Introduction
Giacalone and Rosenfeld (2013) define management as the coordination or organization of the different activities running in an enterprise or any organization with an intention of achieving the objectives or visions of the organization. In most of the cases, management is considered as one of the vital resources necessary for the efficient running of the production process. Therefore, it is grouped with other resources such as the capital, materials, and machines. The primary functions of management not only includes the marketing process but also gears up the process of creativity and innovation in the organization. Management determines the success or failure of the organization thus the person or group of individuals at the top managerial levels determine whether or not the activities of the organization run as expected to meet the objectives and mission statement (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012; Jiang et al. 2012). The functions of the management team vary from the interlocked functions of organizing the activities of the organization, establishing the corporate policy, planning, directing the resources of the organization to achieve the objectives and overall controlling of all the processes of the organization (Kapferer, 2012). Nevertheless, the issue of inequality in managerial positions remains a major challenge in management across the world. In the UK, research has shown that most senior management positions are filled by white men despite the significantly high population of other races and women in the region. Therefore, this paper explores why White men dominate senior management positions in the UK.
Several theories as discussed herein explain why most males dominate the managerial levels in the UK. A research by Williams (2016) studying the administrative teams in journalism industry in the UK expresses a high number of males dominating the positions and a significant number of whites occupying the management positions as compared to other ethnic groups. The study reveals that the British Journalism has 55% males and 94% Whites (Williams, 2016). Similarly, Magee (2016) explains a research conducted by Tom Knox the IPA president where the research concludes that the future of the advertising industry management team will continue to be dominated by the middle cast, middle-aged and white males. Another study by Bolton (2015) showed that the number of women in the managerial positions has declined from 307 in 2013 to 291 in 2014. The study revealed that the number of women in the administrative position is not a reflection of their careers choices or skills but rather the amount of inequality in these areas. As such, women are at times more skilled as compared to the men but are denied some of the occupations making them unequally placed in the economy.
Ibarra, Carter and Silva (2010) assert that the women mentors are possess less organizational clout than men thus possess a disadvantage of occupying the top management levels as expressed in the study. The follow-up survey in 2010 admits that the men got more than 15% promotions as compared to the women hence giving the reason as to why most men are in the top managerial positions. In a different study, Stahl et al. (2012) state that some of the factors that may lead to the number of White and males occupying most of the managerial top levels in UK include, prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes.
The neoclassical theory can be used to explain why there is inequality in the top management positions is the UK. Meade (2013) argues that the disparity evidenced by the more number of males in the leadership posts and more whites than other ethnic groups attributed to the perfectly competitive market in the UK. This market is controlled by behavior via the supplier and demand. When these two aspects are equal, the labor market is explained to be in equilibrium. When the workers are equally productive, then the demand for the labor increases and the demand wages falls. Therefore, the stability of the payments relies on the demand and supply. As such, discrimination is considered as irrational thus it cannot be sustained if the workers continue to be competitive (Meade, 2013; Lundahl and Wadensjo, 2015).
The British journalism gives statistics that the number of Whites occupying the top managerial positions in this industry are 94%. The survey furthers the number of males in this industry to be 55% thus expressing the domination of males in journalism managerial levels (Williams, 2016). The study further reveals that the women in thus industry remain underpaid and under-promoted. As there is no motivation for the women to work hard to achieve these management positions since they are sure that they will be underpaid, they do not strive to occupy these positions. The study further reveals that only Britain journalists are given positions to the top managerial levels. Other ethnicities such as blacks are under-presented. In comparison with a third of males in the management positions, 50% of the females are paid less than £2,400 monthly (Williams, 2016). This reflects on the salaries inequalities in comparison with men’s salaries to those of men.
Table 1: Comparison between number of males and females in different companies from Magee, (2016).
Several women in the journalism industry complain that they spend more time working for their respective companies, but their salaries and promotion up the ladder does not compare to that of the men. Some of the interviewees from other ethnic groups complained that upon using English names to apply for the announced job opportunities, they easily landed the interviews. This reflects on the discrimination in the employment criteria. “Discrimination refers to the negative behavioral statement of the members of other social groups due to their membership in these groups (Stahl et al., 2012, p. 139). As per this research, it is evident that discrimination levels against the women and other ethnic groups are too high hence the causal of this problem.
The great competition against males of attaining the university level education and achieving a competitive advantage in the workplace attribute to a high number of males in the managerial positions. Woman do not possess a competitive advantage against the men hence are not in a position of matching the high number of males in the managerial positions. Stereotypes are described by Stahl et al. (2012) as the beliefs regarding the characteristics, behaviors, and attributes about a certain group of people. There is a stereotype amongst many employees that the women cannot successfully remain in the managerial levels as a result of the leading roles and responsibilities they are expected to play personally. Korpi, Ferrarini, and Englund (2013) argue that women may be considered to have diverted attention as a result of taking care of their families and successfully managing the many roles of a manager. Such assertion is a stereotype since some of the males possess more responsibilities than the women hence as much as these men can manage these tasks, the women too can manage to run the managerial objectives of the organization efficiently. Moreover, women are considered to be more affected by the emotional changes where they can make a decision influenced by their emotions and personal gains, unlike the men. Therefore, employers do not easily give these leadership positions to the women for fear of wrong decisions based on such stereotypes.
Another reason as to why men and Whites dominate such top managerial positions is based on the prejudices. Prejudices are described as the negative attitudes that a person may have towards a particular group of individuals. Based on prejudice, some employers have negative attitude towards other ethnic groups that are not whites and women in general. As such, men are considered to be more persistent in playing their responsibilities and contain the command need for effective organization control and decision making in an organization (Heilman, 2012).
Conversely, Whites are considered by some employers to be more knowledgeable as compared to other ethnic groups. Therefore, the whites are easily allocated this positions easily. The survey conducted by William (2016) has one of the respondents who is not a White complain that he severally applied for a promotion but was not shortlisted. At one instance while job searching, he applied for a managerial position in one of the biggest companies that is not stated in the survey using an English name and he was easily shortlisted. Therefore, it is evident that there is prejudice against some group which leads to the high levels of inequality in these managerial positions.
Prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination are all psychological constraints that are based on the perception of the involved person (Heilman, 2012). Therefore, as much as the employers may be affected by these negative perceptions hence attributing to inequality in the promotion and salary increase levels, most of these aspects are generally wrong. As such, women can be more effective in the managerial positions unlike men thus as per the survey, the discrimination should be eliminated. Besides, other ethnic groups which are not whites can work better than the whites as evidenced by cases of human power import thus the need for ethnic equality.
The choice theory is another concept that explains the amount of discrimination at the managerial position levels. The human capital that is associated with this theory expounds on how the qualifications and experience are exchanged for the salaries and job opportunities. One of the aspects that vary among all employees is the time and how these workers decide to invest (Glasser and Meagher, 2014). Employees are influenced to make rational decisions based on choosing what to spend which varies from money, time and effort. The rational decisions made by the employees are affected by the relative award they can attain after the input attempts (Bidwell et al., 2013). When the employees realize of the low reward awaiting them, they will put the little effort that will lead them into not attaining the promotions and salary increments. When the labor markets have potential low rewards, the employees will be in a weak position of engaging (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012). This explains the rationale as to why most surveys revealed women were getting lower salaries as compared to men and less chances of promotions as compared to men.
The choice theory explains of the behavior of people based on motivation from within. The choice theory is developed from a personal attempt of meeting one’s basic needs. Choice theory is built under the concepts of perceived world, basic needs, total behavior system and comparing place (Glasser and Meagher, 2014). All these component in one way or the other influence the inequality in the management top levels. This theory asserts that the only person who can control or behavior is ourselves. Based on this axiom of the choice theory women lack the ability to control their behavior which can help them lead a work life with a recommendable rating that can assist them in quickly attaining the approval by the employers of being in the managerial positions and likewise receive a salary increment. The theory further asserts that the occurrences that happened in the past influence what happen on up to date functions (Kelly, 2013). Therefore, the domination of the Whites and males in the management positions in the UK can be interrelated with the past occurrences.
Perhaps, the community in the UK has built a stronger relationship in the past with the Whites ethnic group thus explaining why the top management positions are dominated by the Whites. Similarly, the community might have believed in prior beliefs that the whites and the women are more efficient in the managerial positions, which have influenced the same till to date. The choice theory is built on the past stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, which still affect the communities up to date. Based on the theory, women prefer having accrued less capital because they always expect to have an interrupted work history (Kelly, 2013). Based on this assertion, women do not maximize their potential to give the best output thus men are considered for promotions over the women.
All the employers will prefer an employee in the managerial positions who works hard to meet the objectives of the organization and accrue on his or her capital since this will be a motivation to work harder. The labor market thus pays different workers from various groups’ based on the amount of human capital and type held by these individuals (Giacalone and Rosenfeld, 2013; Ulrich and Probst, 2012). As such, women do not fully maximize their efficiency in human capital hence explaining why men are chosen over the women in the UK. Women are expected to play the primary responsibility of domestic work. Women are not flexible since they are affected by such domestic interruptions. Consequently, most of the women do not work for long hours since they have domestic roles to play. Therefore, women choose the decision of investing in little capital thus have to forego promotions and high wages for flexible working hours that can meet their needs and working pattern (Korpi et al., 2013). The managerial positions in the UK are similarly affected by choice of the women on domestic work rather than meeting the organization’s employees’ expectations.
Hassard, Morris, and McCann (2012) assert that most of the managerial positions in the UK require employees who can not only meet the objectives of the organization but also be flexible where they can work for long hours to effectively control and manage other employees in the organization. This gives a succinct reason as to why men are chosen over the women in the UK. Similarly, this points out why women receive low wages as compared to men since they opt to forego the high wages over easier work and flexible working pattern. Women are more satisfied with their work more than the women. Therefore, men work harder to attain promotion up the ladder and to have salaries increment.
As much as most of the surveys point out the reasons behind more men than women in the managerial positions being the lack of flexibility, stereotypes, discrimination and prejudice, lack of personal effort from the individual women is another attribute to this problem. Women are satisfied with their job thus they do not put more effort as compared to the men in achieving their personal ambitions (Hassard, Morris, and McCann, 2012). Different types of women are evidenced in the UK workforce; they include ‘home centred,’ ‘work centred’ and ‘Adaptive.’ The ‘work-centred’ women fill most of the available managerial positions since they are driven by a strong work commitment. If the UK would be filled with these type women, then the inequality in the managerial positions would not be reported. The ‘home centred’ category of women form the majority and have a low commitment to work. This type of women forms many of the women in the UK; thus attribute to the research problem. The majority of women lie under ‘adaptive.’ This type of women try to balance domestic chores amongst other responsibilities with work commitment. This leads to inflexibility hence a failure in top managerial position. Such women opt to have low wages rather than more work commitment in the managerial positions.
A research by Bolton (2015) shows that women’s salaries are less than males where the women wages lay at an average of ten to thirty percent less than that of males. The survey reveals that women are concentrated in some roles and limited to others. Specific managerial functions are limited to specific persons such as the males for the purpose of an effective workflow. The survey reveals the inequality based on observation of the workplace management roles which serve as equality indicators. The inequality problem should be eliminated since by one woman becoming a manager, other women will be motivated to have access to other labor markets (Wajcman, 2013). Based on the survey, the problem can be solved by ensuring that women who have diverse experience from other companies are promoted gradually while being evaluated until they reach the top managerial positions.
The institutional theories also explain the reason as to why males and Whites dominate the administrative positions in the UK. Based on this theory, the labour market is divided into two sectors which include the primary sector and the secondary sector (Hatch and Cunliffe, 2013). The primary labour sector is made up of full time, well paid and good job opportunity. The secondary division is formed by jobs with no career opportunities, low salaries, poor working conditions and require high level of supervision. Most of the women and minority ethnic groups are limited to the secondary job sector (Bidwell et al., 2013). Most men and Whites in the UK belong to the primary working sector hence the reason as to why they dominate the managerial positions.
A study by Williams (2016) points out that women are stuck in the job positions that have less pay and require little input as compared to their male colleagues. The research found that more males fill the senior positions while female journalists remained in the junior management levels without getting any promotions. The statistics point out that women who worked in the industry for 6 to 10 years remain in the same junior positions such as rank and file journalists. However, 64% of the men who have stayed in the industry for the same time receive promotions into either senior or junior management positions (Williams, 2016). The survey shows that there has been little change in ethnicity. Similar to the past ages where discrimination was common in all aspects of life, discrimination is still there in the UK but in small traces. The employment system is one of the domains that still evidences discrimination. Most of the employers seem to put more trust in the Whites employees rather than other ethnicities hence the many numbers of Whites in the managerial position. The survey shows that 94% of the journalists’ leaders are Whites (Williams, 2016). This show under presentation of other ethnicities.
Conclusion
Based on the abovediscussion, it is evident that Whites and men dominate the managerial positions in UK. The main attributing factors as pointed by most of the theories include lack of effort on the women’s side, prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes. Some of the past beliefs on lack of flexibility on women are still carried by employers hence leading to women lacking promotion opportunities. Based on the theories, the issue of the top managerial positions in UK being dominated by men and White can be solved if women put more effort and the employers change their perspective on other ethnicities and women. Moreover, there is a need to empower women through education and creation of policies geared towards encouraging organizations to ensure equality in not only managerial positions, but also other positions.
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