Unit 1 Week 1:
UC Davis Graduate School of Management released a study in 2007 which stated that women are under-represented in executive positions and board seats. This study looked at 400 of the largest publicly-held corporations in the state of California which resulted in a 10:1 ratio between men and women in these positions and seats. That means that for every woman represented there are nine men in leadership roles. Half of these companies have no female executive officers, more than 30% of the companies have no women in a top executive position, and 47% have no women in the boardroom. Only 13 of the 400 companies have a CEO that is female (Gunelius, 2007).
A program introduced into the healthcare field address the cultural and linguistic barriers by understanding the potential costs and benefits. Their strategy to leverage leadership diversity has three steps. Step one is to respond to the shift in the consumers demographic by providing empirical evidence of the linkage between diversity and performance. The second step is diversity ensures competitiveness which links investments in diversity to financial outcomes and organizational metrics of success. The third step is to provide imperative to the business case by making organization leadership responsible for cultural competence as a performance measure (Dotson & Nuru-Jeter, 2012).
In 2006, Rush University Medical Center formed a committee to review the work within the institution. Rush benefitted from the senior leaders establishing clear goals, organizing its research to develop programming for diversity that is useful, determining the best way to allocate funds, and focusing on the shortage of females and minorities in leadership roles (Clapp, 2010).
References:
Clapp, J. R. (2010). Diversity Leadership: The Rush University Medical Center Experience. Hospital Topics, 88(2), 61-66.
Dotson, E. &