THE EFFECT OF TOKENISM AND INACCESSIBILITY TO THE INFORMAL SUPPORT SYSTEMS ON FEMALE MANAGERS' WORK ATTITUDES.
Item
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Title
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THE EFFECT OF TOKENISM AND INACCESSIBILITY TO THE INFORMAL SUPPORT SYSTEMS ON FEMALE MANAGERS' WORK ATTITUDES.
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Identifier
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AAI8713742
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identifier
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8713742
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Creator
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ASHAMALLA, MAALI H.
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Date
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1987
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Business Administration, Management
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Abstract
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The contextual and structural conditions of organizations are seen as critical in shaping work attitudes. This dissertation study is an investigation of the impact of three contextual variables on work attitudes of female managers in top corporate positions. The three contextual variables are tokenism (or the relative scarcity of one's own sex in a work group) and the inaccessibility to the informal support systems of mentoring and peer networking. The study also provides a comparison between female and male manager's work attitudes as affected by these contextual variables.;A three-stage model was proposed. Tokenism and inaccessibility to the informal support systems of mentoring and social networking were predicted to generate a sense of powerlessness, stress and low promotion opportunity. Powerlessness, stress and low promotion opportunity in turn were expected to result in personal alienation, social alienation, work alienation, low levels of organizational commitment and low levels of achievement motivation. Finally, tokenism and inaccessibility to the mentoring and social networking systems were predicted also to have a direct effect on personal alienation, social alienation, work alienation, organizational commitment and achievement motivation.;A questionnaire measuring these variables was completed by 288 business managers and executives, 194 of whom were females and 94 males. Questionnaire responses were supplemented with independent observational data obtained from a work peer in 52 percent of the cases. The participants occupied a variety of middle and top managerial positions with various organizations.;A number of statistical techniques were applied to determine the relationships among the variables at different stages of the research model. In general, the results of this study tend to support the predicted effects of mentoring and peer networking but not the expected effects of tokenism on work attitudes of female managers. In addition, the results indicated that work attitudes of female and male managers were similarly affected by the contextual and mediator variables studied.;The implications of these findings for theory development and management practice were discussed.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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the thesis is from Tennessee, not the same title
