success variables that have been shown to be affected by optimistic (and pessimistic) thoughts. Further, we assume the mechanism that links glass ceiling beliefs with subjective success is the same as that proposed by Seligman
(1991), Scheier and Carver (1985) and Luthans et al. (2007) for optimism/pessimism influencing subjective success. Thus, optimistic thoughts and beliefs about chances of women's career advancement (Resilience and Denial) are likely to lead to positive emotions and actions toward seeking promotions. In contrast, pessimistic thoughts (Acceptance and
63 Resignation) are likely to lead to negative emotions and actions toward promotion.
The 38 items of the CPS represent beliefs about a wide variety of variables that
considerable research has shown to be linked to women's career advancement (Barreto et al.,
2009; Eagly & Carli, 2007; Powell, 2012). For example, the CPS items refer to issues such as role models, lack of promotion opportunities for women, sexist barriers in organizations,
successful organizations wanting talented women leaders, work-family compromises,
benefits of higher education, networking, jealousy from female colleagues after promotions,
support from mentors and sexual harassment. All items are either positive (optimistic) or
negative (pessimistic) outlooks/explanations for breaking glass ceilings.
Research findings have shown that resilience results from an optimistic explanatory
style (Seligman, 2011; Seligman et al., 1995). In addition, Luthans et al. (2007) highlight the connection between resilience and both dispositional and explanatory style optimism in predicting work performance and satisfaction. Thus, the CPS factor of Resilience represents an optimistic set of beliefs about breaking glass ceilings as it involves positive thinking and aspirational thoughts that enhance the chances of career advancement and success within an organization (Seligman, 1991). Resilience beliefs about glass ceilings are likely to be linked
to a positive outlook toward the workplace and the high optimism involved in Resilience is
likely to result in it being positively related to WE. Moreover, WE is operationalized into
three components, one of which, vigour is described as being linked to resilience (Bakker &
Demerouti, 2008). Therefore, we hypothesize:
H1. Resilience will be positively related to career satisfaction (H1a), happiness (H1b)
emotional wellbeing (H1c), physical wellbeing (H1d) and work engagement (H1e).
With respect to Denial, Wrigley (2002) argued that some women do not acknowledge glass ceilings to avoid tension. By doing so, they could help maintain career satisfaction and
64 wellbeing. It is also possible that women, like men, can be simply unaware of obstacles that
form a glass ceiling for women. As Denial is also an optimistic construct, (possibly less
optimistic than Resilience), it will also be positively related to WE. Accordingly, it is expected:
H2. Denial will have positive relationships with career satisfaction (H2a), happiness
(H2b) emotional wellbeing (H2c), physical wellbeing (H2d) and work engagement
(H2e).
In this study, Acceptance is a pessimistic set of beliefs about women achieving leadership positions, and it follows that Acceptance would not lead to seeking promotions in organizations. However, Acceptance also involves a positive optimistic outlook toward life balance and family life. Thus, we suggest Acceptance will be associated with positive
emotions and actions at home and away from work. This will result in a positive relationship
between Acceptance and happiness, psychological wellbeing and physical health. However,
Acceptance is a negative way of looking at gender inequality in workplaces and thus we expect it will be negatively related to career satisfaction and WE. This should not be seen as a contradiction but a natural consequence. Beck (1976) posits that the same set of thoughts can lead to opposing motivations in pursuing markedly different goals, for example in this study, achieving promotions versus maintaining a healthy life balance. An extensive review of cognitive therapy carried out by Hawton et al. (1989) supports this argument. Hence, it is proposed:
H3. Acceptance will be negatively related to career satisfaction (H3a), positively related
to happiness (H3b) emotional wellbeing (H3c), physical wellbeing (H3d), plus
negatively related to work engagement (H3e).
65
We also propose that Resignation attitudes towards glass ceilings represent a pessimistic
outlook and would be negatively related to career satisfaction, happiness, psychological
wellbeing and physical wellbeing. When women have Resignation beliefs about glass
ceilings, they see little hope of work conditions changing. They can either remain dissatisfied
and unhappy working in an organization, or can leave and join the large numbers of women
who have become self-employed (Walker & Webster, 2006). In our four factor
conceptualization of glass ceiling beliefs, Resignation is the most pessimistic outlook toward
women being promoted. Therefore, we suggest:
H4. Resignation will be negatively related to career satisfaction (H4a), happiness (H4b)
emotional wellbeing (H4c), physical wellbeing (H4d) and work engagement (H4e).
The overall empirical approach to the present study is depicted in Figure 4.1.
Resilience H1
Denial H2 Glass Ceiling Career Satisfaction Beliefs Happiness Acceptance H3
Emotional Wellbeing H4
Resignation Physical Health
Work Engagement
Age
Education Subjective Success Individual Differences Marital Status (Controls) Number of Children Management Level
Figure 4.1. Research model for study
66
4.3 Method
4.3.1 Participants and procedure
Two hundred and fifty eight women working in a variety of Australian organizations
completed an online questionnaire in the six month period that the contact website was kept
open. The majority of respondents lived in urban areas (76.7%), were under 41 years old
(59.7%), had completed university (65.6%), were married or in a relationship (67.9%) and
had no children (53.5%). Most participants had been in their present career for up to 10 years
(63.2%), occupied staff positions (53.1%) and worked 31-40 hours per week (65.9%). A total
of 34.4% worked in middle or top management.
The ethics protocol was reviewed and approved by the University's Human Research
Ethics Committee. Several women's networks plus 20 human resource managers were approached and asked to forward an email to female colleagues, staff and friends. This snowball sampling technique is frequently used to obtain data from a variety of organizations
(Eddleston, Veiga, & Powell, 2006). The email contained an Information Sheet for the study and a link to a secure website that enabled the anonymous submission of responses to the questionnaire. It was decided to use an online survey to allow easy access for prospective participants and thus obtain a larger and broader sample than was likely with a hard copy of the survey.
4.3.2 Measures
Demographics. Five demographic variables were included as covariates in our analyses as
they are considered to be important for research into subjective career success of women
(Orser & Leck, 2010; Valcour & Ladge, 2008): age, education, marital status, number of
children and management level. The response scales were: Age (1 = 18-20 to 7 = 70+), (This
67 created two groups of nearly equal size.), Education (1 = Primary/elementary school to 8 =
PhD), Marital status (1 = single, 2 = married, 3 = with partner), Number of children (1 = 0 to
8 = 6+), Management level (1 = staff member, 2 = supervisor, 3 = middle management, 4 = top management)
Glass ceiling beliefs. The CPS is a measure of women's beliefs about glass ceilings and has satisfactory psychometric properties (Smith et al., 2012b). In this study the Cronbach alphas were satisfactory ranging from 0.70 to .81. The CPS assesses levels of Denial (10 items), Resignation (10 items), Resilience (11 items) and Acceptance (7 items) towards glass ceilings. Women rate their level of agreement with 38 statements on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Individual factor scores are calculated by the mean score of the relevant items. Seven items are reverse scored. Examples of items from the four factors are: 'Women and men have to overcome the same problems at the workplace' (Denial), 'Being in the limelight creates many problems for women' (Resignation), 'Women have the strength to overcome discrimination' (Resilience), 'Motherhood is more important to most women than career development' (Acceptance).
Work engagement. The 9-item version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale
(UWES-9; Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006) was used in this study as it measures three closely related workplace engagement factors: vigour, dedication and absorption. Due to the high correlations between these factors, Seppala et al. (2009) recommend WE be considered
as a one-dimensional construct when research is examining WE in general. Therefore, in the
current study WE was measured as a single variable. Sample items are "I am enthusiastic
about my job" and "When I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work". All items were
rated on a scale ranging from 0 = "Never" to 6 = "Always". The strong psychometric
properties of the UWES-9 were shown in a study (N = 9,404, 65% female) of health care
68 workers, young/experienced managers, teachers/education administrators and dentists
(Seppala et al., 2009). In the present study, the alpha coefficient for the 9 items was .92.
Happiness. Happiness was assessed with Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky
& Lepper, 1999). Respondents provided ratings for four items such as "In general, how happy do you consider yourself?” Seven-point Likert scales were used with anchors such as, 1 =
"Not a very happy person" to 7 = “A very happy person". One item was reverse scored. The happiness measure yielded a Cronbach alpha of .89 in this research.
Psychological and physical wellbeing. The three items measuring psychological
(emotional) health and three items for physical health were adapted from the SF-12 Health
Survey (Ware, Kosinski, & Keller, 1996). A sample item measuring psychological wellbeing is "In the last 4 weeks, have your emotional problems interfered with your work activities?"
A sample item measuring physical wellbeing is "In the last 4 weeks, have your physical problems interfered with your social activities?" Each item had a five-point response scale ranging from 1 = "None of the time" to 5 = "All the time". The internal reliabilities of the measures of psychological wellbeing measure (.77) and physical health (.78) were both satisfactory in this study.
Career satisfaction. The Career Satisfaction Scale (Greenhaus, Parasuraman, &
Wormley, 1990) measured career satisfaction. This 5-item measure (e.g., "I am satisfied with the success I have achieved in my career"). has a 5-point response scale ranging from 1 =
"Strongly disagree" to 5 = "Strongly agree". It has been used in over 240 studies (Hofmans,
Dries, & Pepermans, 2008) and has a high internal reliability. The Cronbach alpha in the present study was .91.
69 4.3.3 Data analysis
Hypotheses were tested with correlations and a series of five hierarchical regression analyses.
All data were analysed using SPSS Version 17.0. The sample size of 258 used for each regression provided a good ratio between the number of predictor variables and number of subjects (1:28). It is recommended that the number of subjects in a regression should be at least 50 plus eight times the number of predictor variables (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007).
Thus, the present study required a minimum of 122 subjects.
In order to carry out regression analyses, it is recommended that categorical variables be recoded into dichotomous variables (Allen & Bennett, 2010; Field, 2005). Therefore, age was recoded 1 = 40 years and under, 2 = over 40 years. The decision to select 40 years as a division point created two groups of nearly equal size. Further, education was coded 1 = no university degree, 2 = degree or higher; marital status was coded 1 = single, 2 = married/relationship; number of children was coded 0 = no children, 1 = has children; management level was coded 1 = staff/supervisor, 2 = middle/top management.
In each of the regressions, step 1 shows the relationship with age and education. The family variables of marital status and number of children are introduced on step 2.
Management level is added to the model on step 3. Resilience, Denial, Acceptance and
Resignation are added on the fourth step to test H1 to H4.
4.4 Results
Table 4.1 presents the descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of glass ceiling beliefs with five indicators of subjective success. Several correlations in Table 4.1 are consistent with the predicted relationships. For Resilience, there was only support for H1e as there was a significant correlation with WE. H2 (a, b, c, e) receive support as Denial showed significant
70 positive correlations with career satisfaction, happiness, emotional health and WE. However,
H2d was not supported as Denial was not related to physical wellbeing. There was no support for H3 as Acceptance showed no significant relationships with any of the subjective success variables. As predicted by H4 (a, b, c, d), Resignation was negatively related to career satisfaction, happiness, emotional wellbeing and physical health. H4e was not supported with Resignation not related to WE.
71 Table 4.1. Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and intercorrelations
______
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
______
1. Denial 3.55 1.04 (.81)
2. Resilience 5.59 0.66 .16 (.70)
3. Resignation 3.82 0.81 -.32** .08 (.71)
4. Acceptance 3.31 0.95 .07 .19** .37** (.72 )
5. Career satisfaction 3.58 0.93 .27** .14* -.13* .02 (.91)
6. Happiness 5.49 1.17 .19** .11 -.20** -.08 .24* (.89 )
7. Psychological health 4.24 0.68 .18** .00 -.27** -.16 .20** .53** (.77)
8. Physical health 4.05 0.77 .10 .06 -.16* .04 .16* .31** .48** (.78)
9. Work engagement 5.31 0.99 .15* .14* -.08 -.10 .42** .38** .28** .21** (.92)
______
Notes. N = 258. *p < .05; **p < .01. Coefficient alpha reliability estimates are listed on the diagonal in parentheses.
72 The results of the regression analyses are presented in Table 4.2. H1b was supported as
Resilience has a positive association with happiness. Resilience (with Resignation) accounted for 7% variance of happiness. There was support for H1e as Resilience showed a positive relationship with WE. Denial was positively related to career satisfaction accounting for 10% variance. This finding supported H2a. Denial also played a role in predicting 7% of the variance in WE, thereby supporting H2e. There was support for H3e as Acceptance was negatively related to WE. Resignation was negatively related to happiness and both emotional (9% variance) and physical wellbeing (5% variance), thus supporting H4 (a, b, c, d). However, there was no significant relationship between Resignation and WE.
The regression analyses found the following relationships with controls: management level accounted for 6% variance in career satisfaction, 3% variance of WE and only 1% variance in happiness; marital status and number of children were predictors of emotional wellbeing (1% variance) and physical wellbeing (2% variance); age was positively related to
WE (2% variance).
73 Table 4.2. Hierarchical regression results predicting various indicators of subjective success in working women (N = 258)
______
Career Satisfaction Happiness Emotional Wellbeing Physical Wellbeing Work Engagement
______
Predictor variable B SEB ß R² B SEB ß R² B SEB ß R² B SEB ß R² B SEB ß R² ______
Step 1 Constant .89 .65 5.80 .85 5.05 .49 4.14 .58 3.35 .72 Age .09 .13 .05 .00 .16 .00 .08 .09 .06 .07 .11 .04 .31 .14 .16* Education .09 .12 .05 .00 -.15 .15 -.06 .01 -.03 .09 -.02 .00 -.02 .10 -.01 .00 -.12 .13 -.05 .02 Step 2 Marital status .13 .06 -.10 -.15 .16 -.06 .13 .06 -.10 .13 .11 -.10 -.12 .14 -.06 No. of children -.17 .05 .09 .01 -.07 .17 -.03 .02 -.17 .05 .09 .01 .13 .11 .09 .02 .10 .14 .05 .02 Step 3 Management lvl .53 .12 .27*** .07*** -.34 .15 -.14* .03 .53 .12 .27 .01 -.14 .10 -.09 .02 .30 .13 .13* .05** Step 4 Resilience .09 .09 .07 .25 .11 .14* .03 .06 .03 .06 .07 .06 .22 .08 .15* Denial .27 .06 .30*** .11 .08 .10 .07 .04 .11 .11 .05 .01 .18 .10 .19** Acceptance .03 .07 .03 -.06 .09 -.05 -.06 .05 -.09 .04 .06 .05 .03 .07 -.16* Resignation -.01 .08 -.01 .17*** -.24 .10 -.17* .10** -.20 .11 -.25** .10*** -.21 .07 -.21** .07* -.16 .09 .02 .12** ______
Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
74
4.5 Discussion
This study is the first to shed light on the connections between subjective career success and
women's beliefs about glass ceilings. Thus, we achieved the aim of the study by finding
evidence for the concurrent criterion validity of the CPS. Our results supported hypotheses
based on the 4-factor structure of women's glass ceiling beliefs which is measured by the
CPS.
Clearly, we cannot confidently infer any cause-and-effect relationships due to the use
of cross-sectional data. However, the findings from our series of hierarchical regressions
suggest the four glass ceiling factors may be antecedents for subject success. If the direction of influence is supported by longitudinal and experimental studies, there could be important consequences for organizations and their female workers. The relationships found in this study provide hints for lifting the subjective success of women working in organizations.
This could lead to major benefits for organizations as many studies have shown that work
performance is lifted by increases in the five indicators of subjective career success that were
measured in this study, i.e., career satisfaction and happiness (Fisher, 2010; Lyubomirsky,
King, & Diener, 2005), emotional wellbeing (Wright & Cropanzano, 2000; Wright,
Cropanzano, & Bonett, 2007), physical health (Judge & Hurst, 2008) and work engagement
(Bakker et al., 2008; Gallop Consulting, 2009).
A range of findings from regression and correlational analyses supported the four groups of hypotheses proposed for this study. The study found significant relationships between each of the glass ceiling factors and the subjective success constructs. However, there was only partial support for the four sets of hypotheses as several predicted relationships were not found. This might be due to a difference in strength of relationships between glass ceiling beliefs and outcomes. We had suggested in our description of the
75 theoretical framework of glass ceiling beliefs, that Resilience represented the most optimistic
of the glass ceiling beliefs and Denial was less optimistic than Resilience. It is clear from our
conceptualization of Resignation that it contains the most pessimistic beliefs, with
Acceptance being less pessimistic. Consequently, Resilience should have shown the strongest
positive relationships with subjective success, and Resignation should have shown the
strongest negative relationships. Inspection of the findings of the regression analyses (Table
4.2) indicates this proposed hierarchy of optimism is not fully supported. Resilience only had small (but significant) coefficients in predicting happiness and WE. In contrast, Denial was the strongest predictor of career satisfaction and WE. However, Resignation was the only significant predictor of emotional and physical wellbeing. As expected, these relationships were negative. Acceptance also showed a predicted negative relationship with WE. In sum, findings from the regression analyses suggest Denial has the strongest positive association with subjective success and Resignation has the most negative associations. The theoretical uncertainty behind these findings warrants further investigation.
There are several theoretical and future research implications of the findings from this study. Our search of the literature on the career advancement and subjective career success of women found no theoretical models that incorporate the construct of glass ceiling attitudes.
Therefore, we considered Denial, Acceptance, Resilience and Resignation as expressions of optimism or pessimism. Our findings suggest optimistic (and pessimistic) thoughts that women have about being promoted in organizations are positively (and negatively) related to a range of success constructs. This is an important contribution to the literature on optimism, both dispositional and explanatory style, as it provides evidence about connections with optimism from a domain not previously investigated. Further, this domain-specific evidence gives new support to the theoretical link between positive/negative thoughts and
76 positive/negative behaviour which is at the basis of cognitive behavior therapy (Beck 1976).
Most importantly, the findings also suggest theories explaining the wellbeing of working
women should consider the multiple connections with women's attitudes towards glass
ceilings.
We recommend that more research is needed to clarify the relationships between glass
ceiling beliefs and optimism/pessimism in everyday life. Therefore, we suggest future
research into glass ceiling beliefs also incorporate measures such as the revised Life
Orientation Test (LOT-R; Scheier et al., 1994) to assess dispositional optimism and the
Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982) to measure explanatory style
optimism. In addition, future studies using the CPS could incorporate testing with the
Workplace Explanations Survey (Smith, Caputi, & Crittenden, 2012a) which has been
developed specifically to measure optimism for subjects working in organizations. The use of
any of these measures will allow the concurrent validity of the CPS to be further tested.
4.5.1 Practical implications
Some suggestions about practical implications follow from our findings. Whilst they must be
seen as speculations about glass ceiling beliefs influencing subjective success, the
suggestions are supported by a comparison of the amounts of variance explained by glass
ceiling factors versus the controls (age, education, marital status, number of children and
management level). In each of the five regression analyses, glass ceiling beliefs accounted for more variance than the combined effect of the control variables.
Organizations might consider providing training programs to analyze glass ceiling beliefs after testing with the CPS. The CPS could be incorporated in recruitment testing and
annual reviews. This may then be a beneficial strategy to help women identify reasons for
77 their career goals. It would help support women seeking career advancement, and at the same time, encourage others who are reticent about promotions. In particular, those women who score high on Resignation could benefit from training and development courses that help them examine the validity of their negative thoughts about women seeking promotions.
However, if it is found that an organization's structure and actions do indeed lead to
Resignation, major changes will be needed before women in that organization can dismiss their negative beliefs.
Women who express an ambition to become part of upper management, could gain insights by analysing their levels of Resilience and Denial. High Acceptance scores could help identify women with little or no ambition to be promoted, yet would benefit from professional development whilst maintaining their level in the organization. Finally, feedback from CPS testing might also facilitate women gaining greater awareness of the possible causes for their subjective success in organizations.
4.5.2 Limitations and future research
Further validation studies of the CPS are necessary. It is recommended construct validity be investigated with confirmatory factor analysis, preferably involving cross-cultural studies to extend the ecological validity of the CPS. Convergent validity could be assessed by administering the CPS in combination with an instrument such as Women As Managers Scale
(Terborg et al., 1977) or the Managerial Attitudes Toward Women Executives Scale (Dubno et al., 1979). Even though both of these measures are unidimensional, higher scores suggest negative beliefs about female managers.
Another limitation of this study was the reliance on self-reported data. Future research could include objective assessments of emotional and physical health, as well an important
78 variable not measured in this study, work performance. This could be collected in anonymous
reviews given by superiors and colleagues.
At present there is no empirical evidence to show that glass ceiling beliefs are stable
individual differences. If longitudinal studies provide evidence of the stability of glass
ceilings beliefs, they might be considered as relevant as personality traits, an area that has
been extensively examined for its role in subjective career success (Heller, Watson, Ilies,
2004; Judge, Heller, & Mount, 2002; Judge, Ilies, & Dimotakis, 2010). Research into the
relationships between personality traits and glass ceilings attitudes would be a valuable
addition to career success literature.
There are other limitations in the present study and these point to future research.
First, a much larger sample of women at the top level of management is needed. Only 23 women from this category participated in the study. It is recommended that future research incorporate an important variable: career category. Major differences might be found in women's attitudes toward glass ceilings across areas such as heavy industry, finance, retail sales, education, government, health, social services and trades. Directions for future research also include longitudinal studies to determine whether glass ceiling beliefs are affected by changes in employers or careers.
4.5.3 Conclusions
It is predicted that glass ceilings will continue to be a problem facing women for at least 50 years. Progress toward gender parity in leadership in the last decade has been slow.
Therefore, it is important to continue and broaden research into this inequality. The present study has played a role in expanding the literature on glass ceilings by providing insights into the relationships between women's glass ceiling beliefs and major indicators of subjective
79 career success. We found further support for the psychometric properties of a new measure, the CPS. There are practical implications which could provide new directions for research into the causes and consequences of glass ceilings by looking at the roles of optimism and pessimism. Hopefully, this might help break glass ceilings and lead to greater representation of women in top levels of management. Finally, we found strong support for the measurement of glass ceiling beliefs with the CPS to be incorporated in future research.
80 CHAPTER 5
Measuring optimism in organizations: Development of a
workplace explanatory style questionnaire
5.1 Introduction
Seligman (1991, 2006, 2011) has popularized the role of optimism/pessimism in predicting depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and physical health, as well as achieving success in business, education, sport and politics. However, he describes a markedly different way of looking at optimism compared to the everyday view that links optimism to expectations of future events (Carver, Scheier, Miller, & Fulford, 2009). Seligman and other researchers measure optimism by analysing explanations for hypothetical scenarios (Peterson
& Steen, 2009). This approach has led to hundreds of studies of explanatory style, the habitual, long-term way we explain why things happen (Dykema, Bergbower, Doctora, &
Peterson, 1996). Diverse collections of hypothetical events have been used to construct many different measures called explanatory (or attributional) style questionnaires. Peterson and
Seligman (1984) recommend 'explanatory style' as a replacement for attributional style even though their primary research instrument is the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ;
Peterson et al., 1982). We support this name change as 'explanation' is more likely to be used and understood by a layperson than 'attribution'. The terms explanatory style and attributional style are now used interchangeably in empirical research (Ciarrochi, Heaven, & Davies,
2007; Dykema et al., 1996; Hewitt, Foxcroft, & MacDonald, 2004).
It should be noted that explanatory style is also measured by assessing explanations for real-life situations. This involves a technique called Content Analysis of Verbatim
Explanations (CAVE) which was developed by Peterson, Luborsky and Seligman (1983).
81 CAVE has been used in diverse research, including the investigation of the role of
explanatory style in politics (Zullow, Oettingen, Peterson, & Seligman, 1988), stability of explanatory style over 52 years (Burns & Seligman 1989) and predicting physical health over
a 30 year period (Peterson et al., 1988). However, the CAVE technique is used in relatively
few studies, possibly because it is more time consuming than using explanatory style
questionnaires as it requires the training of judges to independently rate explanations over
three dimensions. Therefore, it was not surprising to find only one study that used CAVE to
investigate the relationship of explanatory style with occupational and organizational success
(Henry, 2005).
An explanatory style is a tendency to explain events in a particular manner. It is most
commonly based on three dimensions: internality (level of personal responsibility), stability
(temporary versus long-lasting causes) and globality (specific versus generalized causes)
(Peterson & Chang, 2003). An example of a global explanation for a drop in productivity in a
company would be “There is no communication from managers.” A specific, much less
generalized explanation is “One manager acts like a bully.” An explanation containing a
stable cause is: “Staff are never interested in any new training.” Alternatively, a temporary,
less stable explanation would be “The last couple of training sessions were poor.” Seligman
and his colleagues argue that an optimistic person is someone with an optimistic explanatory
style which in turn means they tend to rely on external, temporary and specific causes when
explaining problems, setbacks and failures. Alternatively, a person who is likely to explain
successes and other positive events with internal, long-lasting and generalized causes is also
said to have an optimistic explanatory style (Peterson & Steen, 2009; Seligman, 1991;
Seligman et al., 1995). Therefore, explanatory style theory defines a pessimist as someone
who prefers to explain negative situations with internal, stable and generalized causes or
82 explains good events with external, temporary and specific causes (Seligman, 1991).
Seligman (1991, 2011) posits that an optimistic explanatory style increases chances of success in many areas because it leads to greater determination and resilience. Studies have shown that an optimistic explanatory style leads to success in areas such as sales performance
(Corr & Gray, 1995; Corr & Gray 1996a; Seligman & Schulman, 1986), education (Peterson
& Barrett, 1987) and sport (Gordon, 2008; Martin-Krumm, Sarrazin, Peterson, & Famose,
2003; Seligman, Nolen-Hoeksema, Thornton, & Thornton, 1990; Sellers & Peterson, 1993).
In all of these studies, it was necessary to combine scores from the individual dimensions to achieve satisfactory criterion validity. This process creates composite scores, one each for
negative and positive events, respectively called CoNeg and CoPos, as well as a total score
called CPCN which is calculated by subtracting CoNeg from CoPos. There is a widespread
practice among explanatory style researchers to bolster alpha coefficients to acceptable levels
by combining scores from subscales.
Unfortunately, very few empirical studies over the last decade have explored the
relationship between explanatory style and success in organizations. In addition, Martinko,
Douglas and Harvey (2006) state in their review of attribution theory that it is surprising that
little has been done to implement the principles of explanatory style theory into
organizational training. Only a few studies have been reported that used training to develop optimistic explanatory styles. However, these interventions have achieved major success with diverse groups, including insurance salespeople (Proudfoot et al., 2009), long-term
unemployed (Proudfoot, Guest, Carson, Dunn, & Gray, 1997) schoolchildren and their
teachers in suburban and inner-city schools, ranging from Philadelphia to Beijing (Seligman
et al., 1995; Seligman, 2011). In Australia, the Geelong Grammar School recently trained 160
teachers at the school to help develop optimism among the students and staff (Norrish &
83 Vella-Brodrick, 2009; White, 2009). Finally, the US Army is presently implementing a resilience training program involving 900,000 soldiers that aims to develop optimistic explanatory styles. This program was initiated to help reduce levels of depression and PTSD in military personnel (Seligman, 2011).
The present paper will proceed in the following manner. First, we undertake an in- depth review of 15 explanatory style questionnaires. Our aim is to clarify the often contradictory theoretical and structural aspects of these measures. We then highlight persistent psychometric concerns, that is, many measures have poor internal reliabilities
(Furnham, Brewin, & O’Kelly, 1994). Further, we consider how relevant the hypothetical scenarios are for workers in various organizations. Taken together, the review will help explain why we support a plea made two decades ago by Peterson (1991a) that criticisms of explanatory style measures should not stifle interest in this valuable construct. We concur with Peterson and indeed, we posit the opposite is much more preferable. The development of new explanatory style scales with strong psychometric and theoretical foundations is likely to facilitate optimism research. This could lead to more interventions, especially optimism training in corporate settings. Therefore, in the final part of this paper we describe the development of a new explanatory style instrument called the Workplace Explanations
Survey. It is designed to measure optimism in any organizational setting, including corporate, educational, medical, sporting and military.
5.2 Evolution and variation of explanatory style measures
In this section we review the diversity of formats and evolution of explanatory style measures. Developed in 1982, the ASQ is still the most commonly used measure of explanatory style (Peterson & Steen, 2009). It measures optimism by providing six negative
84 and six positive hypothetical scenarios, and asks the participant to write a single cause for each event. The respondent then rates each cause along the three dimensions of internality, stability and globality on 7-point scales. Thus, the ASQ consists of 36 items as none of the 12 written causes are analysed by the researcher (Peterson et al., 1982). The initial motivation
for the development of measures based on the ASQ was primarily psychometric. In response
to criticisms of low internal consistencies of the six sub-scales of the ASQ, the Expanded
Attributional Style Questionnaire was developed (EASQ; Peterson & Villanova, 1988).
Peterson observed that “impetus for creating the EASQ lies in the unsatisfactory reliabilities
of the original ASQ” (Peterson 1991c, p. 180). The EASQ maintained the format of the ASQ
except it was lengthened to include 24 negative events, six of which came from the ASQ. All
positive events were omitted. This resulted in an improvement in the reliability with alpha
coefficients for the individual dimensions being .66 for internality, .85 for stability and .88
for globality respectively (Peterson & Villanova, 1988). Chang and Sanna (2007) used the
EASQ to compare levels of pessimism in undergraduates and their parents. Notably, six
events were dropped for the testing of the parents “given the questionable frequency or
relevance to this population” (Chang & Sanna, 2007, p. 1152).
Abramson and Metalsky developed the Cognitive Style Questionnaire (CSQ) in 1989
as an expanded and modified version of the ASQ, and it has been used in more than 30
published investigations (Haeffel et al., 2008). However, it was nearly two decades before a
detailed report on its psychometric properties was published (Haeffel et al., 2008).
Furthermore, Peterson, who was a member of the separate teams that developed the ASQ and
the EASQ, also helped construct another explanatory style measure called the New
Attributional Style Questionnaire (NASQ; Dykema et al., 1996) which assesses explanations
for 12 negative events on only two dimensions: stability and globality. It appears the NASQ
85 is rarely used in empirical studies.
There is a popular untitled explanatory style questionnaire in Seligman's book,
Learned Optimism (1991). It has a forced-choice format with 24 positive and 24 negative events. Readers are provided with instructions to allow self-assessment of optimism levels.
Cheng and Furnham (2003) used this questionnaire to examine the relationship between explanatory style and self-esteem. They described the 48-item measure as another version of the ASQ, and consequently referred to it as the ASQ even though they note that no internal reliability is included in Seligman's book. However, Seligman stated that the instrument has been validated in many private studies carried out by American companies (personal communication, August 31, 1994). Cheng and Furnham (2003) provide the only known report on the internal reliability of this instrument. They found low Cronbach alphas for composite scores: CoNeg = .59, CoPos = .47, CPCN = .57 with no results for individual dimensions.
Cutrona et al. (1985) have challenged the cross-situational consistency of explanatory style. Instead, they recommend the assessment of explanatory style for specific domains. This proposal is supported by Ashforth and Fugate (2006) who state: “It is clear that a domain- specific measure of attributional style should more strongly predict certain outcomes than would a more generalized measure of attributional style” (p. 12). Researchers agreeing with this assumption have developed a wide range of domain specific attributional measures: the
Academic Attributional Style Questionnaire (AASQ; Peterson & Barrett, 1987), the Sport
Attributional Style Scale (SASS; Hanrahan, Grove, & Hattie, 1989), the Children's
Attributional Style Questionnaire (CASQ; Seligman et al., 1984) and the Children's
Attributional Style Questionnaire-Revised (CASQ-R; Thompson, Kaslow, Weiss, & Nolen-
Hoeksema, 1998).
86 Eight measures have been identified that assess explanatory styles specifically for work domains. These instruments are the Occupational Attributional Style Questionnaire
(OASQ-a; Furnham, Sadka, & Brewin, 1992), Occupational Attributional Style
Questionnaire - Revised (OASQ-a Rev; Furnham, Brewin, & O’Kelly, 1994), Organizational
Attributional Style Questionnaire (OASQ-b; Kent & Martinko, 1995), Organizational
Attributional Style Questionnaire II (OASQ-b II; Douglas & Martinko, 2001), Financial
Services Attributional Style Questionnaire (FSASQ; Proudfoot, Corr, Guest, & Gray, 2001),
Work Attributional Style Questionnaire (WASQ; Ashforth & Fugate, 2006), Leader
Attributional Style Questionnaire (LASQ; Martinko, Moss, Douglas, & Borkowski, 2007) and Member Attributional Style Questionnaire (MASQ; Martinko et al., 2007). Table 5.1 shows a summary of the structural formats and internal reliabilities of the 15 explanatory style measures listed in this discussion.
The OASQ-a was “closely modelled on the ASQ in terms of its basic format, instruction and response scales” (Furnham et al., 1992, p.30). This description appears to be at odds with the structure of the OASQ-a which asks participants to rate their explanations over nine dimensions instead of the three found in the ASQ. The dimensions in the OASQ-a are internality, stability, probability, externality, chance, personal control, colleague control, forseeability and importance. Welbourne and her colleagues (2007) used the OASQ-a in a study of job satisfaction. The participants were 190 nurses and the study found positive occupational explanatory style associated with positive coping styles and greater career satisfaction (Welbourne et al., 2007). Proudfoot and her colleagues (2001) believed the reliabilities of the OASQ-a could be improved by expanding the number of hypothetical situations from 10 to 16. This led to the development of the FSASQ (Proudfoot et al., 2001).
However, most of the situations are not applicable outside the finance services sector.
87 Developed in 1995, the OASQ-b “applies specifically to attributions regarding negative organizational outcomes relating to areas such as pay, performance, evaluations and training opportunities” (Campbell & Martinko 1998, p. 182). It uses a seven-point Likert scale and the initial dimensions were controllability, stability, and intentionality. Externality was added to the revised format and the number of scenarios was reduced to eight (Douglas
& Martinko, 2001). The OASQ-b has been used in research on workplace aggression and revenge (Douglas & Martinko, 2001). Chiu and Peng (2008) used a modified version of this scale in an investigation of employee deviance.
5.3 Explanations for positive or negative events?
The next component of our review of explanatory style measures focuses on a dichotomy of definitions of explanatory style. Some researchers take the broader view that includes explanations for both positive and negative events (e.g., Martin-Krumm, Sarrazin, &
Peterson, 2005). This approach allows a person to have three possible explanatory styles, one each for good and bad scenarios, or a single composite of both. Other researchers limit the definition to explanations of negative events (e.g., Dykema et al., 1996; Sanjuan &
Magallares 2009). The situation is further complicated given that different approaches have been taken even by the same researchers. For instance, Seligman and Peterson have often restricted explanatory style to negative events (e.g., Jackson, Sellers, & Peterson, 2002;
Peterson & Barrett, 1987; Peterson, 1991a; Peterson et al., 1988; Sellers & Peterson, 1993) as well as extending the definition to include positive and negative events (e.g., Peterson &
Steen, 2009; Schulman, Castellon, & Seligman, 1989; Seligman 1991).
The observed differences in what constitutes explanatory style might result from the question of whether explanations for positive and negative events are two sides of a single
88 coin, or two separate coins. There is strong evidence to support the latter view as explanatory
styles based on either good or bad events are often independent of each other (Peterson
1991a; Xenikou, 2005). Therefore, Peterson (1991a, 1991b) argues against the use of a single explanatory style, that which results from combining the scores for explanations of negative events with explanations of positive events. He stated that a “composite cannot be justified until there is a theoretical reason that compels it” (Peterson 1991a p.4). His warning is frequently rejected by researchers who use a composite of bad and good events to measure explanatory style (e.g., Cheng & Furnham, 2003; Ciarrochi & Heaven, 2008; Gordon 2008;
Seligman 1991; Thompson et al., 1998). Sometimes, even Peterson includes the composite of positive and negative events in his research (Martin-Krumm et al., 2005).
Furnham and his colleagues (1992) found a significant relationship between
explanations for positive work-related events (measured by the OASQ-a) and organizational
status, salary, job satisfaction and motivation. This contradicted findings that showed
explanations for negative situations, and not those for positive events, were predictors of success (Peterson & Barrett, 1987; Seligman, 1991; Seligman & Schulman, 1986; Sellers &
Peterson, 1993). However, there are concerns as the OASQ-a was validated on a small
sample of only 53 men and 37 women. In two predictive validity studies of the ASQ, Corr
and Gray (1995; 1996a) found explanatory style based on explanations of positive events
correlated with insurance sales performance, which was measured by prospects obtained and
sales of policies. These studies with large British insurance companies did not support the
findings in American insurance sales which showed explanations for negative events
predicted performance (Seligman & Schulman, 1986). In contrast, Xenikou, Furnham, &
McCarrey (1997) argue that explanatory style based on negative events has greater reliability
and validity than measures of positive events. They cite Burns and Seligman (1989) who
89 showed that explanatory style for negative situations was stable over a 52 year period of adult life, but there was no stability for explanations of positive events. No other longitudinal study could be found which investigated the stability of explanatory style over a period beyond a year. Typical of longitudinal studies is the 5-week test-retest correlation study done in the original validation of the ASQ with 100 undergraduates (Peterson et al., 1982).
Peterson (1991a) offers a range of reasons for relegating and even ignoring explanatory styles based on positive events. He suggests that people are less mindful when thinking about positive events less likely to provide deep thinking, and more likely to rely on clichés for positive situations. He recommends that further research is needed to discover why explanatory style for bad events is independent of that for good events. This suggestion appears to have been ignored. Peterson sums up the situation by stating that explanatory style based on negative situations has more robust correlates than a positive event explanatory style (Peterson & Steen, 2009).
5.4 Internal consistencies of explanatory style questionnaires
In this section we examine the major psychometric concern about explanatory style questionnaires. The ASQ has often been criticised for the poor internal consistency of its dimensions (Carver & Scheier, 1991; Peterson, 1991c; Proudfoot et al., 2001). In the original study describing the development of the ASQ, Peterson and his colleagues (1982) report the following Cronbach alphas for the three dimensions of explanations for negative scenarios:
.50 (internality), .58 (stability) and .44 (globality). The respective alpha coefficients for positive scenarios were .46, .59, .69. Higgins and Hay (2003) also found low reliability coefficients for ASQ dimensions. In their optimism measurements of 218 university undergraduates, the Cronbach alphas for negative event dimensions were .42 (internality), .46
90 (stability) and .46 (globality). The respective alphas for negative event dimensions were .36,
.52 and .62. The OASQ-a has also been accused of the same major shortcoming (Heaven
1994; Kent & Martinko, 1995) and other measures of attributional style have low to moderate
internal consistencies even when dimensions are combined to form composite scores. For
example, the alpha coefficients in the CASQ-R were .53 for positive events and .45 for
negative events. (Thompson et al., 1998).
The internal reliabilities of the 15 measures in this review can be seen in Table 5.1.
This shows that there are only four explanatory style questionnaires that have satisfactory internal consistency (reaching at least .70) for all individual dimensions. These are the EASQ,
OASQ-b, NASQ, FSASQ. However, the EASQ contains only negative scenarios, many of which are only relevant to undergraduate students (Peterson & Villanova, 1988). Also, the
OASQ-b also contains only negative events and two of its three dimensions, controllability
and intentionality, are not used by other explanatory style researchers. Similarly, the NASQ
assesses negative scenarios, and only on stability and globality. As stated previously, the
NASQ appears to be rarely used in research. Finally, the FSASQ, whilst it does assess
positive and negative situations on three dimensions, is specifically designed for the financial
services sector.
91 Table 5.1 Structural formats and internal reliabilities of 15 explanatory style questionnaires ______
Explanatory style Dimensions Reliabilities of Situations for measure measured dimensions explanations ______
ASQ (1982) Internality, stability, globality .44 to .69 6 negatives/6 positives AASQ (1987) Internality, stability, globality .84 (Composite of 12 negatives Intern/Stab/Glob) EASQ (1988) Internality, stability, globality .66 to .88 24 negatives CSQ (1989) Internality stability, globality, .83 to .91 (Composites) 12 negatives & consequences, self-worth 12 positives (fillers) EASQ-S (1991) Internality, stability, globality .52 to .87 12 negatives Unnamed measure in Internality, stability, globality .47 to .59 (Composites) 24 negatives/24 positives Learned optimism (1991) (48 forced-choice items) OASQ-a (1992) Internality, externality, .44 to .79 5 negatives/5 positives stability, probability, chance, personal control, colleague control, forseeability OASQ-a Rev (1994) Internality, externality, .50 to .64 8 negatives/8 positives stability, globality, personal control OASQ-b (1995) Stability, controllability, .70 to .80 16 negatives intentionality OASQ-b II (2001) Externality, stability, .89 (Composite) 8 negatives controllability, intentionality NASQ (1996) Stability, globality .74 to .81 12 negatives FSASQ (2001) Internality, stability, globality .76 to .88 8 negatives/8 positives WASQ (2006) Internality, stability, globality, .48 to .74 6 negatives/6 positives controllability LASQ (2007) Internality, stability .73 (Composite) 9 negatives MASQ (2007) Internality, stability .78 (Composite) 9 negatives
______
Criticisms have been made about the scarcity of the use of confirmatory factor analysis
(CFA) to confirm the three dimensional structure in the ASQ (Hewitt et al., 2004). In a Dutch study, Arntz, Gerlsma and Albersnagel (1985) found only weak evidence for ASQ dimensions after using confirmatory factor analysis. They also reported weak predictive and discriminant validity of the subscales. However, the findings of Arntz et al. were based on their study of Dutch adolescents (mean age of 14.9 years), not adults. Even though some questions were modified to be more suited to teenagers, the researchers ignored the fact that
92 the ASQ was designed for adults (Peterson et al., 1982). The findings of Arntz et al. (1985) were contradicted by a large study carried out by Hewitt and her colleagues (2004). They carried out multi-trait CFA of only half of the ASQ. They selected the negative event explanations for a study with 2748 university students from England and New Zealand. Their
CFA findings supported the three-dimension structure (internality, stability, globality) of the
ASQ for the negative event explanations (Hewitt et al., 2004). Corr and Gray (1996b) examined the factors in the ASQ and found internality loaded on a different factor to a factor combining stability and globality.
Although the EASQ has better psychometric properties than the original ASQ, the
ASQ continues to be the preferred measure (Peterson & Steen, 2009). Peterson, a developer of the EASQ, admitted that the format was too long, taking up to 30 minutes to complete, and a considerable number of items are often not attempted (Dykema et al., 1996). Furthermore,
18 of the 24 scenarios in the questionnaire are most relevant to undergraduate lifestyles.
Jackson et al. (2002) used the EASQ to determine the interrelationship between explanatory style, stress and physical illness in college students. Whitley (1991) constructed a shortened
12 negative event version of the EASQ (EASQ-S). In two separate studies he found the
EASQ-S provided lower Cronbach alphas than those obtained from the EASQ, but much higher than those of the ASQ. The internal consistency reliabilities of the EASQ-S were .65 and .52 and (internality); .79 and .79 (stability), and .87 and .76 and (globality). Peterson
(1991c) rejected the need for the EASQ-S, stating the short form was a step backwards as it had lower reliabilities than the EASQ.
Xenikou (2005) reported that results of research into the relationship between explanatory styles and job performance have been inconsistent. She used a modified version of the OASQ-a with eight scenarios to investigate the separate effects of explanations for
93 positive and negative events, as well as their interaction. Xenikou (2005) rejects any relevance of the internality dimension which is assessed the ASQ and other explanatory style measures. She argues that internality is not relevant as it predicts self-esteem, not motivation, and bases her proposition on a revision of the reformulated theory of learned helplessness
(Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989) which played a major role in the development of explanatory style theory (Peterson & Steen, 2009). Peterson and Steen also agree that the internality dimension “has more inconsistent correlates than stability or globality, it is less reliably assessed, and there are theoretical grounds for doubting its impact on expectations”
(Peterson & Steen, 2009, p. 316).
5.5 Face validity of hypothetical scenarios
In an early critique of the ASQ, Tennen and Herzberger (1985) point out that several of the hypothetical events in the measure are irrelevant to some groups of people and recommend using scenarios with much broader relevance to the general population. In this section we suggest a possible reason for the low internal consistency connected to explanatory style measures. An extensive number of situations included in various attributional style measures appear to have limited face validity. Three of the twelve situations in the ASQ deal with romantic and personal relationships and are likely to have little relevance to a broad range of the population. These are: “You go out on a date and it goes badly”, “Your spouse
(boyfriend/girlfriend) has been treating you more lovingly”, “You meet a friend who compliments you on your appearance”.
Even though the EASQ contains twice the number of situations found in the ASQ, it has a much larger potential for low face validity. Six scenarios are taken from ASQ plus 18 that specifically describe college/university related situations (Peterson & Villanova, 1988).
94 The AASQ was deliberately designed for a narrow domain, but a rich source of psychological research, university undergraduates. It contains outcomes such as “You do not have high enough grades to switch to your desired major”. Likewise, the CSQ has more limited ecological validity than the EASQ as it was developed to specifically test undergraduates
(Haeffel et al., 2008). It covers scholastic areas such as college coursework and romantic relationships. When the situations listed in the ASQ are compared to the narrow range of those in the EASQ, AASQ and CSQ, it is easy to see why the ASQ is the most commonly used measure of attributional style (Peterson & Steen, 2009).
The FSASQ was designed for the narrow domain of selling insurance and hence, has very little application to other occupations or the general population. Whilst the FSASQ contains sales performance scenarios, many of these are not applicable to many types of sales careers. For example, “You fail your licensing exam”, “You recruit a team of consultants and they leave”, “You have found a significant number of good prospective clients”, “You earn more than $4000 commission on one case”. The WASQ contains the following positive events and their negative counterparts: “You surpass your sales quota”, “The performance of your subordinates has gotten steadily better”, “You do not meet your sales quota”, “The performance of your subordinates has gotten steadily worse”. For reasons given, above these situations provide limited face validity, even though this instrument was designed for a broad range of work settings (Ashforth & Fugate, 2006).
5.6 Development of the Workplace Explanations Survey
We now describe the development the Workplace Explanations Survey (WES), an explanatory style questionnaire that we designed for use in any organizational setting. Our present review provides a range of insights for the development of new explanatory style
95 questionnaires. The review revealed that those measures containing only negative scenarios
were much more likely to show satisfactory alpha coefficients. However we decided to
incorporate both negative and positive events for two reasons. First, we agree with Haeffel et
al. (2008) who recommend that it is necessary to include some positive events to reduce the
likelihood of response set bias. Second, there are contradictory results regarding whether
explanations of positive or negative events predict success in corporate settings. The
development of the WES is an exploratory study and therefore, we included both negative
and positive scenarios (see Table 5.2).
The WES contains 16 hypothetical scenarios, eight negative and eight positive. These were chosen from a group of 30 events that had been extensively trialled by the lead author in optimism training workshops over a 10 year period. The workshops were delivered to business, educational, sport, military and governmental organizations in Australia. The face validity of the 16 scenarios was supported by feedback from naval officers, nurses, schoolteachers and principals, professional sportspeople and their coaches, local government managers and staff, plus employees from mining, engineering, transport, banking and finance organizations. This indicates the 16 scenarios have high face validity for a wide range of organizational settings.
Before each of the explanatory style optimism training sessions that I presented (at least 100 over 10 years), all participants provided written single sentence explanations for each of 20 workplace situations. They were then analysed by this researcher who at the time was the proprietor of a training business. Feedback was given to participants in the form of individual written reports at the sessions. The situations were continually changed over a 10- year period as participant feedback regarding the relevance to their workplace was requested at every session. I asked all workshop participants (estimated at 2000+) whether the
96 situations were likely to occur in their organizations and sought suggestions for new
situations. Whilst no written submissions were requested from participants, the length of
sessions (half/full day) allowed detailed feedback to be received. This exhaustive 10-year
collection of workplace situations resulted in the 16 scenarios relevant to a wide variety of
organizations being incorporated in the Workplace Explanations Survey. The 16 chosen items
for the WES received the most positive reviews over most organizations. Among the 14
scenarios not chosen, many received ambivalent support. For example, the scenario 'You are
told by a work colleague that you are being overconfident' was rated by professional
sportspeople as highly likely to happen. In contrast, workshop participants from non-sport
organizations strongly asserted that the scenario would not occur at their workplaces.
Therefore, this was not included in the final selection of 16 items. The collection of scenarios
is based on real life situations that were described in individual coaching consultations carried out by the lead author with members of diverse organizations.
97 Table 5.2 Hypothetical events in the WES
______
Situation Workplace event ______
1 You do some work that is highly praised.
2 A work colleague doesn't follow your instructions. 3 You are given a promotion. 4 You can't finish a project on time. 5 You are asked to be leader of a team. 6 You apply unsuccessfully for a position. 7 You achieve the best results of anyone in your team. 8 A co-worker criticises you. 9 A company/organization is keen for you to join them. 10 You are involved in a workplace accident. 11 Your strong commitment is recognised at a meeting. 12 You are late for a work appointment. 13 A co-worker asks you for some important advice. 14 You are feeling run-down at work. 15 You make a major contribution to the success of a project. 16 A superior in your organization ignores several suggestions you make. ______
There was also the question of how many scenarios to include. Peterson and Seligman (1984)
suggested that one reason for the modest alpha coefficients in the ASQ is the small number of
items, that is, only six positives and six negatives. Similarly, Proudfoot et al. (2001) argued
that having 16 scenarios in the FSASQ led to better internal reliability than that found in the
OASQ-a which has 10 scenarios. Therefore, we decided to include 16 situations in the WES.
Our present review showed there was a selection of 13 dimensions assessed by the 15
explanatory style questionnaires. The number in brackets indicates how many of the
98 measures used the dimension: Internality (12), Stability (15), Globality (10), Controllability
(3), Personal control (1), Colleague control (1), Externality (3), Intentionality (1),
Consequences (1), Forseeability (1), Self-worth (1), Probability (1) and Chance (1). We chose to use the most popular dimensions of internality, stability and globality because the theoretical support for these three dimensions was by far the strongest.
5.7 Method
5.7.1 Participants and procedure
A total of 341 participants (n = 236 women, n = 104 men, n = 1 unidentified sex) anonymously completed the WES and demographic details on a internet-based survey over the six month period that the contact website was kept open. In the study sample 60.6% were up to 40 years old, 32.9% occupied staff/supervisor positions and 45.1% worked in middle or top management. The majority of respondents had been in their present career for less than 20 years (69.3%), had occupied their present career/management level for less than 11 years
(71.3%) and possessed university degrees (50.7%).
Participants were reached by using the snowball sampling technique after the first author gave information sheets about the study to business chambers, women's network groups, community service clubs and human resource managers. The ethics clearance was given by the University’s Ethics Committee.
5.7.2 Measures
Demographics. Participants provided information on six demographic variables: sex, age, number of years spent in present career, career level, number of years at present career level,
99 education.
Workplace Explanations Survey. This 48-item questionnaire began with the following
instructions:
The following 48 questions are about EXPLANATIONS for situations that might
happen at work. For each question please IMAGINE the situation happening at your
workplace. Think of the MOST LIKELY REASON for each situation. Think about a
single reason. Then select the appropriate number for each question.
Each respondent then gave a rating from 1 to 7 on internality, stability and globality for each
of the 16 hypothetical scenarios. This was achieved by having the same three questions and
response scales following each scenario. Internality was assessed with the question: How
much are you responsible for causing this situation? The Likert response scale was 1 = Not
due to me to 7 = Totally due to me. Items labelled a in Tables 3 and 4 are those assessing internality. Stability was assessed with the question: Will the cause again be present in the future? The response scale was 1 = Never to 7 = Always. Items labelled b are those assessing stability. Globality was assessed with the question: Does this cause affect other parts of your life? The response scale was 1 = Only this situation to 7 = All areas of my life. Items labelled c are those assessing globality.
5.8 Results
5.8.1 Data analysis
All data analyses were conducted using SPSS Version 17.0. The following tests indicated the
100 data were suitable for factor analysis: Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant, χ2(276) =
2821, p < .001 and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was .88. We began with a factor analysis of the combined data for explanations of both the positive and negative scenarios. Analysis of this pool of responses using principal axis factoring and a promax rotation with Kaiser normalization revealed no meaningful factors.
Consequently, the data for negative situations and positive situations were analysed separately. Factor solutions of two, three and four were explored. The final factor solutions were conceptually meaningful and consistent with the dominant theoretical framework of explanatory style proposed by Peterson and Seligman (1984) and supported by prominent researchers such as Ciarrochi, Heaven and Davies (2007). Further, the factor solutions were the only ones with satisfactory internal consistency. All of the items related to negative situations (that is, even-numbered a, b, c situations) loaded on the expected factors of internality (8 items, α = .83), stability (8 items, α = .82) and globality (8 items, α = .87). The loadings are shown on Table 5.3.
101 Table 5.3 Factor loading for the 3-factor structure of the WES (Negative events) ______
Factor Loadings ______
Item No. 1 2 3
Globality 16c .81 8c .79 2c .72 4c .69 6c .57 10c .57 12c .54 14c .44 Internality 6a .77 16a .71 8a .65 14a .64 12a .56 10a .54 2a .49 4a .48 Stability 16b .71 8b .70 14b .66 12b .61 4b .60 10b .54 2b .50 6b .49
Three factors were initially extracted from data for positive scenarios. One factor contained only the ratings for Scenario 13: “A co-worker asks you for some important advice.” We explained this unexpected result by arguing the scenario could be interpreted as either positive, negative or neutral. Schulman and his colleagues (1989) list the conditions for an explanation to be suitable for explanatory style analysis. They state (p. 510): “The event must be unambiguously good or bad.” Therefore we deleted this question and repeated the analysis searching for two factors. The two factors extracted are clearly identified as
102 Internality/Stability (14 items, α = .87) and Globality (7 items, α = .84). The factor loadings are presented in Table 5.4.
Table 5.4 Factor loading for the 2-factor structure of the WES (Positive events) ______
Factor Loadings ______
Item No. 1 2
Internality/Stability 9a .65 15b .64 5b .63 15a .63 11a .61 3a .61 5a .60 9b .58 11b .57 7b .56 1a .54 7a .50 1b .49 3b .41 Globality 7c .86 15c .76 5c .67 11c .66 1c .59 9c .54 3c .54
Means, standard deviations, alpha coefficients and intercorrelations between the five factors can be seen in Table 5.5. As found in previous research, the present study showed there were significant intercorrelations between stability and globality for negative scenarios. However, there is an unexpected relationship between globality of negative situations with globality of positive situations (r = .57, p < .01). This finding suggests a person who gives global (non- specific) explanations for negative events will also do so when explaining positive events.
103 This implies a person can be optimistic for problems and at the same time be pessimistic
about personal workplace successes and achievements.
This unexpected contradiction led to us to search for more studies that show the
interrelationships between all six explanatory style dimensions. We discovered this is rarely
done. This is not unexpected as the analyses of explanatory style data most often rely on composite scores due poor internal consistency of individual dimensions. We found only three studies (Ashforth & Fugate, 2006; Peterson et al., 1982; Peterson & Seligman, 1984)
with dimension interrelationships and each show similar unexpected positive relationships
between globality for positive and negative situations (r = .24*, r = .24*, r = .19**, r =
.35**). Therefore, the relationship found in our study fits into the pattern reported by other
research, except our correlation is stronger. No explanations were given in the other three
papers. Taken together, the results show it may be inappropriate to carry out the common research practice of forming a total CPCN score by subtracting CoNeg from CoPos.
104 Table 5.5 Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and intercorrelations
______
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5
______
Negative events
1 Internality 4.24 0.98 (.83)
2 Stability 4.09 0.92 .45** (.82)
3 Globality 3.93 1.20 .43** .46** (.87)
Positive Events
4 Internality/Stability 5.42 0.69 .04 .12** -.01 (.87)
5 Globality 4.76 1.13 .11* .01 .57** .37** (.84)
______
Notes. N = 341. *p < .05; **p < .01. Coefficient alpha reliability estimates are listed on the diagonal in parentheses.
5.9 Discussion
Our review of the psychometric and theoretical properties of 15 explanatory style measures
confirmed ongoing criticism, made over several decades, about a psychometric weakness found in most explanatory style questionnaires. Many instruments show low levels of internal consistency and satisfactory Cronbach alphas are only achieved by combining scores from the individual dimensions. It has been necessary to utilise these composite scores to achieve satisfactory criterion validity in studies of explanatory style and success in business. We regard this as a major weakness of research into the organizational benefits of having employees with optimistic explanatory styles. By relying on composite scores, it is impossible to identify the relative contributions of dimensions toward success. Moreover, it
105 provides no clues as to which dimension(s) should be targeted in training sessions with
individual staff and management.
The current review also identified the need for the development of an alternative
measure of explanatory style, one which is specifically related to workplace events that can
occur in any organization. There is a need for a work-related explanatory style tool to focus
on a narrower domain of situations than that found in the ASQ which includes several situations most relevant to undergraduate students. However, it should avoid being too specific, such as the FSASQ which focuses on selling insurance. It is important for the measure to incorporate hypothetical scenarios that are truly found in a multitude of organizational structures. In the present study we describe the development of a new explanatory style questionnaire, the Workplace Explanations Survey (WES) which includes
16 scenarios that have been extensively trialled in many work sectors.
We discovered several insights to guide the design of the WES. Whilst nearly all of the measures with satisfactory alpha coefficients for individual dimensions used negative events, there were contradictory theories and research findings about the respective value of negative and positive scenarios. Therefore, as this was an exploratory study, we included eight negative and eight positives situations. This number was chosen as lower numbers of events had been linked to poor internal consistency of many measures, for example, the ASQ with six negatives and six positives. It was hoped the 16 scenarios in the WES had high face validity and we suggest this played an important role in achieving good internal consistency for the five factors extracted by principal axis factoring. All Cronbach alphas exceeded .80 and only one scenario was rejected. This left 8 items each for internality, stability and globality for negative events plus 14 items for internality/stability and 7 items for globality for positive events. Factor analysis results of the WES strongly supported the argument that
106 explanations for positive and negative situations are not two sides of a single coin. No
meaningful factors were found when positive and negative events were analysed as a single
group. Thus, our findings showed these explanations are on separate coins.
Our findings showed an unexpected correlation between globality of negative situations
with globality of positive situations (r = .57, p < .01). As we have noted above, no other
researchers have given explanations for this relationship when it has been reported in studies.
We suggest this unexpected positive correlation exists because it could be easier to list global reasons (instead of specific reasons) for both positive and negative scenarios, as listing specific reasons possibly requires deeper analysis. Peterson (1991a) proposes a similar argument for preferring explanations of negative events over positive events. We strongly recommend further investigation is warranted to explain and also understand the consequences of this relationship. Importantly, this finding suggests that the common research practice of forming a total CPCN score by subtracting CoNeg from CoPos should be reviewed and reconsidered.
The merging of internality and stability into a single factor for positive explanations was also an unexpected result. We offer a possible explanation of this merging of dimensions.
Several researchers have merged stability with globality (Cheng & Furnham, 2003; Ciarrochi et al., 2007; Seligman, 1991) and others have eliminated the internality factor for both positive and negative events (Dykema et al., 1996; Peterson & Chang, 2003). Factor analysis of the WES shows that internality is a separate dimension for negative events, but not for positive events. We assert that future studies may find the negative dimensions of the WES could have higher criterion and construct validity than the WES positive dimensions as found in other explanatory style research (Peterson, 1991a).
Whilst the results on the development of the WES are encouraging, there are of course
107 limitations which point to the need for further empirical studies. Because our research was
exploratory, we were unable to carry out confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Instead we
identified the five factors of the WES with principal axis factoring which is a technique
recommended for exploratory analysis (Allan & Bennett, 2010; Field, 2005). To carry out
CFA another sample of at least 300 participants is necessary (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007).
Therefore, we are presently planning to collect data for CFA, as well as for validity studies.
We are hopeful that other researchers will likewise undertake these important analyses.
Clearly, lack of validity studies is another limitation of our exploratory study.
Construct and criterion validity studies are required to examine theoretical commonalities. It
is expected dimensions of the WES will show significant relationships to job related attitudes and behaviors such as occupational self-efficacy, work engagement, job satisfaction, career advancement, positive and negative affect. Importantly, future research needs to investigate test-retest reliability. There is an extra limitation to the study regarding demographics, that is, the 341 subjects were not asked to provide demographic information on the type of organization in which they worked. Thus, we have no indication of the range of organizations involved. However, this does not necessarily detract from our original aim to design a measure suitable for any organizational setting. Because we initially distributed the Research
Information Sheet to a diverse range of sources across Australia, followed by the snowball technique spread over six months, we expected to achieve a wide range of subjects and organizations. Nevertheless, it is recommended that the WES be tested on subjects in a range of careers (e.g., finance and social work) to compare findings. Finally, in this study the response rate from men was much lower than women.
A major reason for this review and the development of the WES is linked to the deficiency of empirically assessed interventions which aim to boost levels of optimism.
108 Measures of explanatory style with strong psychometric properties can play a much bigger role in interventions in organizations. There can be a synergistic relationship between optimism training and explanatory style measures. In combination, they promote each other.
Organizations are more likely to undertake new training programs after measures accurately identify the staff/managers with pessimistic explanatory styles who would most benefit from training or coaching programs. The benefits of such testing and interventions such as training or personal coaching were shown by Proudfoot et al. (2009). They used the FSASQ to assess optimism levels of insurance sales agents before and after a 13-week training program. The training was based on a one-day course written by Seligman and his associates at Foresight
Inc. Proudfoot and her colleagues found a significant increase in productivity, well-being and job satisfaction of employees at a large British insurance company. The training also led to a significant reduction in resignations (Proudfoot et al., 2009). Furnham et al. (1992) agree with Heaven (1994) and argue that a work-related explanatory style questionnaire would be a useful personnel selection tool. Such an instrument could be valuable in the recruitment of new staff as well as the advancement of existing personnel.
This review not only highlighted the need for an explanatory style measure to measure optimism/pessimism in any organization, but also the benefits to be gained by workplace interventions to boost optimism. We anticipate the WES will stimulate research into workplace optimism and provide clearer insights for optimism training, thus boosting both individual and organizational success.
109 CHAPTER 6
Connections between management level, gender, workplace
explanatory style, occupational self-efficacy and subjective success
6.1 Introduction
This study is part of our research program into the gender inequality that exists in upper
management positions. Many causes of this under-representation of women in senior
management are often described as a glass ceiling (Ferguson, 2012; Powell, 2012). There are important reasons for further research into glass ceilings. Australia's Sex Discrimination
Commissioner argues that organizations wanting to boost their success should be looking for
ways to increase the chances of women being successful in their pursuit of hierarchical
advancement (Broderick, 2009). This challenge has also been directed at corporations
worldwide (International Labour Office, 2004; Thomson et al., 2008, US Department of
Labor, 1991). In other words, organizational success could be linked to increasing the number
of women who break through glass ceilings.
To help dismantle glass ceilings, Powell (2012) argued researchers and organizations
should be searching for new ways of developing effective leadership in both women and
men. Luthans and Youssef (2007) have identified the growing influence of positive
psychology in organizational studies looking at ways to develop workplace performance and
success. However, the literature shows little evidence of these constructs being included in
studies of gender differences in achieving leadership and management positions.
Notwithstanding that we agree with the proposition that discrimination and prejudice against
women are largely responsible for glass ceilings (Barreto et al., 2009; Eagly & Carli, 2007;
Powell, 2012), we suggest studies of gender differences in work related positive psychology
110 constructs may be helpful in broadening the understanding of the antecedents of glass
ceilings.
There are a host of positive psychology constructs with validated measures that could
play a role in future research of women and men achieving leadership positions. These
constructs include: dispositional optimism (Scheier et al., 1994), explanatory style optimism
(Seligman, 1991), hope (Snyder, 2002), character strengths (Peterson & Park, 2006),
occupational self-efficacy (Schyns & Sanders, 2005), workplace engagement (Schaufelli et
al., 2006), work attributional style (Ashforth & Fugate, 2006), psychological capital (Luthans
et al., 2007), leadership efficacy (Hannah, Avolio, Luthans, & Harms, 2008), zest (Peterson
et al., 2009), mental toughness (Marchant et al., 2009) and thriving (Porath, Spreitzer,
Gibson, & Garnett, 2012). Moreover, Luthans et al. (2007) argued that workers with high levels of several of these variables are more likely to deal with global economic problems now confronting most organizations.
In this paper we seek to expand the literature on glass ceilings by investigating the relationships between gender, management level and two constructs of positive psychology: occupational self-efficacy (OSE) and workplace form of explanatory style (ES) optimism, specific for workers in organizations. ES optimism and OSE were selected as variables for this study because both have been shown to predict success in organizations (Abele & Spurk,
2009; Schyns & Sczesny, 2009; Seligman, 1991) and they have the theoretical commonality of resilience (Luthans et al., 2007; Proudfoot et al., 2009; Reivich, Seligman, & McBride
2011). Additionally, both constructs are state-like, indicating they exhibit long-term stability but can be learned and developed (Luthans et al., 2007; Peterson & Steen, 2009; Rigotti,
Schyns, & Mohr, 2008). We know of no previous research that has investigated the interrelationship of ES and OSE with career status and gender.
111 Whilst managerial level is equated with objective career success, career satisfaction and happiness are regarded as important indicators of subjective career success. Many researchers have argued that subjective career success should be included in studies of objective success to give a broader and more informative view of career success (Abele &
Spurk, 2009; Orser & Leck, 2009; Valcour & Ladge, 2008). Therefore, the major aim of this paper is to learn more about glass ceilings by exploring the connections between gender, management level (objective success), workplace ES, OSE (positive psychology constructs), career satisfaction and happiness (subjective success indicators).
A second aim of this paper is to test the validity for the Workplace Explanations
Survey (WES; Smith et al., 2012a). This new scale was developed to focus on the role of ES in organizations and assesses explanations for situations that occur in any type of organization. Exploratory factor analysis of data collected from a sample of 341 Australian women and men showed the WES contained five factors, each with good internal consistency
(Smith et al., 2012b). There were three factors for explanations of negative workplace events: internality (8 items, α = .83), stability (8 items, α = .82) and globality (8 items, α = .87). Two factors were extracted from the explanations of positive workplace situations: as internality/stability (14 items, α = .87) and globality (7 items, α = .84). In this study, the convergent validity of the WES will be assessed by the simultaneous administration of the
WES and a measure of OSE. The concurrent validity will be tested with measures of career satisfaction and happiness.
6.2 Explanatory style optimism and success in organizations
Explanatory (or attributional) style questionnaires are used to assess levels of optimism by analysing explanations for negative events and sometimes both positive and negative events
112 (Peterson & Steen, 2009; Schulman et al., 1989; Seligman 1991). In the ES conceptualization of optimism (and pessimism), an optimist is a person who has a stable habit of explaining negative events with specific, temporary and external causes (Seligman, 1991). Alternatively, someone who prefers to cite global, stable and internal causes for positive events is also considered to be an optimist (Peterson & Chang, 2003). Martinko, Harvey and Dasborough
(2011) argued that ES theory is a case of unrealized potential in organizational research.
There has been a dearth of research into the relationship between ES and leadership in organizations even though longitudinal studies of ES have found it predicts success. For example, ES has predicted sales and longevity in selling insurance (Proudfoot et al., 2009;
Seligman & Schulman, 1986); winning a series of games in professional basketball and baseball after losses (Seligman, 1991); resilience of Olympic swimmers (Seligman, Nolen-
Hoeksema, Thornton, & Thornton, 1990) and tertiary level academic performance (Peterson
& Barrett, 1987). Whilst some measures of ES have shown good concurrent and predictive validity, there have been ongoing concerns about the low internal consistency of scores from factors in these measures. This was the prime reason for the development of WES, a measure shown to have good levels of internal consistency. Scholars have recommended that ES questionnaires should be adapted for specific domains (Ashforth & Fugate, 2006). Therefore, researchers have developed a range of specific ES measures that assess areas such as academic achievement in tertiary institutions (Peterson & Barrett, 1987), sport (Hanrahan et al., 1989) and selling insurance (Proudfoot et al., 2001). The WES contains situations specific to working in organizations.
Gender differences in ES have been investigated, and there have been mixed results.
Boughton and Street (2007) report that women have a greater tendency to cite internal causes for problems and they suggest this could play a role in women experiencing depression twice
113 as often as men. However, the more common finding is that there are no statistically significant gender differences in ES (Hirschy & Morris, 2002; Whitley, Michael, & Tremont,
1991). Hewitt et al. (2004) found the three dimensional structure of the most popular measure of ES, the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Peterson et al., 1982), held for female and male respondents. Dykema et al. (1996) developed the New Attributional Style Questionnaire which also showed ES was independent of gender. Bunce and Peterson (1997) explored the correlations between ES and the personality variables measured by the California
Psychological Inventory. In a sample of 105 undergraduates, they found the ES scores of both females and males for positive events were highly correlated with poise, ascendancy, self- assurance and interpersonal adequacy. However, only males showed negative correlations for negative events (Bunce & Peterson, 1997). In another study of the relationships between ES and personality, ES for positive events measured by the ASQ were positively related to extraversion and agreeableness for men, but not for women (Poropat, 2002). The study also showed ES based on negative events was related to emotional stability for women only.
Only one study has been found that looked at the role of ES in women's careers.
Phelps and Waskel (1994) investigated the relationship between ES and job satisfaction for employed women aged 40 to 75 years and found a small correlation between pessimistic explanatory style and job satisfaction.
Campbell and Henry (1999) noted in their study of gender differences in ES that ES may contribute to the glass ceiling phenomenon. The argument that women with optimistic explanatory styles may be more likely to be promoted and thus break through glass ceilings, could not be found anywhere else in the literature. To examine this proposition we advance the following hypothesis:
114 H1a. Women working in organizations will be more likely than men to have a
pessimistic ES. Therefore women should be more likely to cite internal, stable and
global causes for negative workplace situations, as well as being more likely to cite
external/temporary and specific causes for positive workplace events.
Furthermore, optimistic ES has been shown to predict resilience, a major component of successful leadership/management (Reivich et al., 2011). Therefore, we predict:
H1b. Management level will be positively related to optimistic ES and it is predicted
that those in upper management are more likely than staff/supervisors to give
explanations with internal/stable and global causes for positive events. Also, upper
managers will be less likely to cite internal, stable and global causes for negative
events.
As a consequence of the interaction of gender and organizational level implied in the above hypotheses, we also predict:
H1c. Women in upper management will give more optimistic explanations for
workplace events than women who are staff/supervisors.
H1d. Women in upper management will give less optimistic explanations for
workplace events than men in upper management.
6.3 Self-efficacy and success at work
When Bandura (1977) initially posited the concept of self-efficacy, he focused on beliefs
115 about successfully performing a specific task. However, the majority of researchers
recommend SE be measured for specific domains (Schyns & von Collani, 2002; Stajkovic &
Luthans, 1998) Considerable empirical research demonstrates the positive influence of self- efficacy on managerial performance, coping with job-related problems, acquiring work skills, adjusting to new organizations and generating ideas by managers (Stajkovic & Luthans,
1998).
OSE has been described as an important personal resource to counter work-related difficulties and problems (Rigotti, Schyns, & Mohr, 2008). It is a domain specific self-
efficacy because it encompasses beliefs about achieving a work-related goal or successfully fulfilling workplace tasks. An individual with high OSE is likely to set higher goals and persevere with challenging tasks (Abele & Spurk, 2009). Moreover, OSE has been shown to be a reliable, one-dimensional construct (Schyns & Sczesny, 2010). A study of 924
employees in Norway, Rennesund and Saksvik (2010) found self-efficacy was negatively
related to stress suggesting workers are less likely to suffer from stress and burnout when
they have high levels of self-efficacy about work tasks. Clearly, there are considerable
financial benefits for organizations when stress levels are reduced in the workplace (Bakker
et al., 2008).
Schyns and Sczesny (2010) found leadership attributes were positively related to
occupational self-efficacy. A longitudinal study carried out by Abele and Spurk (2009)
looked the impact of OSE on objective career success (being promoted) and subjective career
success (satisfaction). They found OSE at the start of a career had a positive effect on career
status three years later and career satisfaction seven years later. Schyns and Sanders (2005)
investigated gender differences in the relationship between OSE and leadership based on a
sample of 58 leaders. Their findings showed a positive relationship between OSE and self-
116 rated leadership for men but not for women.
To examine the proposal that gender differences in OSE may play a role in hindering
women’s chances of being promoted, we hypothesize:
H2a. Women working in organizations will show lower levels of OSE than men.
To investigate the argument that OSE is linked to achieving promotions in organizations, the
following hypothesis will be tested:
H2b. Upper management will show higher levels of OSE than staff and supervisors.
Due to the interaction of gender and organizational level implied in H2a and H2b, we predict:
H2c. Women in upper management will show higher levels of OSE than women who
are staff/supervisors.
H2d. Women in upper management will show lower levels of OSE than men who are
in upper management.
6.4 Organizational benefits from satisfied and happy employees
The above discussion provides support for including OSE as a dependent variable in this
study. Career satisfaction and happiness were also included as outcome variables. A review
of the literature on happiness demonstrates that organizations should want to have happy and
satisfied employees (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). Lyubomirsky and her colleagues (2005)
found the happiness-success link is a two-way relationship. In addition, many studies have shown that a happy individual is likely to be successful across multiple domains, including
117 work performance, income, marriage, friendship and health (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). In
her review of happiness at work, Fisher (2010) reported career satisfaction has major
consequences for individuals and organizations with higher levels of performance, customer
satisfaction, attendance, retention and safety. A cross-cultural study of 1301 professional and managerial women across five nations – Canada, Norway, Bulgaria, Philippines and
Singapore - showed a positive relationship between job satisfaction and psychological wellbeing in all five countries (Burke, 2001).
There is considerable evidence that career satisfaction and happiness are positively related to organizational level (Judge & Hurst, 2008; Ng et al., 2005). It appears managers report higher levels of career satisfaction had happiness than staff. However, the pattern with working women and happiness is less clear. Long (2005) highlighted major differences in happiness between women and men in a study of 13,969 individuals in 7,682 Australian households. Women reported significantly higher levels of happiness than men. This gender difference in happiness was more evident when comparing men and women with lower levels of education and in lower skilled occupations. However, the correlation was reversed when looking at individuals who had higher levels of education and work skills (Long, 2005). To explore contradictory findings, we proposed the following hypotheses:
H3a. Women in organizations will show lower levels of career satisfaction and
happiness than men.
H3b. Upper management will show higher levels of career satisfaction and happiness
than staff and supervisors.
H3c. Women in upper management will show higher levels of career satisfaction and
happiness than women who are staff/supervisors.
H3d. Women in upper management will show lower levels of career satisfaction and
118 happiness than men who are in upper management.
6.5 Present research
The empirical approach linking the previous 12 hypotheses is depicted in Figure 6.1.
Building on the above discussion, it is further proposed an optimistic ES should be
significantly related to the following measures of subjective career success: OSE, career
satisfaction and happiness. Therefore, to test the concurrent and convergent validity of the
WES, it is predicted:
H4. OSE, career satisfaction and happiness will be positively related to
internality/stability and globality for explanations of positive situations, plus
negatively related to internality, stability and globality of explanations for negative
situations.
Individual Differences Workplace Explanatory Style Subjective Success
Internality H1d Stability H1c Globality (Neg) H4
H1b Internality/Stability H1a Globality (Pos) Occupational Self-efficacy (OSE) Gender H2a, H2b, H2c, H2d Career Satisfaction Management Level H3a, H3b, H3c, H3d Happiness
Figure 6.1. Empirical approach of study. Note: For the sake of clarity, pathways from
controls (age and education) are not shown.
119
6.6 Method
6.6.1 Participants and procedure
Two hundred and seventy participants anonymously completed a group of questionnaires at a secure website. After ethics approval was gained from the University's Human Research
Ethics Committee, the lead author contacted a wide range of women's network groups, chambers of commerce, community service clubs and Human Resource managers across
Australia. All were asked whether they would forward an email which included: the purpose of the study; a request to forward to colleagues and friends; contact details to the researchers and an assurance that the anonymity of all respondents was protected. We used this snowball sampling strategy as it has often been shown to be an efficient way to collect data from many sources (Fox & Thomas, 2008). The email provided a hyperlink to access an online survey hosted at www.surveymonkey.com.
The sample is summarized as follows: n = 185 women, n = 84 men, n = 1 unidentified sex; 65.9% were under 51 years old; 51.1% had obtained a university degree or a higher qualification; 57.4% were in middle or top management. There were 61 women in middle management and 36 women in top management. Also, 36 men filled middle management positions and 22 men were in top management.
6.6.2 Measures
Demographics. Each participant indicated their sex (1 = "female", 2 = "male") and age was indicated by 1 = 18-20 to 7 = 70+. Career level was coded 1 = “staff member”, 2 =
“supervisor”, 3 = “middle management”, 4 = “top level management”. A four-point scale is commonly used when quantifying managerial level (Eddleston, Baldridge, & Veiga., 2004).
120 Education was coded 1 = “primary/elementary school” to 8 = “PhD”.
Workplace explanatory style. The WES (Smith et al., 2012a) was designed for this
study. This new measure has a similar format to the most commonly used explanatory style measure, the ASQ (Peterson et al., 1982). However, the WES involves 7 positive and 8
negative work-related situations. Respondents are asked to provide three sets of ratings for
each situation. To assess internality, the question is: “How much are responsible for causing
this situation?” The rating scale is 1 = "Not due to me" to 7 = "Totally due to me". To assess
stability, the question is: “Will the cause again be present in the future?” The response scale
is 1 = "Never” to 7 = “Always”. To assess globality, the question was: “Does this cause affect
other parts of your life?” The Likert scale was 1 = “Only this situation” to 7 = “All areas of my life”. This produces a 45-item instrument. The score for internality, stability and globality
(Neg) was the mean response for the eight negative situations. For internality/stability, the score was the mean of internality and stability for the seven positive situations. Similarly, globality (pos) was the mean of the positive events.
All items are available in the literature (Smith et al., 2012a). Examples of positive events in the measure include: "You do some work that is highly praised" and "You are given a promotion". Negative situations are "A work colleague doesn't follow your instructions" and "You are feeling run-down at work". In this study, all five factors showed good levels of internal consistency. For explanations of negative situations: internality (α = .82), stability (α
= .81), globality (α = .84). For positive situations: internality/stability (α = .88) and globality
(α = .84).
Occupational self-efficacy. The short version of Occupational Self-Efficacy Scale
(Rigotti et al., 2008) was used to measure OSE. It contains six items such as “I can remain calm when facing difficulties in my job because I can rely on my abilities” and “I feel
121 prepared for the demands in my job”. The response scale is 1 = “Not at all true” to 6 =
“Completely true”. The alpha coefficient in the current study was .83.
Career Satisfaction. Career satisfaction was assessed with the five-item Career
Satisfaction Scale (Greenhaus et al. , 1990). Participants responded to each statement on a 5-
point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “Strongly disagree” to 5 = “Strongly agree. A sample
item is "I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals of career
advancement". The measure has good internal consistency reliability with a Cronbach alpha
of .85 in this study.
Happiness. We assessed happiness with the 4-item Subjective Happiness Scale
(Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). A sample item is "Some people are generally very happy.
They enjoy life regardless of what is going on, getting the most out of everything. To what
does this describe you?" Participants answered on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = "Not at all"
to 7 = "A great deal". In this study the scale had an internal reliability of .87.
6.6.3 Data analysis
SPSS Version 17 software was used to carry out all analyses of the data. Multiple regression
analyses, multivariate analyses of variance and correlations were used to test the hypotheses.
Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) suggest the minimum number of respondents in a regression
should be 50 plus eight times the number of predictor variables. As this study involves nine
predictors, a sample of 122 was needed. Therefore, the sample of 268 used is adequate for the
regression analyses in this study.
The categorical variables were recoded to dichotomous variables in order to carry out
regression analyses (Allan & Bennett, 2010; Field 2005). Age was coded 1 = 40 years and
under, 2 = over 40 years; education coded 1 = No university degree, 2 = Degree or higher;
management level was coded 1 = staff/supervisor, 2 = Middle/top management.
122
6.7 Results
Means, standard deviations, alpha reliabilities and correlations between study variables are presented in Table 6.1. The five factors of the WES each have good Cronbach alpha coefficients giving support to the internal consistency of the measure.
123 Table 6.1. Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations Among Study Variables (N = 270). ______
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ______
1. Sex 1.31 0.46 2. Age 1.66 0.47 .15** 3. Education 1.49 0.50 .00 -.01 4. Management Level 1.57 0.50 .15* .26** .15* 5. Internality 4.24 0.94 -.07 -.08 .06 .13* (.82) 6. Stability 4.14 0.90 -.09 -.16** .12 .11 .47** (.81) 7. Globality (Neg) 3.96 1.16 -.13* -.06 .09 -.05 .39** .45** (.84) 8. Internality/Stability 5.36 0.70 -.12* -.14* .11 .07 .16** .21** .08 (.88) 9. Globality (Pos) 4.71 1.10 -.07 -.02 .19** .03 .13* .12* .57** .43** (.84) 10. OSE 4.69 0.62 -.03 .12* .17** .20** -.06 -.18** -.28** .32** .06 (.83) 11. Career Satisfaction 3.69 0.73 .10 .01 .07 .24** .08 -.08 -.17** .16** .03 .32** (.85) 12. Happiness 5.24 1.03 -.06 .08 -.05 .12 -.05 -.16* -.24** .11 .06 .41** .31** (.87) ______
Note: *p < .05; **p < .01.
124
Correlations presented in Table 6.1 show that gender is significantly correlated with globality
(neg) and internality/stability. Table 2 presents the findings of a MANOVA conducted to assess H1a, H2a and H3a re differences in the five WES factors, OSE, career satisfaction and happiness between women and men. As can be seen in Table 2, the explanations given by women had significantly higher levels of globality (neg) and internality/stability. Using
Wilk's lambda as the criterion, significant differences were found in globality (neg), F (1,
263) = 3.97, p < .05, partial η2 = .01 and internality/stability, F = (1, 263) = 3.99, p < .05, partial η2 = .01. Both findings indicate small effects (Cohen, 1988). The results of the
correlation analysis and MANOVA provide partial support for H1a. However, H2a and H3a
were not supported as there were no gender differences in OSE, career satisfaction and
happiness.
Table 6.2. Statistical comparison of study variables in women and men
______
Women (n = 182) Men (n = 83) ______
Variable M SD M SD F p ______
Internality (Neg) 4.28 .87 4.14 1.09 1.26 ns Stability (Neg) 4.20 .86 4.02 .97 2.34 ns Globality (Neg) 4.05 1.13 3.75 1.20 3.97 .04 Internal/Stability (Pos) 5.41 .62 5.23 .84 3.99 .04 Globality (Pos) 4.76 1.05 4.59 1.20 1.38 ns OSE 4.71 .63 4.66 .59 .35 ns Career satisfaction 3.65 .75 3.79 .66 2.03 ns Happiness 5.29 .97 5.16 1.17 .99 ns ______
125
A MANOVA (results in Table 6.3) was also conducted to assess differences in the five WES
factors, OSE, career satisfaction and happiness between staff/supervisors and upper
management. A significant main multivariate effect was shown, F (8, 257) = 4.28, p < .001,
partial η2 = .12. At the univariate level, significant differences were identified in internality, F
(1, 264) = 4.52, p < .05, partial η2 = .02; OSE, F = (1, 264) = 12.37, p < .01, partial η2 = .04; career satisfaction, F = (1, 264) = 16.17, p < .001, partial η2 = .06. Happiness was close to
reaching a significant level of difference (p = .055). The finding that upper management had
significantly higher levels of internality contradicts the direction of the relationship predicted
by H1b. Further analysis of Table 1 shows internality was the only WES factor significantly
related to management level. It was a positive relationship, whereas a negative correlation
was predicted. In contrast, H2b was strongly supported by the results shown in Tables 6.1 and
6.3. Inspection of Table 6.1 shows management level has significant correlations with OSE
and career satisfaction. There was no relationship with happiness. Overall, the correlational
and MANOVA results reveal there were a range of significant differences between upper
management and staff/supervisors; between women and men in upper management; and
between women in management versus those in staff/supervisor positions.
126 Table 6.3. Statistical comparison of study variables in staff/supervisors and upper management ______
Upper management Staff /supervisors (n = 152) (n = 114) ______Variable M SD M SD F p ______
Internality (Neg) 4.34 .90 4.09 .99 4.52 .03 Stability (Neg) 4.23 .89 4.03 .90 3.13 ns Globality (Neg) 3.90 1.12 4.02 1.21 .66 ns Internal/Stability (Pos) 5.40 .66 5.30 .76 1.10 ns Globality (Pos) 4.73 1.05 4.67 1.17 .19 ns OSE 4.83 .58 4.54 .64 12.37 .001 Career satisfaction 3.85 .64 3.49 .79 16.17 .000 Happiness 5.36 .95 5.11 1.12 3.71 .055 ______
A MANOVA was conducted to assess gender and organizational level interactions predicted by H1c, H2c and H3c. The results did not support H1c as women in upper management did not give more optimistic explanations than women who are staff/supervisors. The reverse relationship was found as women staff/supervisors gave more optimistic explanations as they were significantly more likely to cite external (F = (1, 180) = 8.44, p < .01, partial η2 = .05) and temporary causes (F = (1, 180) = 5.45, p < .05, partial η2 = .03) for workplace problems.
These indicate small effects. Further, H2c did not receive support as women in upper management did not show significantly higher levels of OSE than women staff/supervisors.
The results partially supported H3c women in upper management showed significantly higher levels of career satisfaction than women who are staff/supervisors (F = (1, 180) = 9.30, p <
.01, partial η2 = .05).
127
Table 6.4 show the results of the MANOVA that assessed H1d, H2d and H3d.
Table 6.4. Statistical comparison of study variables in women and men in upper management ______Women Men (n = 95) (n = 57) ______Variable M SD M SD F p ______
Internality (Neg) 4.45 .82 4.15 1.00 4.21 .04 Stability (Neg) 4.34 .88 4.04 .89 4.13 .04 Globality (Neg) 4.01 1.04 3.60 1.18 7.01 .01 Internal/Stability (Pos) 5.45 .55 5.30 .81 2.09 ns Globality (Pos) 4.76 1.05 4.67 1.05 .25 ns OSE 4.85 .58 4.73 .57 1.37 ns Career satisfaction 3.81 .68 3.90 .56 .75 ns Happiness 5.40 .89 5.27 1.03 .73 ns ______
These findings supported H1d as women in upper management gave less optimistic
explanations for workplace events than men in upper management. The differences related to
explanations for negative events and not positive situations. H2d did not receive support as
there were no significant differences in the levels of OSE shown by women and men who are
in upper management. There was also no support for H3d as women in upper management
did not show significant differences in levels of career satisfaction and happiness than men who are in upper management.
Table 6.5 presents the results of multiple regression analyses. Hypothesis 4, specifically related to testing the validity of the WES, received considerable yet variable support.
128 Significant relationships between WES factors and OSE gave support for the convergent
validity of the WES while relationships between WES factors with career satisfaction and happiness supported the concurrent validity. Stability and globality for negative situations accounted for about 9% of the variance in OSE. As predicted by H4, both of these WES factors were negatively related to OSE. The other WES factor shown to predict OSE was internality/stability for positive events (explaining 12% variance). In comparison, management level was only associated with 3% variance and age and education combined to account for 4%. As expected, career satisfaction was negatively related to globality
(negatives) and positively related to internality/stability. Each factor explained about 5%
variance, as did management level. The significant predictors of happiness were globality for
negatives (6% variance), globality for positives (6% variance) and management level (2%).
The directions of all relationships were predicted by H4.
129 Table 6.5. Hierarchical regression results predicting various indicators of subjective success (N = 268) ______Occupational Self-efficacy Career Satisfaction Happiness ______
Predictor variable B SEB ß R² B SEB ß R² B SEB ß R² ______Step 1 Constant 3.35 .35 2.62 .45 5.26 .64 Age .12 .07 .09 -.09 .09 -.06 .09 .13 .04 Education .17 .07 .14* .04** .04 .09 .03 .00 -.17 .12 -.08 .01 Step 2 Sex -.10 .07 -.07 .04 .10 .09 .06 .01 -.25 .13 -.11 .01 Step 3 Management Level .17 .07 .13 .07* .31 .09 .21** .06*** .22 .13 .11 .03* Step 4 Internality .03 .04 .05 .12 .05 .16* .09 .07 .09 Stability -.11 .05 -.16* -.10 .06 -.12 -.07 .08 -.07 Globality (Neg) -.16 .04 -.31*** .16*** -.14 .06 -.22* .11** -.36 .08 -.40*** .09** Step 5 Internality/Stability .28 .06 .32*** .13 .07 .12 .02 .10 .02 Globality (Pos) .04 .04 .07 .28*** .06 .06 .09 .14* .27 .08 .29** .15*** ______
Note.. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
130 6.8 Discussion
The present study contributes to the literature on glass ceilings by finding a range of
significant relationships between gender, management level, OSE, workplace ES, career satisfaction and happiness. Seven of the thirteen hypotheses tested in this study received some empirical support. In addition, most WES factors were related to OSE and subjective success providing evidence for the convergent and concurrent validity of the WES, a new measure that can be used to investigate optimism in organizations.
Small but significant differences were found in the way women and men explain negative and positive situations that can occur in organizations. Women were more likely to use global (broad ranging) causes when they are explaining negative workplace events. This
is part of the pessimistic ES style which has been shown to be associated with depression
(Peterson & Seligman, 1984; Seligman, 1991). Women also gained significantly higher scores for internality/stability when explaining positive events. This suggests women are
more likely to give themselves credit for good events as well as believing the causes were
long-lasting. Possibly, this optimistic outlook could help negate the pessimistic global
outlook towards problems as the study unexpectedly found no gender differences in OSE,
career satisfaction and happiness.
A comparison of staff/supervisors with middle/top management, found a range of
differences related to management level. There was a single difference in ES, suggesting
upper management tend to cite internal causes for workplace problems. Such a relationship
was not predicted as this pattern is typically described as being part of a pessimistic ES, and
many studies have found an optimistic ES increases the likelihood of success (Seligman,
1991). A possible explanation is that being a manager necessarily involves greater authority, and consequently, greater responsibility for workplace outcomes. When managers do not take responsibility for negative outcomes, they are likely to be accused of making excuses
131 (Sheldon & Schachtman, 2007), a label that is “roundly condemned” (Pridmore & Walker,
2011, p. 112). Moreover, popular motivational authors/speakers frequently associate the act
of not accepting responsibility as showing a lack of commitment to achieving success
(Covey, 1989; Dyer, 2006, Robbins 1991, Waitley, 1984). The preference for managers to
cite internal causes might not impact on obtaining a position in management as the role internality in ES theoretical frameworks has been diminished and even eliminated by several
ES researchers (Peterson & Steen, 2009). However, the positive connection between management level and internality clearly warrants further investigation, especially as there is
strong evidence of the link between high internality for negative events and depression
(Peterson & Seligman, 1984).
The current research revealed upper management had significantly higher levels of
OSE and career satisfaction than staff/supervisors. This was expected as promotion in an
organization would be associated with greater objective success such as higher salary and
increased authority. Also, being in upper management is likely to provide more opportunities
to implement the motivation inherent in high OSE, resulting in higher career satisfaction
(Schyns & Sczesny, 2010). The relationship between management level and happiness just
failed to reach a level of significance and this possible connection needs to part of future research.
The study found two examples of significant interactions between gender and
organization level. The first relationship was predicted and the second was not. Women in
upper management gave more pessimistic explanations for negative workplace events than
men in upper management. Surprisingly, women staff/supervisors gave more optimistic
explanations for workplace problems than women in upper management.
Regression analyses suggested that stability, globality (negatives) and
internality/stability were significant predictors of OSE. Furthermore, internality and globality
132 (negatives) predicted career satisfaction while both forms of globality predicted happiness.
The variance explained by these relationships exceeded that explained by important human capital indicators such as education and management level, as well as the covariates of age and gender. Cumulatively, these findings provide new hints for the possible antecedents of subjective success for workers in organizations.
6.8.1 Limitations and implications for future research
Cross-sectional data were used for the regression analyses and therefore the directions of causality in the significant relationships revealed in this study are uncertain. Longitudinal studies should be conducted to confirm which variables are antecedents and which are consequences. In particular, it will be highly beneficial to confirm whether ES factors impact on OSE, or vice versa, or whether the causal relationship is bidirectional. Another obvious limitation is the gender imbalance shown in the sample with far less men than women taking part in the study.
A continued investigation of the psychometric properties of the WES is also warranted. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is recommended to support construct validity.
It was not possible to carry out CFA as the sample in this study was a subset of the group used for the previous exploratory factor analysis. Finally, the sample in this study was restricted to organizations in Australia. It is necessary to confirm our findings with research across a range of countries to assess any cultural differences.
The current study has shed light on the connections between gender, ES, objective and subjective success for different levels organizations. Nevertheless, it would be valuable for future testing with the WES to be incorporated with other measures of positive psychology constructs such as hope (Snyder, 2002) and workplace engagement (Schaufelli et al., 2006).
This would further assess construct and concurrent validity as well as investigate how
133 interrelationships between major tenets of positive psychology could increase the
promotional chances of both women and men, thereby playing a part in breaking down glass
ceilings.
6.8.2 Implications for organizations, manager, and communities
The current research suggests organizations and managers might benefit from greater
awareness of the various connections between OSE, career satisfaction and happiness with
workplace explanations. It would be worthwhile to begin by analyzing the written and oral
communication from managers to staff when explaining problems. Hopefully, future longitudinal studies will show ES factors are antecedents of objective and subjective success,
and that they are stable over time. Then organizations will be able to confidently make long- term investments in training to develop optimistic ES skills in their workforce. Considerable research has shown that an optimistic ES can be quickly learned by training in the cognitive techniques linked to the ES theoretical framework (Seligman et al., 1995, Reivich et al.,
2011).
Organizations that are aware of the benefits of increasing the proportion of women in upper management should be willing to implement ES testing and training. The consequences of enhancing ES optimism could follow through to more women and men developing extra mental skills helpful for attaining leadership positions as well as improved mental health via greater career satisfaction. We are hopeful this may lead to decreases of depression in the community, especially as women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as men. With uncertainty about the global financial crisis continuing to affect many organizations, there is much to be gained by the continued investigation of the connections between ES and success.
134 CHAPTER 7
Summary and conclusions
7.1 Summary
The research program described in this thesis achieved all the aims that were set.
Cumulatively, this series of studies has contributed to the literature on the antecedents and
consequences of glass ceilings, as well as finding hints for new ways to help dismantle glass
ceilings. In short, this program of research:
1. Provided international evidence that women are making slow progress breaking glass
ceilings as they are still greatly under-represented in leadership and senior management.
2. Reviewed many of the diverse metaphors and labels that are used to highlight
insights into glass ceilings.
3. Developed and validated a multifactorial measure (CPS) that allows quantitative
analyses of women's glass ceiling beliefs.
4. Discovered significant relationships between women's attitudes to glass ceilings with
a range of major subjective career success variables: career satisfaction, happiness,
psychological wellbeing, physical wellbeing and work engagement (WE).
5. Developed and validated an explanatory style questionnaire (WES) that assesses
optimism/pessimism in any organization.
6. Found significant relationships between management level, gender, workplace
explanatory style, career satisfaction, happiness and occupational self-efficacy (OSE).
This thesis provided abundant international evidence in Chapters 1 and 2 of the low proportions of women in leadership and upper management positions. Also highlighted was the organizational inertia over the last decade which is shown by the very slow rate change in
135 lifting the numbers of women in senior management. This clear evidence of gender inequality at the top levels of management played a major role in the initiation of the current series of studies.
The review in Chapter 2 further developed the background for the empirical research described in the following four chapters. It used a unique approach in summarizing the panorama of theories and research related to understanding glass ceilings. This analysis was inspired by the argument put forward by Buzzanell and Goldzwig (1991) that metaphors can stimulate new ideas about career pathways. It was also felt that this review, whilst not exhaustive, would be an effective way to summarize much of glass ceiling theories and research which is spread across a plethora of fields (O'Neil et al., 2008). The review paper concluded most metaphor-related explanations focus on prejudice and discrimination towards women seeking leadership positions. A small number of metaphors target characteristics of women as causes for gender inequality in leadership. This difference in proportions of metaphors suggests the majority of theories on the antecedents of glass ceilings focus on prejudice and discrimination toward women becoming leaders. Several of the metaphors highlighting obstacles against women becoming leaders (eg, tokens, second shift and maternal wall, and obviously, glass ceiling) have entered the popular lexicon but do not appear to have helped to quicken the dismantling of glass ceilings. Therefore, this thesis suggests, even when metaphors and labels encapsulate considerable empirical research they appear to be largely ineffective in countering the belief that women are not made of the "right stuff" for leadership.
The next four chapters described empirical research based on cross-sectional studies of data collected (mostly) from samples of Australian women and men. These studies were united by the proposition that cognitive assessments and follow-up training linked to a growing range of positive psychology constructs may provide extra avenues for women to
136 boost their leadership skills and potential, thereby increasing the chance of being recruited or
promoted by organizations.
The research outlined in Chapter 3 identified the need for a multifactorial measure of
women's beliefs about glass ceilings. Consequently, the CPS was constructed with items that
give coverage to the multitude of issues facing women seeking promotions. Much of these
issues were linked to research identified in an extensive review made by Eagly and Carli
(2007). The theoretical foundations of the CPS were developed from Eagly and Karau's
(2002) role congruity theory of prejudice against women leaders which identifies the negative
consequences of agentic and communal stereotypes for women seeking promotions.
Exploratory FA of data collected in two studies of women (N = 243 and N = 307) showed
four factors which were present as predicted by the hypotheses being tested: resilience,
denial, acceptance and resignation.
The theoretical background of the CPS was further developed in the study reported in
Chapter 4. This study tested the concurrent criterion validity of the CPS by exploring the relationships between the four factors identified by the CPS and five major subjective career
success constructs. The hypotheses proposed were based on two theories of
optimism/pessimism: dispositional optimism (which focuses on beliefs about the future) and
explanatory style optimism (which emphasizes the habitual ways we explain events in the
present or past). The former theoretical approach was proposed by Scheier and Carver (1985)
and the latter by Seligman (1991). Both approaches have extensive research profiles in the
literature but neither has been connected to women's beliefs about their career progress. The
following significant relationships with glass ceiling attitudes were found in this study: denial
was positively associated with career satisfaction and WE; resignation was negatively related to happiness and both emotional and physical wellbeing; resilience had positive relationships
with happiness and WE; acceptance was negatively related to WE. The results from this
137 study suggested resilience and denial are both optimistic sets of attitudes toward women's chances of becoming leaders, while acceptance and resignation are pessimistic attitudes toward women achieving promotion to leadership positions. Thus, the findings supported the hypotheses and the concurrent validity of the CPS.
The next two papers in this thesis continued to expand the cognitive approach at the core of the previous studies in this thesis. Chapter 5 contains an extensive literature review of the explanatory style conceptualization of optimism. The most commonly used instrument, the ASQ, has been shown to predict success in business, education and sport. However, these predictions were achieved by using composite scores of subscales. An analysis of 15 measures revealed the ASQ and many other explanatory style questionnaires have low internal consistency. Furthermore, the majority of these measures use situations that have poor face validity for corporate applications, while some work-specific scenarios are only relevant to narrow domains such as selling insurance. The paper then describes the development of the WES, a work-related measure of explanatory style relevant to women and men in any organization. This 5-factor measure was tested on a sample of 341 individuals working in a range of organizations and it has good internal consistency.
The study presented in Chapter 6 aimed to expand the literature on glass ceilings by examining the relationships between management level, gender, OSE (another construct from positive psychology), career satisfaction, happiness and workplace explanatory style. In addition, it aimed to test the validity of the WES. OSE is increasingly being investigated in organizational research as it is an important personal resource to counter work-related problems (Rigotti et al., 2008). Clearly, here is a strong theoretical communality with explanatory style optimism as both are also linked with resilience (Luthans et al., 2007). In this study 270 respondents working in Australian organizations completed the WES. The findings suggested women were more likely to cite global reasons for problems as well as
138 giving themselves credit for positive events at work. Managers were more likely than staff/supervisors to blame themselves for negative events. Furthermore, women in upper
management gave more pessimistic explanations than men in upper management for negative
events. Women in management positions were more likely to blame themselves, cite long lasting and global causes for problems occurring in organizations. Regression analyses showed that stability, globality (negatives) and internality/stability were significantly associated with OSE. Internality and globality (negatives) predicted career satisfaction while both forms of globality predicted happiness. The results give support to the concurrent and convergent validity of the WES.
7.2 Practical implications
The CPS and WES could be used by organizations wanting to boost the leadership qualities of their employees, both managers and staff. The CPS, being multifactorial allows more feedback than other related measures (eg, WAMS and MATWES) that assess stereotypes towards the career advancement of women. The CPS was originally designed only to be used to assess beliefs of women. However, the suggestion made by M. Davidson (personal communication, October 2, 2009) led to the conclusion that the CPS could play a role identifying sexist cultures in an organization by testing both female and male employees
(especially managers). If negative stereotypes toward women leaders are shown to be common, a corporate culture change would be recommended. This organizational restructuring could begin with changes in policies and strategies used in the hiring of job applicants, promoting those already with the organization and "head-hunting" (searching and
recruiting) of those with impressive track records of success. The CPS might be used in each
of these selection processes.
It is hoped the WES will stimulate research into workplace optimism and provide
139 clearer insights for optimism training, thus boosting both individual and organizational
success. Interventions based on explanatory style training have achieved success in diverse
organizations such as the US Army (Reivich et al., 2011), insurance companies (Proudfoot et
al., 2009) and public schools (Seligman et al., 1995).
7.3 Limitations and suggestions for future research
Above all, it must be emphasized that the wide range of significant relationships reported in
this thesis are based on cross-sectional studies. Therefore, inferences about causal directives
remain as speculations until support from longitudinal and experimental studies. Research across organizations and cultures will help to answer important questions left unanswered by the present research. Importantly, it is recommended that future studies attempt to confirm whether glass ceiling beliefs show stability, especially before and after women are promoted to top levels of organizations. Do these women have higher levels of the optimistic beliefs towards glass ceilings (resilience and denial) and lower levels of pessimistic attitudes
(resignation and acceptance) than those women who are not promoted? If women's glass
ceiling beliefs have a long-term stability, possibly over many decades as has been shown with explanatory style (Burns & Seligman, 1989), it will emphasize the value of testing with the
CPS. Other relevant research questions could include:
1. What are the causes of women having different beliefs about glass ceilings? This
would necessitate studies of variables such as parental, educational and religious
influences.
2. Do women change their views about glass ceilings after becoming married or
having children?
3. If an organization is led by a woman, do the women and men working in that
140 organization have positive (optimistic) attitudes about women being promoted?
It is recommended that participants in future research provide organizational details such as the number of women at senior levels and the success of diversity policies. Further research will need to extend the concurrent and convergent validity of the CPS and WES. Obviously, it would be important to investigate relationships between the three factors measured by the
CPS and the five factors assessed by the WES. This was not attempted in the current research program due to the length of the combined measure being considered as too time-consuming for participants in the exploratory studies. Both the CPS and WES could also be tested in combination with other measures of positive psychology constructs such as: hope (Snyder,
2002), character strengths (Peterson & Park, 2006), psychological capital (Luthans et al.,
2007), leadership efficacy (Hannah et al., 2008), zest (Peterson et al., 2009), thriving (Porath et al., 2012) and mental toughness (Marchant et al., 2009). Predictive criterion validity studies will be imperative.
7.4 Concluding Remarks
The theme of this thesis is in agreement with the argument proposed by Powell (2012) that the dismantling of glass ceilings will be quickened when researchers and organizations find new ways to investigate leadership. The second unifying theme in this thesis has been the important role cognitive training may play in developing leadership skills. History over millennia shows that it is extremely difficult to carry out large scale social changes, or even organizational changes, to reduce discrimination and prejudice against women as leaders
(Lerner, 1986). Therefore, this thesis suggests women might improve chances of career advancement by assessing and modifying personal thoughts, such as glass ceiling beliefs and their explanations of workplace events. It should be emphasized that by suggesting such
141 personal-change-approaches, it is not another attempt to blame women for the gender
imbalance in leadership.
If women learn skills to have more optimistic beliefs about glass ceilings (i.e.,
resilience and denial), this may translate into increased career satisfaction, increased positive
affect, better psychological and physical wellbeing, as well as higher levels of work
engagement. These positive outcomes have been found to be related to work performance and
therefore could be an advantage when women are seeking promotions. Women wishing to
become leaders may also benefit from identifying their workplace explanatory style for
negative and positive events that occur in organizations. After assessments with the WES,
cognitive training can be used to help develop (even) more optimistic explanations, which in
turn, have been shown to increase resilience and chances of success with a wide variety of
goals. Hopefully, one of the successes will include being promoted. Assessments using either,
or both, the WES and CPS could facilitate greater awareness of possible causes of the range
of subjective career success indicators that were investigated in Chapters 4 and 6.
There are many negative consequences not only for women but also for organizations
and societies when women are underutilized as leaders (Broderick, 2009; Fassinger, 2008;
International Labour Office, 2004; US Department of Labor, 1991). Insights provided by this research program could lead to increased organizational success, especially important when organizations and nations are faced with the possibility of ongoing problems linked to the recent global financial crisis. However, it is hoped that the major achievement of this thesis is that it has expanded the literature on glass ceilings, and by doing so, has played some part in
hastening the end of a social injustice.
142 References
Abele, A.E., & Spurk, D. (2009). The longitudinal impact of self-efficacy and career goals on
objective and subjective success. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74, 53-62. doi:
10.1016/j.jvb.2008.10.005
Abramson, L.Y., Metalsky, G.I., & Alloy, L.B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: A theory-
based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358-372.
Adams, SM., Gupta, A., & Leeth, J.D. (2009). Are female executives over-represented in
precarious leadership positions? British Journal of Management, 20, 1-12. doi:
10.1111/j.1467-8551.2007.00549.x
Allen, P., & Bennett, K. (2010). PASW statistics by SPSS: A practical guide, version 18.0.
Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia.
Alston, M. (2000). Breaking through the grass ceiling: Women, power & leadership in
agricultural organisations. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic.
Armstrong-Stassen, M., & Cameron, S. (2005). Factors related to the career satisfaction of
older managerial and professional women. Career Development International, 10,
203-215. doi: 10.1108/13620430510598328
Arntz, A., Gerlsma, C., & Albersnagel, F.A. (1985). Attributional style questioned:
Psychometric evaluation of the ASQ in Dutch adolescents. Advances in Behavioural
Research and Therapy, 7, 55-89.
Ashforth, B.E., & Fugate, M. (2006). Attributional style in work settings: Development of a
measure. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 12, 12-29.
Augusto-Landa, J.M., Pulido-Martos, M., & Lopez-Zafra, E. (2011). Does perceived
emotional intelligence and optimism/pessimism predict psychological well-being?
Journal of Happiness Studies, 463-474. doi: 10.1007/s10902-010-9209-7
143 Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (August, 2011). Special report: Breaking the
perspex ceiling. Retrieved from http://www.amwu.org.au/content/upload/files
Bagilhole, B., & Cross, S. (2006). 'It never struck me as female': Investigating men's entry
into female-dominated occupations. Journal of Gender Studies, 15, 35-48.
Bakker, A.B., & Demerouti, E. (2008). Towards a model of work engagement. Career
Development International, 13, 209-223. doi: 10.1108/13620430810870476
Bakker, A.B., Schaufeli, W.B., Leiter, M.P., & Taris, T.W. (2008). Work engagement: An
emerging concept in occupational health psychology. Work & Stress, 22, 187-200.
doi: 10.1080/02678370802393649
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.
Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.
Barnett, R.C. (2004). Preface: Women and work: Where are we, where did we come from,
and where are we going? Journal of Social Issues, 60, 667-674.
Barnett, R.C. & Rivers, C. (2004). Same difference: How gender myths are hurting our
relationships, our children, and our jobs. New York: Basic Books.
Barnet-Verzat, C., & Wolff, F-C. (2008). Gender wage gap and the glass ceiling effect: A
firm level investigation. International Journal of Manpower, 29, 486-502. doi:
10.1108/01437720810904185
Barns, A., & Preston, A. (2010). Is Australia really a world leader in closing the gender gap?
Feminist Economics, 16, 81-103. doi: 10.1080/13545701.2010.530607
Barreto, M., Ryan, M.K., & Schmitt, M.T. (Eds.). (2009). The glass ceiling in the 21st
century: Understanding barriers to gender equality. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
Beck, A.T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. New York: Penguin
Books., NY.
144 Belkin, L. (2003). The opt-out revolution. New York Times, October 26, 42-47, 58, 85-86.
Bendl, R., & Schmidt, A. (2010). From 'glass ceilings' to 'firewalls': Different metaphors for
describing discrimination. Gender, Work and Organization, 17, 612-634.
Benschop, Y. (2009). The micro-politics of gendering in networking. Gender, Work and
Organization, 16, 217-237.
Bergman, B. (2003). The validation of the Women Workplace Culture Questionnaire:
Gender-related stress and health for Swedish working women. Sex Roles, 49, 287-297.
Bilimora, D., Joy, S., & Liang, X. (2008). Breaking barriers and creating inclusiveness:
Lessons of organizational transformation to advance women faculty in academic
science and engineering. Human Resource Management, 47, 423-441. doi:
10.1002/hrm.20225
Booysen, L.A.E., & Nkomo, S.M. (2010). Gender role stereotypes and requisite management
characteristics: The case of South Africa. Gender in Management: An International
Journal, 25, 285-300. doi: 10.1108/17542411011048164
Boughton, S., & Street, H. (2007). Integrated review of the social and psychological gender
differences in depression. Australian Psychologist, 42, 187-97.
Boushey, H. (2008). Opting out? The effect of children on women's employment in the
United States. Feminist Economics, 14, 1-36. doi: 10.1080/13545700701716672
Broderick, E. (2009, October 16). Why gender quotas would help Australian business. The
Punch. Retrieved from
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about/media/media_releases/op_ed/20091016_quotas.html
Broderick, E. (2010, May 21). Women in sport hit the grass ceiling. The Age. Retrieved from
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about/media/media_releases/op_ed/20100521_women.html
Browne, K.R. (1998). Divided labours: An evolutionary view of women at work. London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
145 Browne, K.R. (2006). Evolved sex differences and occupational segregation. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 27, 143-162. doi: 10.1002/job.349
Bunce, S.C., & Peterson, C. (1997). Gender differences in personality correlates of
explanatory style. Personality and Individual Differences, 23, 639-46.
Burke, R.J. (2001). Organizational values, work experiences and satisfactions among
managerial and professional women. The Journal of Management Development, 20,
346-353.
Burke, R., & Vinnicombe, S. (2005). Advancing women's careers. Career Development
International, 10, 165-167.
Burke. R.J., Burgess, Z., & Fallon, B. (2006). Organizational practices supporting women
and their satisfaction and well-being. Women in Management Review, 21, 416-425.
doi: 10.1108/09649420610676217
Burns, M.O., & Seligman, M.E.P. (1989). Explanatory style across life span: Evidence for
stability over 52 years. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 471-477.
Buss, D.M. (1995). Evolutionary psychology: A new paradigm for psychological science.
Psychological Inquiry, 6, 1-49.
Buzzanell, P.M., & Goldzwig, S.R. (1991). Linear and nonlinear career models: Metaphors,
paradigms, and ideologies. Management Communication Quarterly, 4, 466-505.
Campbell, C.R., & Henry, J.W. (1999). Gender differences in self-attributions: Relationship
of gender to attributional consistency, style, and expectations for performance in a
college course. Sex Roles, 41, 95-104.
Campbell, C.R. & Martinko, M.J. (1998). An integrative attributional perspective of
empowerment and learned helplessness: A multimethod field study. Journal of
Management, 24, 173-200.
Carli, L.L., & Eagly, A.H. (2001). Gender, hierarchy, and leadership: An introduction.
146 Journal of Social Issues, 57, 629-636.
Carnes, M., Morrissey, C., & Geller, S.E. (2008). Women's health and women's leadership in
academic medicine: Hitting the same glass ceiling? Journal of Women's Health, 17,
1453-1462. doi: 10.1089/jwh.2007.0688
Carr, D. (1997). The fulfillment of career dreams at midlife: Does it matter for women's
mental health? Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 38, 331-344.
Carver, C.S. & Scheier, M.F. (1991). Unresolved issues regarding the meaning and
measurement of explanatory style. Psychological Inquiry, 2, 21-24.
Carver, C.S., Scheier, M.F., Miller, C.J., & Fulford, D. (2009). Optimism. In C.R. Snyder &
S.J. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 303-312).
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Catalyst (2007). 2006 Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors of the Fortune 500.
New York, NY: Catalyst. Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org
Catalyst (2011). 2011 Quick takes: Women in US Management. New York, NY: Catalyst.
Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org
Catalyst (2012), 2011 Catalyst Census: Financial Post 500 Women Board Directors.
Catalyst, New York, NY: Catalyst. Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org
Chang, E.C., & Sanna, L.J. (2007). Affectivity and psychological adjustment across two adult
generations: Does pessimistic explanatory style still matter? Personality and
Individual Differences, 43, 1149-1159. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.03.007
Chappell, L. (2011). Coalition has won but women have lost. The Sydney Morning Herald.
March 31, p.17.
Cheng, H. & Furnham, A, (2003). Attributional style and self-esteem as predictors of
psychological well being. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 16, 121-130.
Chiu, S-F., Peng, J-C., (2008). The relationship between psychological contract breach and
147 employee deviance: The moderating role of hostile attributional style. Journal of
Vocational Behavior, 73, 426-433. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2008.08.006
Chughtai, A.A., & Buckley, F. (2011).Work engagement: antecedents, the mediating role of
learning goal orientation and job performance”, Career Development International,
16, 684-705. doi: 10.1108/13620431111187290
Ciarrochi, J. & Heaven, P.C.L. (2008). Learned social hopelessness: The role of explanatory
role in predicting social support during adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry, 49, 1279-1286.
Ciarrochi, J. & Heaven, P.C.L. & Davies, F. (2007).The impact of hope, self-esteem, and
attributional style on adolescents’ school grades and emotional well-being: A
longitudinal study. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 1161-1178.
doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2007.02.001
Clark, A.E. (1997). Job satisfaction and gender: why are women so happy at work? Labour
Economics, 4, 341-372.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Cohen, L.E., Broschak, J.P., & Havemen, H.A. (1998). And then there were more? The effect
of organizational sex composition on the hiring and promotion of managers.
American Sociological Review, 63, 711-727.
Cordano, M., Scherer, R.F., & Owen, C.L. (2003). Dimensionality of the Women As
Managers Scale: Factor congruency among three samples. The Journal of Social
Psychology, 143, 141-143.
Corr, P.J., & Gray. J.A. (1995). Attributional style, socialization and cognitive ability as
predictors of sales success: A predictive validity study. Personality and Individual
Differences, 18, 241-252.
148 Corr, P.J., & Gray. J.A. (1996a). Attributional style as a personality factor in insurance sales
performance in the UK. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 69,
83-87.
Corr, P.J., & Gray. J.A. (1996b). Structure and validity of the Attributional Style
Questionnaire: A cross-sample comparison. The Journal of Psychology, 130, 645-657.
Covey, S. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Craig, L. (2007). Is there really a second shift, and if so, who does it? A time-diary
investigation. Feminist Review, 86, 149-170. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400339
Crino, M.D., White, MC., DeSanctis, G.L. (1981). A comment on the dimensionality and
reliability of the Women As Managers Scale. Academy of Management Journal, 24,
866-876.
Crosby, F.J., Williams, J.C., & Biernat, M. (2004). The maternal wall. Journal of Social
Issues, 60, 675-682.
Cutrona, C.E., Russel, D., & Jones, R. (1985). Cross-situational consistency in causal
explanations: Does attributional style exist? Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 47, 1043-1058.
Davidson, M.J. (1997). The black and ethnic minority manager: Cracking the concrete
ceiling. London: Paul Chapman.
Davidson, M. (2009, September). The glass ceiling - Australian and British women in
management 2009: Myth or reality? Paper presented at the 44th Australian
Psychological Society Annual Conference, Darwin, Australia.
Desai, M., Majumdar, B., Chakraborty, T., & Ghosh, K. (2011). The second shift: Working
women in India. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 26, 432-450. doi:
10.1108/17542411111164920
Douglas, S.C., & Martinko, M.J. (2001). Exploring the role of individual differences in the
149 prediction of workplace aggression. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 547-559.
Drury, M. (2012). Opening the door for IT leadership opportunities: New voices from the
field. Educause Quarterly Online. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu
Dubno, P. (1985). Attitudes toward women executives: A longitudinal study. Academy of
Management Journal, 28, 235-239.
Dubno, P., Costas, J., Cannon, H., Wankel, C., & Emin, H. (1979). An empirically keyed
scale for measuring managerial attitudes toward female executives. Psychology of
Women Quarterly, 3, 357-364.
Duehr, E.E., & Bono, J.E. (2006). Men, women, and managers: Are stereotypes finally
changing? Personnel Psychology, 59, 815-846.
Dyer, W.W. (1977), Your Erroneous Zones. London: Michael Joseph.
Dykema, J., Bergbower, K., Doctora, J.D., & Peterson, C. (1996). An attributional style
questionnaire for general use. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 14, 100-108.
Eagly, A.H., & Carli, L.L. (2007). Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women
become leaders. Boston: Harvard Business School.
Eagly, A.H., & Karau, S.J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders.
Psychological Review, 109, 573-598.
Eddleston, K.A., Baldridge, D.C., & Veiga, J.F. (2004). Toward modeling the predictors of
managerial success: Does gender matter? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19, 360-
385. doi: 10.1108/02683940410537936
Eddleston, K.A., Veiga, J.F., & Powell, G.N. (2006). Explaining sex differences in
managerial career satisfier preferences: The role of gender self-schema. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 91, 437-445. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.91.2.437.
Elacqua, T.C., Beehr, T.A., Hansen, C.P., & Webster, J. (2009). Managers' beliefs about the
glass ceiling: Interpersonal and organizational factors. Psychology of Women
150 Quarterly, 33, 285-294.
Embry, A., Padgett, M.Y, & Caldwell, C.B. (2008). Can leaders step outside of the gender
box? An examination of leadership and gender role stereotypes. Journal of
Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15, 5-15. doi: 10.1177/1548051808318412
Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (2010). EOWA 2010 Australian
census of women in leadership. Sydney: Australian Government. Retrieved from
http://www.eowa.gov.au/Information_Centres/Resource_Centre/EOWA_Publications/
EOWA_Census/2010_Census.asp
Evans, G. (2001). Play like a man, win like a woman: What men know about success that
women need to learn. New York: Broadway Books/Random House.
Everett, L., Thorne, D., & Danehower, C. (1996). Cognitive moral development and attitudes
toward women executives. Journal of Business Ethics, 15, 1227-1235.
Fassinger, R.E. (2008). Workplace diversity and public policy: Challenges and opportunities
for psychology. American Psychologist, 63, 252-268. doi: 10.1037/0003-
066X.63.4.252
Ferguson, A. (2012, March 8). More women join boards but glass ceiling remains intact. The
Sydney Morning Herald, BusinessDay Section, p.3.
Field, A. (2005). Discovering Statistics Using SPSS. London: Sage.
Fine, C. (2010). Delusions of gender: The real science behind sex differences. London: Icon
Books.
Fisher, C.D. (2010). Happiness at work. International Journal of Management Reviews, 12,
384-412. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2009.00270.x
Forsythe, M., & Zhao, Y. (2011, June 25). It's still a man's world for Chinese women. Sydney
Morning Herald, p. 23.
Fox, R.l., & Lawless, J.L. (2009). If only they'd ask: Gender, recruitment, and political
151 ambition. The Journal of Politics, 72, 301-326. doi: 10.1017/S0022381609990752
Fox, A., & Thomas, T. (2008). Impact of religious affiliation and religiosity on forgiveness.
Australian Psychologist, 43, 175-85. doi: 10.1080/00050060701687710
Frankel, L.M. (2004). Nice girls don't get the corner office: 101 unconscious mistakes women
make that sabotage their careers. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing.
Furnham, A., Brewin, C.R., & O'Kelly, H. (1994). Cognitive style and attitudes to work.
Human Relations, 47, 1509-1521.
Furnham, A., Sadka, V., & Brewin, C.R. (1992). The development of an occupational
attributional style questionnaire. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 27-39.
Gallup Consulting (2009) The Gallop Q12 - Employee Engagement - Poll 2008 Results:
Australia Overview. Sydney: The Gallup Organization.
Gamba, M. Kleiner, B.H. (2001) The old boys’ network today. The International Journal of
Sociology and Social Policy, 21, 101-107.
Gladwell, M. (2009). Outliers: The story of success. Camberwell, Australia: Penguin Books.
Glick, P., & Fiske, S.T. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile
and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 491-512.
Gordon, R.A. (2008). Attributional style and athletic performance: Strategic optimism and
defensive pessimism. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9, 336-350.
doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2007.04.007
Goward, P. (2001). A business of your own: How women succeed in business. Sydney: Allen
& Unwin.
Greenhaus, J.H., Parasuraman, S., Wormley, W.M. (1990). Effects of race on organizational
experiences, job performance evaluations, and career outcomes. Academy of
Management Journal, 33, 64-86.
Guillaume, C., & Pochic, S. (2009). What would you sacrifice? Access to top management
152 and the work-life balance. Gender, Work and Organization, 16, 14-36.
doi:10.1111/j.1468-0432.2007.00354.x
Gupta, V. (2008). Effect of gender stereotype activation on entrepreneurial intentions.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 1053-1061. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.93.5.1053
Haeffel, G.J., Gibb, B.E., Metalsky, G.I., Alloy, L.B., Abramson, L.Y., Hankin, B.L., Joiner,
T.E., & Swendsen, J.D. (2008). Measuring cognitive vulnerablility to depression:
Development and validation of the Cognitive Style Questionnaire. Clinical
Psychology Review, 28, 824-836. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2007.12.001
Hager, P. (2008). Learning and metaphors. Medical Teacher, 30, 679-686.
Hakim, C. (2006). Women, careers, and work-life preferences. British Journal of Guidance &
Counselling, 34, 279-294. doi: 10.1080/03069880600769118.
Hannah, S.T., Avolio, B.J., Luthans, F., & Harms, P.D. (2008). Leadership efficacy: Review
and future directions. The Leadership Quarterly, 19, 669-692. doi:
10.1016/j.leaqua.2008.09.007
Hanrahan, S.J., Grove, J.R., & Hattie, J.A. (1989). Development of a questionnaire measure
of sport-related attributional style. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 20,
114-134.
Haslam, S.A., & Ryan, M.K. (2008). The road to the glass cliff: Differences in the perceived
suitability of men and women for leadership positions in succeeding and failing
organizations. The Leadership Quarterly, 19, 530-546.
doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2008.07.011
Haslam, S.A., Ryan, M.K., Kulich, C., Trojanowski, G., & Atkins, C. (2010). Investing with
prejudice: The relationship between women's presence on company boards and
objective and subjective measures of company performance. British Journal of
Management, 21, 484-497. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2009.00670.x
153 Hawton, K., Salkovskis, P.M., Kirk, J., & Clark, D.M. (Eds) (1989), Cognitive behaviour
therapy for psychiatric problems: A practical guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heaven, P.C.L. (1994). Occupational attributional style and attitudes to work: An Australian
study. Australian Psychologist, 29, 57-61.
Heilman, M.E., & Okimoto, T.G. (2007). Why are women penalized for success at male
tasks?: The implied communality deficit. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 81-92.
doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.92.1.81
Heller, D., Watson, D. and Ilies, R. (2004), “The role of person versus situation in life
satisfaction: a critical examination”, Psychological Bulletin, 130, 574-600.
Henry, P.C. (2005). Life stresses, explanatory style, hopelessness, and occupational class.
International Journal of Stress Management, 12, 241-256. doi: 10.1037/1072-
5245.12.3.241
Hewitt, A.K., Foxcroft, D.R., & MacDonald, J. (2004). Multitrait-multimethod confirmatory
factor analysis of the attributional style questionnaire. Personality and Individual
Differences, 37, 1483-1491.
Hewlett, S.A., & Luce, C.B. (2005). Off-ramps and on-ramps: Keeping talented women on
the road to success. In Harvard Business Review of Women in Business (pp. 1-27).
Boston: Harvard Business School.
Higgins, N.C., & Hay, J.L. (2003). Attributional style predicts causes of negative life events
on the Attributional Style Questionnaire. The Journal of Social Psychology, 143, 253-
271.
Hirschy, A.J., & Morris, J.R. (2002). Individual differences in attributional style: The
relational influence of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and sex role identity. Personality and
Individual Differences, 32, 183-196.
Hochschild, A. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New
154 York: Viking.
Hofmans, J., Dries, N., & Pepermans, R. (2008). The Career Satisfaction Scale: Response
bias among men and women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 73, 397-403. doi:
10.1016/j.jvb.2008.08.001
Hom, P.W., Roberson, L., & Ellis, A.D. (2008). Challenging conventional wisdom about who
quits: Revelations from corporate America. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 1-34.
doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.93.1.1
Holding up half the sky (2012, March 6). The International Herald Tribune. Retrieved from
http://nytimes.com
Hymnowitz, C., & Schellhardt, T.D. (1986, March 24). The glass ceiling: Why women can't
seem to break through the invisible barrier that blocks them from the top jobs?, Wall
Street Journal, pp.1D, 5D.
International Labour Office (2004). Breaking through the glass ceiling: Women in
management. Geneva.
Ismail, M., Rasdi, R.M., Jamal, A.N.A. (2011). Gender empowerment measure in political
achievement in selected developed and developing countries. Gender in Management:
An International Journal, 26, 380-392. doi: 10.1108/17542411111154912
Jackson, B., Sellers, R.M., & Peterson, C. (2002). Pessimistic explanatory style moderates
the effect of stress on physical illness. Personality and Individual Differences, 32,
567-573.
Jackson, J.C. (2001). Women middle managers' perception of the glass ceiling. Women in
Management Review, 16, 30-41.
Janoff-Bulman, R., & Wade, M.B. (1996). The dilemma of self-advocacy for women:
Another case of blaming the victim? Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15,
143-152.
155 Judge, T.A., Heller, D., & Mount, M.K. (2002). Five-factor model of personality and job
satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 530-541.
Judge, T.A., & Hurst, C. (2008). How the rich (and happy) get richer (and happier):
Relationship of core self-evaluations to trajectories in attaining work success. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 93, 849-863. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.93.4.849
Judge, T.A., Ilies, R., & Dimotakis, N. (2010). Are health and happiness the product of
wisdom? The relationship of general mental ability to educational and occupational
attainment, health, and well-being. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 454-468. doi:
10.1037/a0019084
Kanter, R.M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books.
Kee, H.J. (2006). Glass ceiling or sticky floor? Exploring the Australian gender pay gap.
Economic Record, 82, 408-427. doi: 10.111/j.1475-4932.2006.00356.x
Kekelis, L.S., Ancheta, R.W., & Heber, E. (2005). Hurdles in the pipeline: girls and
technology careers. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 26, 99-109.
Kent, R.L., & Martinko, M.J. (1995). The development and evaluation of a scale to measure
organizational atttributional style. In M.J. Martinko (Ed.), Attribution theory: An
organizational perspective (pp. 53-75). Delray Beach, FL: St. Lucie Press.
Knoppers, A., & Anthonissen, A. (2008). Gendered managerial discourses in sport
organizations: Multiplicity and complexity. Sex Roles, 58, 93-103. doi:
10.1077/s11199-007-9324-z
Kumra, S. & Vinnicombe, S. (2008). A study of the promotion to partner process in a
professional services firm: How women are disadvantaged. British Journal of
Management, 19, S65-S74. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2008.00572.x
Kumra, S. & Vinnicombe, S. (2010). Impressing for success: A gendered analysis of key
social capital accumulation strategy. Gender, Work and Organization, 17, 521- 546.
156 Lerner, G. (1986). The creation of patriarchy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Local Government Managers Australia. (2007). Action plan for women in local government
in NSW. Sydney: Author.
Long, A. (2005). Happily ever after? A study of job satisfaction in Australia. The Economic
Record, 81, 303-21.
Luthans, F., Avolio, B.J., Avey, J.B., & Norman, S.M. (2007). Positive psychological capital:
Measurement and relationship with performance and satisfaction. Personnel
Psychology, 60, 541-572.
Luthans, F., & Youssef, C.M. (2007). Emerging positive organizational behavior. Journal of
Management, 33, 321-349. Doi: 10.1177/0149206307300814
Lyness, K. S., & Thompson, D. E. (1997). Above the glass ceiling? A comparison of matched
samples of female and male executives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 359-375.
Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H.S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary
reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137-155.
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect:
Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855. doi:
10.1037/0033-2009.131.6.803.
Maasen, S. & Weingart, P. (2000). Metaphors and the dynamics of knowledge. London:
Routledge.
Maginn, P.J. (2010). Breaking through the glass ceiling of local government? The gender
profile of Australian mayors in metropolitan Australia 1985-2010. FactBase Bulletin
11, The University of Western Australia and Committee for Perth, Perth.
Mainiero, L.A., & Sullivan, S.E. (2005). Kaleidoscope careers: A alternative explanation for
the 'opt-out' revolution. Academy of Management Executive, 19, 106-123.
Marecek, J. (2003). Mad wives, double shifts, mommy tracks and other invented realities.
157 Feminism & Psychology, 13, 259-264.
Marchant, D.C., Polman, R.C.J., Clough, P.J., Jackson, J.G., Levy, A.R., & Nicholls, A.R.
(2009). Mental toughness: Managerial and age differences. Journal of Managerial
Psychology, 24, 428-437. doi: 10.1108/02683940910959753.
Martin-Krumm, C.P., Sarrazin, P.G., & Peterson, C. (2005). The moderating effects of
explanatory style in physical education performance: A prospective study. Personality
and Individual Differences, 38, 1645-1656. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2004.09.023
Martin-Krumm, C.P., Sarrazin, P.G., Peterson, C., & Famose, J.P. (2003). Explanatory style
and resilience after sports failure. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1685-
1695. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(02)00390-2
Martinko, M.J., Douglas, S.C., & Harvey, P. (2006). Attribution theory in industrial and
organizational psychology: A review. International Review of Industrial and
Organizational Psychology, 21, 127-187.
Martinko, M.J., Harvey, P., & Dasborough, M.T. (2011). Attribution theory in the
organizational sciences: A case of unrealized potential. Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 32, 144-149. doi: 10.1002/job.690
Martinko, M.J., Moss, S.E., Douglas, S.C., & Borkowski, N. (2007). Anticipating the
inevitable: When leader and member attribution styles clash. Organizational Behavior
and Human Decision Processes, 104, 158-174. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.04.003
Mason, D. (2011). Therapeutic metaphors. Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy and
Hypnosis, 33, 51-74.
Mathur-Helm, B. (2006), Women and the glass ceiling in South African banks: An illusion or
reality? Women in Management Review, 21, 31-326. doi:
10.1108/09649420610667028
Mavin, S. (2006). Venus envy: Problematizing solidarity behavior and queen bees. Women in
158 Management Review, 21, 264-276. doi: 10.1108/09649420610666579
McLeod, F. (2008, June 27). Glass ceiling still firmly in place. The Australian. Retrieved
March 22, 2009 from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23926883-
30537,00.html
Merton, R.K. (1968, January 5). The Matthew effect in science. Science, 159, 56-63.
Moe, K., & Shandy, D. (2009). Glass ceilings and 100-hour couples: What the opt-out
phenomenon can teach us about work and family. Athens, GA: University of Georgia
Press.
Morrison, A.M., White, R.P., & Van Velsor (1992). Breaking the glass ceiling: Can
women reach the top of America’s largest corporations? Reading, MA: Addison-
Wesley.
Ng, E.S., & Wiesner, W.H. (2007). Are men always picked over women? The effects of
employment equity directives on employment decisions. Journal of Business Ethics,
76, 177-187. doi: 10.1007/s10551-006-9266-3
Ng, T.W.H., Eby, L.T., Sorenson, K.L. & Feldman, D.C. (2005) Predictors of objective and
subjective career success: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 58, 367-408.
Norrish, J.M., & Vella-Brodrick, D.A. (2009). Positive psychology and adolescents: Where
are we now? Where to from here? Australian Psychologist, 44, 270-278. doi:
10.1080/00050060902914103
O'Connor, V.J. (2001). Women and men in senior management: A “different needs”
hypothesis, Women in Management Review, 16, 400-404.
Okimoto, T.G., & Brescoll, V.L. (2010). The price of power: Power seeking and backlash
against female politicians. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 923-936.
doi: 10.1177/0146167210371949
Olsson, S. (2002). Gendered heroes: Male and female self-representations of executive
159 identity. Women in Management Review, 17, 142-150.
O'Malley, N. (June 26, 2010). Chief has more on her mind than gender. Sydney Morning
Herald, p.5.
O'Neil, D.A., Hopkins, M.M., & Bilimoria, D. (2008). Women's careers at the start of the
21st century: Patterns and paradoxes. Journal of Business Ethics, 80, 727-743. doi:
10.1007/s10551-007-9465-6
Orser, B. & Leck, J. (2010). Gender influences on career success outcomes. Gender in
Management: An International Review, 25, 386-407. doi:
10.1108/17542411011056877
Percheski, C. (2008). Opting out? Cohort differences in professional women's employment
rates from 1960 to 2005. American Sociological Review, 73, 497-517.
Peterson, C. (1991a). The meaning and measurement of explanatory style. Psychological
Inquiry, 2, 1-10.
Peterson, C. (1991b). Further thoughts on explanatory style. Psychological Inquiry, 2, 50-57.
Peterson, C. (1991c). On shortening the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire. Journal
of Personality Assessment, 56, 179-183.
Peterson, C., & Barrett, L.C. (1987). Explanatory style and academic performance among
university freshmen. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 603-607.
Peterson, C., & Chang, E.C. (2003). Optimism and flourishing. In C.L.M. Keyes & J. Haidt
(Eds.), Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived (pp. 55-79).
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Peterson, C. & Park, N. (2006). Character strengths in organizations. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 27, 1149-1154. doi: 10.1002/job.756
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M.E.P. (1984). Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression:
theory and evidence. Psychological Review, 91, 347-374.
160 Peterson, C., Luborsky, L., & Seligman, M.E.P. (1983). Depressive symptoms and
unprompted causal attributions: Content analysis. Behavior Research and Therapy,
23, 96-103.
Peterson, C., Park, N., Hall, N. and Seligman, M.E.P. (2009). Zest and work. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 30, 161-72. doi: 10.1002/job.584
Peterson, C., Seligman, M.E.P., & Vaillant, G.E. (1988). Pessimistic explanatory style is a
risk for physical illness: a thirty-five-year longitudinal study. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 55, 23-27.
Peterson, C., & Steen, T.A. (2009). Optimistic explanatory style. In C.R. Snyder & S.J.
Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 313-321). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Peterson, C., & Villanova, P. (1988). An Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97, 87-89.
Peterson, C., Park, Hall, N., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2009). Zest and work. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 30, 161-172.
Peterson, C., Semmel, A., von Baeyer, C., Abramson, L.Y., Metalsky, G.I., & Seligman,
M.E.P. (1982). The Attributional Style Questionnaire. Cognitive Therapy and
Research, 6, 287-299.
Phelan, J.E., Moss-Racusin, C.A., & Rudman, L.A. (2008). Competent yet out in the cold:
Shifting criteria for hiring reflect backlash toward agentic women. Psychology of
Women Quarterly, 32, 406-413.
Phelps, L.H., & Waskel, S.A. (1994). Explanatory style and its functional relationship to job
satisfaction for employed women forty and over. Psychological Reports, 74, 899-902.
Pini, B. (2005). The third sex: Women leaders in Australian agriculture. Gender, Work and
Organization, 12, 73-88.
161 Pinker, S. (2002). The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature. New York: Viking.
Pinker, S. (2008). The sexual paradox: troubled boys, gifted girls & the real difference
between the sexes. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Porath, C., Spreitzer, G., Gibson, C., & Garnett, F.G. (2012). Thriving at work: Toward its
measurement, construct validation, and theoretical refinement. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 33, 250-75. doi: 10.1002/job.756
Poropat, A. (2002). The relationship between attributional style, gender and the Five-Factor
Model of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 33, 1185-1201.
Powell, G.N. (2012). Six ways of seeing the elephant: The intersection of sex, gender, and
leadership. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 27, 119-141. doi:
10.1108/17542411211214167
Powell, G.N., & Butterfield, D.A. (2011). Sex, gender, and the US presidency: Ready for a
female President? Gender in Management: An International Journal, 26, 394-407.
doi: 10.1108/17542411111164894
Pridmore, S., & Walker, E. (2011). Excuses. Australasian Psychiatry, 19, 110-12.
Proudfoot, J.G., Corr, P.J., Guest, D.E., & Dunn, G. (2009). Cognitive-behavioural training to
change attributional style improves employee well-being, job satisfaction,
productivity, and turnover. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 147-153. doi:
10.1016/j.paid.2008.09.018
Proudfoot, J.G., Corr, P.J., Guest, D.E., & Gray, J.A. (2001). The development and
evaluation of a scale to measure occupational attributional style in the financial
services sector. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 259-270.
Proudfoot, J.G., Guest, D., Carson, J., Dunn, G., & Gray, J. (1997). Effect of cognitive-
behavioural training on job-finding among long-term employed people. The Lancet,
350, 96-100.
162 Reber, A.S. (1985). The Penguin dictionary of psychology. London: Penguin Books.
Reivich, K.J., Seligman, ME.P., & McBride, S. (2011). Master resilience training in the U.S.
army. American Psychologist, 66, 25-34. doi: 1037/a0021897
Rennesund, A.B., & Saksvik, P.O. (2010). Work performance norms and organizational
efficacy as cross-level effects on the relationship between individual perceptions of
self-efficacy, overcommitment, and work-related stress. European Journal of Work
and Organizational Psychology, 19, 629-53. doi: 10.1080/13594320903036751
Rigotti, T., Schyns, B., & Mohr, G. (2008). A short version of the Occupational Self-Efficacy
Scale: Structural and construct validity across five countries. Journal of Career
Assessment, 16, 238-255. doi: 10.1177/1069072707305763
Robbins, A. (1991). Awaken the giant within: How to take immediate control of your mental,
emotional, physical & financial destiny!, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Royal Australian Institute of Architects. (2004, August 10). No glass ceiling for female
architects. RAIA Media Releases. Retrieved from http://www.architecture.com.au/i-
cms?page=539
Rudman, L.A., & Kilianski, S.E. (2000). Implicit and explicit attitudes toward female
authority. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1315-1328.
Ryan, M.K., & Haslam, S.A. (2005). The glass cliff: Evidence that women are over-
represented in precarious leadership positions. British Journal of Management, 16,
81-90.
Ryan, M.K., & Haslam, S.A. (2009). Glass cliffs are not so easily scaled: On the
precariousness of female CEO's positions. British Journal of Management, 20, 13-16.
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2008.00598.x
Saks, A.M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of
Managerial Psychology, 21, 600-619. doi: 10.1108/02683940610690169
163 Sanjuan, P., & Magallares, A. (2009). A longitudinal study of the negative explanatory style
and attributions of uncontrollability as predictors of depressive symptoms.
Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 714-718. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.01.030
Sayers, J. (1979) Anatomy is destiny: variations on a theme. Women's Studies International
Quarterly, 2, 19-32.
Schambaugh, R. (2008). It's not a glass ceiling, it's a sticky floor: Free yourself from the
hidden behaviors sabotaging your career success. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Professional.
Schaufeli, W.B., Bakker, A.B., & Salanova, M. (2006). The measurement of work
engagement with a short questionnaire. Educational and Psychological Measurement,
66, 701-16.
Scheier, M.F., & Carver, C.S. (1985), Optimism, coping, and health: Assessment and
implications of generalized outcome expectancies, Health Psychology, 4, 219-247.
Scheier, M.F., & Carver, C.S. (1992). Effects of optimism on psychological and physical
well-being: Theoretical overview and empirical update. Cognitive Therapy and
Research, 16, 201-228.
Scheier, M.F., Carver, C.S.. & Bridges, M.W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from
neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem); A reevaluation of the
Life Orientation Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 1063-1078.
Scheier, M.F., Weintraub, J.K., & Carver, C.S. (1986). Coping with stress: Divergent
strategies of optimists and pessimists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
51, 1257-1264.
Schulman, P., Castellon, C., & Seligman, M.E.P. (1989). Assessing explanatory style: The
content analysis of verbatim explanations and the Attributional Style Questionnaire.
Behaviour Research and Therapy, 27, 505-512.
164 Schwartz, F.N. (1989). Management women and the new facts of life. Harvard Business
Review, 67, 65-76.
Schyns, B., & Sanders, K. (2005). Exploring gender differences in leaders' occupational self-
efficacy. Women in Management Review, 20, 513-523. doi:
10.1108/09649420510624747
Schyns, B., & Sczesny, S. (2010). Leadership attributes valence in self-concept and
occupational self-efficacy. Career Development International, 15, 78-92. doi:
10.1108/13620431011020907
Schyns, B. & von Collani, G. (2002). A new occupational self-efficacy scale and its
relation to personality constructs and organisational variables. European Journal of
Work and Organizational Psychology, 11, 219-241.
Seligman, M.E.P. (1991). Learned optimism. New York, NY: Knopf.
Seligman, M.E.P. (2006, February 15). Australian Financial Review Boss Seminar. Sydney.
Seligman, M.E.P. (2011, April). Recovering from failure: Building resilience. Harvard
Business Review, 100-106.
Seligman, M.E.P., Peterson, C., Kaslow, N.J., Tanenbaum, R.L., Alloy, L.B., & Abramson,
L.Y. (1984). Attributional style and depressive symptoms among children. Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, 93, 235-238.
Seligman, M.E.P., & Schulman, P. (1986). Explanatory style as a predictor of productivity
and quitting among life insurance sales agents. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 50, 832-838.
Seligman, M.E.P., Nolen-Hoeksema, S., Thornton, N., & Thornton, K.M. (1990).
Explanatory style as a mechanism of disappointing athletic performance.
Psychological Science, 1, 143-146.
Seligman, M.E.P., Reivich, K., Laycox, L., & Gillham, J. (1995). The optimistic child.
165 Sydney: Random House.
Sellers, R.M., & Peterson, C. (1993). Explanatory style and coping with controllable events
by student-athletes. Cognition and Emotion, 7, 431-441.
Seppala, P., Mauno, S., Feldt, T., Hakanen, J., Kinnunen, U., Tolvanen, A., & Schaufeli, W.
(2009). The construct validity of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: Multisample
and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10, 459-481. doi:
10.1007/s1092-008-9100-y
Sheldon, K.M., & Cooper, M.L. (2008) Goal striving with agentic and communal roles:
separate but functionally similar pathways to enhanced well-being. Journal of
Personality, 76, 415-47. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00491.x
Sheldon, K.M., & Schachtman, T.R. (2007). Obligations, internalization, and excuse making:
Integrating the triangle model and self-determination theory. Journal of Personality,
75, 359-81. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00442.x
Smith, P., Caputi, P., & Crittenden, N. (2012a). Measuring optimism in organizations:
Development of a workplace explanatory style questionnaire. Journal of Happiness
Studies. Advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s10902-012-9336-4
Smith, P., Crittenden, N., & Caputi, P. (2012b). Measuring women's beliefs about glass
ceilings: Development of the Career Pathways Survey. Gender in Management: An
International Journal, 27, 68-80. doi: 10.1108/17542411211214130
Snyder, C.R. (2002). Hope theory: Rainbows in the mind. Psychological Inquiry, 13, 249-
275.
Staines, G., Travis, C., & Jayerante, T.E. (1973). The queen bee syndrome. Psychology
Today, 7, 55-60.
Stajkovic, A.D., & Luthans, F. (1998). Self-efficacy and work-related performance: A meta-
analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 240-261.
166 Stead, V. & Elliott, C. (2009). Women’s leadership. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Still, L.V. (2006). Where are the women in leadership in Australia? Women in Management
Review, 21, 180-194.
Still, M.C. (2006). The opt-out revolution in the United States: Implications for modern
organizations. Managerial and Decision Economics, 27, 159-171. doi:
10.1002/mde.1290
Stone, P. (2007) Opting out? Why women really quit careers and head home. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Tabachnick, B.G., & Fidell, L.S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics (5th ed.). Boston, MA:
Pearson.
Tan, J. (2008). Breaking the “bamboo curtain” and the “glass ceiling”: The experience of
women entrepreneurs in high-tech industries in an emerging market. Journal of
Business Ethics, 80, 547-564. doi: 10.1007/s10551-007-9454-9
Tennen, H., & Herzberger, S. (1985). Attributional Style Questionnaire. In D.J. Keyser &
R.C. Sweetland (Eds.), Test Critiques (Vol. 4, pp. 20-30). Kansas City, KA: Test
Corporation of America.
Terborg, J.T., Peters, L.H., Ilgen, D.R., & Smith, F. (1977). Organizational and personal
correlates of attitudes toward women as managers. Academy of Management Journal,
20, 89-100.
Tharenou, P. (1997). Explanations of managerial career advancement. Australian
Psychologist, 32, 19-28.
Tharenou, P. (1999). Is there a link between family structures and women’s and men’s
managerial career advancement? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 20, 837-863.
Thompson, M., Kaslow, N.J., Weiss, B., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1998). Children's
167 Attributional Style Questionnaire: Psychometric properties. Psychological
Assessment, 10, 166-170.
Thomson, P., Graham, J., & Lloyd, T. (2008). A woman's place is in the boardroom: The
roadmap. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Torchia, M., Calabro, A., & Huse, M. (2011). Women directors on corporate boards: From
tokenism to critical mass. Journal of Business Ethics, 102, 299-317. doi:
10.1007/s10551-011-0815-z
US Department of Labor (1991). A report on the glass ceiling initiative. Washington, DC: US
Government Printing Office.
Valcour, M., & Ladge, J.J. (2008). Family and career path characteristics as predictors of
women's objective and subjective career success: Integrating traditional and protean
career explanations. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 73, 300-309. doi:
10.1016/j.jvb.2008.06.002
Waitley, D. (1984). The psychology of winning. New York, NY: Berkley.
Walker, E.A., & Webster, B.J. (2007). Gender, age and self-employment: some things stay
the same. Women in Management Review, 22, 122-35. doi:
10.1108/09649420710732088
Ware, J.E., Kosinski, M., & Keller, S.D. (1996). A 12-item short-form health survey:
Construction of scales and preliminary tests of reliability and validity. Medical Care,
34, 220-233.
Watts, J.H. (2009). 'Allowed into a man's world' meanings of work-life balance: Perspectives
of women civil engineers as 'minority' workers in construction. Gender, Work and
Organization, 16, 37- 57.
Weyer, B. (2007). Twenty years later: Explaining the persistence of the glass ceiling for
women leaders. Women in Management Review, 22, 482-496.
168 Welbourne, J.L., Eggerth, D., Hartley, T.A., Andrew, M.E., Sanchez, F. (2007). Coping
strategies in the workplace: Relationships with attributional style and job satisfaction.
Journal of Vocational Behavior, 70, 312-325. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2006.10.006
White, M. (2009, March). Why teach positive education in schools? Curriculum Leadership:
An electronic journal for leaders in education. Retrieved from
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/why_teach_positive_education_in_schools
Whitley, B.E. (1991). A Short Form of the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire.
Journal of Personality Assessment, 56, 365-369.
Whitley, B.E., Michael, S.T., & Tremont, G. (1991). Testing for sex differences in the
relationship between attributional style and depression. Sex Roles, 24, 753-758.
Williams, C.L. (1992) The glass escalator: Hidden advantages for men in the 'female'
professions. Social Problems, 39, 253-266.
Williams, J.C. (2004). Hitting the maternal wall. Academe, 90, 16-20.
Wolfe, T. (2008). The right stuff. New York, NY: Picador.
Wood, G. (2008). Gender stereotypical attitudes: Past, present and future influences on
women’s career advancement. Equal Opportunities International, 27, 613-628. doi;
10.1108/02610150810904319
Wood, G.J. (2006). Career advancement in Australian middle managers: A follow-up study.
Women in Management Review, 21, 277-293. doi: 10.1108/09649420610666588
Wood, G.J., & Lindorff, M. (2001). Sex differences in explanations for career progress.
Women in Management Review, 16, 152-162.
Wright, T.A. & Cropanzano, R. (2000). Psychological well-being and job satisfaction as
predictors of job performance. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 89-94.
doi: 10.1037/1076-8998.5.1.84
Wright, T.A., Cropanzano, R., & Bonett, D.G. (2007). The moderating role of employee
169 positive well being on the relation between job satisfaction and job performance.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 93-104. doi: 10.1037/1076-
8998.12.2.93.
Wrigley. B.J. (2002). Glass ceiling? What glass ceiling? A qualitative study of how women
view the glass ceiling in public relations and communication management. Journal of
Public Relations Research, 14, 27-55.
Xenikou, A. (2005). The interactive effect of positive and negative occupational attributional
styles on job motivation. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,
14, 43-58. doi: 10.1080/13594320444000218
Xenikou, A., Furnham, A., & McCarrey, M. (1997). Attributional style for negative events: A
proposition for a more reliable and valid measure of attributional style. British
Journal of Psychology, 88, 53-69.
Zullow, H.M., Oettingen G., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M.E.P. (1988). Pessimistic
explanatory style in the historical record: CAVing LBJ, presidential candidates, and
East versus West Berlin. American Psychologist, 43, 673-682.
170 APPENDIX A
CAREER PATHWAYS SURVEY (Study 1)
Background Information
Age: o 18-31 o 31-50 o 51-65 o 65+
Level: o Not currently employed o Staff member o Middle management o Top management
Locality: o Rural o Semi-rural o Urban
Marital status: o Single o Married o With partner
Number of children: o 1-3 o 4-6 o 6+ o None
171 Instructions
Select one number for each statement
1. Women face no barriers to promotions in most organisations. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
2. Women prefer a balanced life more than gaining highly paid careers. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
3. It’s a strong disincentive when other women are badly hurt trying to gain leadership positions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
4. Talented women are able to overcome sexist discrimination. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
5. Smart women avoid careers that involve intense competition with colleagues. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
6. Women usually struggle to be selected as team leaders. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
7. Women who have a strong commitment to their careers can go right to the top. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
172 8. Jealousy from co-workers prevents women from seeking promotions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
9. Women and men have to overcome the same problems at the workplace. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
10. Even women with many skills and qualifications fail to be recognised for promotions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
11. Women leaders are seldom given full credit for their successes. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
12. Women have the same desire for power as men do. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
13. Women have reached the top in all areas of business and politics. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
14. Women commonly reject career advancement as they are keener to maintain a role raising children. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
15. Women in senior positions face frequent putdowns of being too soft or too hard. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
173 16. The support of a mentor greatly increases the success of a woman in any organisation. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
17. Unfair preferential treatment is given to both women and men. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
18. If women achieve promotions they might be accused of offering sexual favours. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
19. Women enthusiastically develop social networks to enhance their careers. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
20. Women are more likely to be hurt than men when they take the big risks necessary for corporate success. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
21. A supportive spouse/partner or close friend makes it easier for a woman to achieve success in her career. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
22. Discrimination against women is a major problem only in non-Western countries. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
23. Motherhood is more important to most women than career advancement. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
174 24. Daughters of successful mothers are inspired to overcome sexist hurdles. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
25. The low proportion of women leaders is normal compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
26. Women leaders suffer more emotional pain than men when there is a crisis within their teams. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
27. Government regulations cannot ensure women have equal job opportunities with men. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
28. Women reject the need to work incredibly long hours. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
29. Women with high goals are not likely to achieve their work ambitions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
30. Women starting careers today will face sexist barriers. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
31. Women believe they have to make too many compromises to gain highly paid positions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
175 32. Successful organisations seek and want to retain talented female staff. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
33. Higher education qualifications will help women overcome discrimination. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
34. Even very successful women can quickly lose their confidence. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
35. Women know that work does not provide the best source of happiness in life. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
36. Women executives are very uncomfortable when they have to criticize members of their teams. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
37. Being in the limelight creates many problems for women. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
38. The more women seek senior positions, the easier it will be for those who follow. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
39. It will take decades for women to reach equality with men in high level management positions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
176 40. When women are given opportunities to lead they do effective jobs. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
177 APPENDIX B
CAREER PATHWAYS SURVEY (Study 2)
Background Information
Age: o 18-20 o 21-30 o 31-40 o 41-50 o 51-60 o 61-70 o 70+
Career Level: o Not currently employed o Staff member o Supervisor o Middle management o Top management o Self-employed o Retired
Residence: o Australia/New Zealand o Asia o United States o Great Britain o Europe o Other
Locality: o Rural o Semi-rural o Urban
178 Highest Level of Education: o Primary/Elementary School o Secondary School o Technical College Course o Diploma o Undergraduate Degree o Honours/Graduate Diploma o Masters o PhD
Marital status: o Single o Married o With partner
Number of children: o None o 1 o 2 o 3 o 4 o 5 o 6 o 6+
PART 1- CAREER PATHWAYS SURVEY
The next 40 statements are beliefs about women and their careers. Decide how much you agree with each statement by selecting the
1. Women face no barriers to promotions in most organisations. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
2. Women prefer a balanced life more than gaining highly paid careers. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
179 3. Networking is a smart way for women to increase the chances of career success. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
4. Talented women are able to overcome sexist discrimination. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
5. Smart women avoid careers that involve intense competition with colleagues. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
6. Women are capable of making critical leadership decisions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
7. Women who have a strong commitment to their careers can go right to the top. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
8. Jealousy from co-workers prevents women from seeking promotions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
9. Women and men have to overcome the same problems at the workplace. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
10. Even women with many skills and qualifications fail to be recognized for promotions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
180 11. Women leaders are seldom given full credit for their successes. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
12. Women have the same desire for power as men do. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
13. Women have reached the top in all areas of business and politics. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
14. Women commonly reject career advancement as they are keener to maintain a role raising children. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
15. Women in senior positions face frequent putdowns of being too soft or too hard. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
16. The support of a mentor greatly increases the success of a woman in any organisation. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
17. Unfair preferential treatment is given to both women and men. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
18. If women achieve promotions they might be accused of offering sexual favours. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
181 19. Women are just as ambitious in their careers as men. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
20. Women are more likely to be hurt than men when they take the big risks necessary for corporate success. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
21. A supportive spouse/partner or close friend makes it easier for a woman to achieve success in her career. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
22. Women are less concerned about promotions than men are. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
23. Motherhood is more important to most women than career advancement. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
24. Daughters of successful mothers are inspired to overcome sexist hurdles. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
25. Women's nurturing skills help them to be successful leaders. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
26. Women leaders suffer more emotional pain than men when there is a crisis within their teams. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
182 27. Women have the strength to overcome discrimination. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
28. Women reject the need to work incredibly long hours. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
29. Women with high goals are not likely to achieve their work ambitions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
30. Women starting careers today will face sexist barriers. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
31. Women believe they have to make too many compromises to gain highly paid positions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
32. Successful organisations seek and want to retain talented female staff. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
33. Higher education qualifications will help women overcome discrimination. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
34. Even very successful women can quickly lose their confidence. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
183 35. Women know that work does not provide the best source of happiness in life. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
36. Women executives are very uncomfortable when they have to criticize members of their teams. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
37. Being in the limelight creates many problems for women. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
38. The more women seek senior positions, the easier it will be for those who follow. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
39. It will take decades for women to reach equality with men in high level management positions. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
40. When women are given opportunities to lead they do effective jobs. o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Strongly Moderately Slightly Uncertain Slightly Moderately Strongly Agree Agree Agree Disagree Disagree Disagree
184 PART 2 - WORK & WELLBEING SURVEY
The following nine statements are about how you feel at work. Indicate how often you have each feeling by selecting the number that best describes how frequently you feel that way.
41. At my work, I feel that I am bursting with energy. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day)
42. I am enthusiastic about my job. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day) 43. At my job, I feel strong and vigorous. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day)
185 44. My job inspires me. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day) 45. When I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day) 46. I feel happy when I am working intensely. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day) 47. I am proud of the work I do. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day)
186 48. I am immersed with my work. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day) 49. I get carried away when I'm working. o Never o Almost never ( A few times a year or less) o Rarely (Once a month or less) o Sometimes (A few times a month) o Often (Once a week) o Very often (A few times a week) o Always (Every day)
PART 3 - HEALTH & HAPPINESS SURVEY
50. In the past 4 weeks, have your physical health problems interfered with your work activities? o None of the time o A little of the time o Some of the time o Most of the time o All of the time
51. In the past 4 weeks, how much time has your physical health problems interfered with your social activities? o None of the time o A little of the time o Some of the time o Most of the time o All of the time
187 52. In the past 4 weeks, how much time has your emotional problems interfered with your work activities? o None of the time o A little of the time o Some of the time o Most of the time o All of the time
53. In the past 4 weeks, how much time has your emotional problems interfered with your social activities? o None of the time o A little of the time o Some of the time o Most of the time o All of the time
54. In general, would you say your physical health is: o Excellent o Very good o Good o Fair o Poor
55. In general, would you say your emotional health is: o Excellent o Very good o Good o Fair o Poor
56. In general, how happy do you consider yourself? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not a very A very happy person happy person
57. Compared to your friends and co-workers, how happy do you consider yourself? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Less happy More happy
188 58. Some people are generally very happy. They enjoy life regardless of what is going on, getting the most out of everything. To what extent does this describe you? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not at all A great deal
59. Some people are generally not very happy. Although they are not depressed, they never seem as happy as they might be. To what extent does this describe you? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not at all A great deal
PART 4 – CAREER SATISFACTION SURVEY
Select the appropriate number after the statement using this scale:
1 = Disagree Strongly 2 = Disagree 3 = Neither Agree nor Disagree 4 = Agree 5 = Agree Strongly
60. I am satisfied with the success I have achieved in my career. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
61. I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my overall career goals. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
62. I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for income. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
189 63. I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for career advancement. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
64. I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for the development of new skills. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
190 APPENDIX C
Background Information
1. Sex: o Female o Male
2. Age: o 18-20 o 21-30 o 31-40 o 41-50 o 51-60 o 61-70 o 70+
3. Years in Present Career: o Less than 1 o 1-5 o 6-10 o 11-15 o 16-20 o 20+
4. Career Level: o Not currently employed o Student o Staff member o Supervisor o Middle management o Top management o Self-employed o Retired
5. Highest Level of Education: o Primary/Elementary School o Secondary School o Technical College Course o Diploma o Undergraduate Degree o Honours/Graduate Diploma o Masters o PhD
191 PART 1 – WORKPLACE EXPLANATIONS SURVEY
IMAGINE each of the following situations happen at your workplace. Think of the MOST LIKELY REASON for each situation. Then select the appropriate number for each question.
You do some work that is highly praised.
6. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me 7. Will the cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
8. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
A work colleague doesn't follow your instructions.
9. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
10. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
11. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
192 You are given a promotion.
12. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
13. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
14. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
You can't finish a project on time.
15. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
16. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
17. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
You are asked to be the a leader of a team.
18. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
19. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
193
20. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
You apply unsuccessfully for a position.
21. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
22. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
23. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
You achieve the best results of anyone in your team.
24. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
25. Will the cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
26. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
194 A co-worker criticises you.
27. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
28. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
29. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
A company/organization is keen for you to join them.
30. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
31. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
32. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
You are involved in a workplace accident.
33. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
34. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
195
35. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
Your strong work commitment is recognised at a meeting.
36. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
37. Will the cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
38. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
You are late for a work appointment.
39. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
40. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
41. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
196 A co-worker asks you for some important advice.
42. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
43. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
44. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
You are feeling run-down at work.
45. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
46. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
47. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
You make a major contribution to the success of a project.
48. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
49. Will the cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
197
50. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
A superior in your organization ignores several suggestions you make.
51. How much are you responsible for causing this situation? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not due Totally due to me to me
52. Will this cause again be present in the future? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Never Always
53. Does this cause affect other parts of your life? o o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Only this All areas situation of my life
198 PART 2 - WORK GOALS & PROBLEMS SURVEY
The following six statements are about beliefs you might have about your performance at work. Indicate how true you think each statement is about you by selecting the appropriate number after the statement.
1 = Not at all true of me 2 = Rarely true 3 = Sometimes true 4 = Frequently true 5 = Very often true 6 = Completely true of me
54. I can remain calm when facing difficulties in my job because I can rely on my abilities. o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 Not at all true Completely of me true of me
55. When I am confronted by a problem in my job, I can usually find several solutions. o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 Not at all true Completely of me true of me
56. Whatever comes my way in my job, I can usually handle it. o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 Not at all true Completely of me true of me
57. My past experiences in my job have prepared me well for my occupational future. o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 Not at all true Completely of me true of me
58. I meet the goals that I set for myself in my job. o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 Not at all true Completely of me true of me
199 59. I feel prepared for most of the demands in my job. o o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 6 Not at all true Completely of me true of me
PART 3 – CAREER SATISFACTION SURVEY
Select the appropriate number after the statement using this scale:
1 = Disagree Strongly 2 = Disagree 3 = Neither Agree nor Disagree 4 = Agree 5 = Agree Strongly
60. I am satisfied with the success I have achieved in my career. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
61. I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my overall career goals. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
62. I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for income. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
63. I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for career advancement. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
200 64. I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for the development of new skills. o o o o o 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Strongly Disagree Agree
201