The distribution of African American managers across industries and at various occupational levels within industries has changed over the past 13 years. While labor force participation rates for African American women and White women have been rising, participation rates of African American men and White men have been falling. Noticeably, the participation rate for White women is nearly the same as that of African American women. Historically, African American women were more likely than White women to be labor force participants. Recently, however, the gap has closed. In 1973, 44 % of White women 20 years and older were labor force participants, compared with 52 % of African American women. In 1992, the participation rate for African American and White women was 60.1 % and 58.1 %, respectively. White men (at 77.8 % in 1992) and African American men (at 73.1 % in 1992) continue their historic decline in labor force participation
From1983 to 1992, males represent the only group to have experienced a loss in the percentage of executive and managerial jobs held. African American males had three periods in which they experienced a decline in the percentage of executive jobs from 1985 to 1986, from 1987 to 1988, and from 1991 to 1992; White men experienced percentage declines in the periods from 1989 to 1990, and from 1990 to 1991. During the ten-year period from 1983 to 1992, African American and White women did not have a single period when they experienced a net loss in their representation among managers and executives. Of particular note is that between 1987 and 1988, the percentage of African American women in the executive ranks surpassed that of African American men. However, that difference dissipated in 1991. While the percentage of White men in managerial positions is still greater than that of White women, the gap is closing. It is important to note that African American men and women continue to lag behind White men and women in management jobs. The proportion of African American men and women holding management positions has ranged only between 5 and 7 % over the last ten years.
With African American men and women, the gap has widened at the bachelor's level since the early eighties. At the master's level, the gap narrowed for a time, and then in the mid-eighties began to widen again. So it should come as no surprise, regarding managerial representation, that African-American women are even with and perhaps passing African American men. According to the American Council on Education, African Americans received 8.8 % more master's degrees in 1990 than in 1989. For African American women and men the increases were 10.3 % and 6.1 %, respectively. At the bachelor's degree level, African Americans experienced a 5.2 % increase in the number of degrees conferred. For African American women the increase was 5.9 % compared to 4.1 % for African American men. The smaller increases in degrees conferred upon African American men indicate that they are falling further behind African American women (and White women and men) in the number of bachelor's and master's degree holders. Consequently, without the appropriate educational background, their chances of obtaining managerial positions will be diminished.
While education had a positive effect on reducing occupational segregation between African Americans and Whites, it does not appear to have removed the barriers to their upward mobility. In other words, if one controls for education there still appear to be barriers. Unfortunately, the barriers that existed 20 years ago and were believed to be eradicated are alive and well and have grown more complex in a societal climate that is less tolerant of demands for civil rights and in a society where many Whites, and even some African-Americans themselves believe that racial inequities have been squelched.
In business, at the bachelor's level, for the ten-year period between 1981 and 1990 in the Monthly Labor Review, the number of degrees conferred upon African American women grew 36.5 % (vs. -2.9 % for African American men). For White women in business, during the same time period and at the same level, the increase was 53.9 % (vs. 1.6 % for White men). At the master's level, for the ten-year period between 1981 and 1990, the change in number of business degrees is even more dramatic. The number of master's degrees in business conferred upon African American women during that ten-year period grew 91.2 % (vs. 16.2 % for African-American men). For White women, the number of master's degrees in business grew 70.8 % (vs. 14.0 % for White men).
However percentage increases can be misleading. It should be remembered that relative to Whites, fewer African Americans earn degrees in business. Exploring this issue the Glass Ceiling Commission found that there are several barriers that prohibit African Americans from achieving advancement. These barriers were categorized as individual level, group level, and organizational level barriers.
Individual Level Barriers
The Glass Ceiling Commission found three major individual barriers for African Americans: (1) subtle racism and prejudice; (2) managing duality and bicultural stress; and (3) tokenism and presumed incompetence. It is believed that racism is the most "insidious and tenacious of the barriers of this category and carries the strongest implications for both the group and organizational barriers". Mary C. King, author of "Occupational Segregation by Race and Sex, 1940-88" says, "there is a myth that companies are color blind...more accurately, discrimination is ever present but a taboo topic for Blacks as well as Whites." The kind of racism being referred to is a subtle form of racism. Unlike overt bigotry and outright racial hostility, subtle racism is hidden deeply below the surface. Its impact can be far more psychologically damaging to the victim due to its covert nature."
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal for corporate employers to discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion, or national origin. While the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) developed specific guidelines in 1980 defining the kinds of behaviors that constitute unlawful sexual harassment in the workplace, there have been no definitive guidelines issued for racial harassment. Racial harassment is a situation where an employee or group of employees is subjected continually and over the long term to hostility, racial jokes and pranks, epithets, insults, abusive language, and violence because of their race. The Commission believed that "racial harassment is grounded mostly within the third condition of sexual harassment guidelines, where employees have the right to work in an environment free from intimidation, ridicule, and hostile or offensive behavior that interferes with his or her ability to perform".
Catherine MacKinnon (1993) believes that, unlike sexual harassment, racial harassment, "works more through its content, as the traditional model of group defamation envisions, however hateful and irrational, however viscerally it plays on prejudice, however damaging to equality rights." In racial harassment "the target has a family, a community reviled together, an 'us' that defies being defined by this treatment by 'them.' MacKinnon gives the following examples of racial harassment: "a noose hanging over an African American's work station" or "African monkey, why don't you go back to the jungle" left on an African American manager's desk. A review of newspaper articles reporting on the experiences of African American managers reveal a number of examples of racial harassment in the workplace. These included: A Black law student was asked how would she react to being called a "nigger" or "Black bitch" by adversaries or colleagues. An employee of the FBI had pictures of his family defaced when someone taped a picture of an ape's head over his son's face; colleagues made death threats to him and forged his signature on death insurance and dismemberment policies and burial insurance. A photograph of a bruised and mutilated Black man was left on an African American employee's desk. Unfortunately subtle racism remains a major problem in the workforce.
Second major individual barrier for African American managers is bicultural stress and managing cultural duality. Here the key issue for African American managers is fitting into corporate America. In the organizational world, there is little tolerance or appreciation for cultural diversity in terms of behavioral styles, dress, or rich aesthetics representing multiculturality. For most African American managers, their work lives are embedded in White, male-dominated organizations, where the norms, culture, and values are based on the Anglo-Saxon tradition and the Protestant Puritan work ethic of western society. Other dimensions of these managers' lives, such as family life, personal relationships, leisure activities, and spiritual life, are usually rooted in African American communities. African-American managers can easily find themselves trying to manage two cultural contexts: one European American and the other African American. The challenge for many of these managers is to handle the tensions and differing realities between the two cultural contexts, a process called being bicultural.
The issue of culture is important to define. One cannot associate African American culture with that of European Americans. While Irish Americans or Jewish Americans can identify themselves as possessing a certain cultural identity with Ireland or Israel respectively, African Americans do not posses the same affinity towards Africa. Rather it is a culture established and grown from the situation of black people in America.
The third final barrier confronted by African Americans on an individual level is tokenism, which often results in presumed incompetence of African American managers. This barrier is particularly significant because it often begins from the very moment an African American manager enters a predominantly White organization, before he or she can establish competency. They often perceive as tokens when they enter an organization as a solo or are placed in an area of the firm where they are underrepresented or only one of a kind.
Kanter (1977) defined a token as one of a kind or one of a few in her research on gender in organizations. While it is not clear that the consequences of tokenism for women is the same as tokenism for African Americans, her research offers a useful framework. According to her work, skewed numerical under-representation leads to high visibility and sets into place a variety of negative perceptions of persons labeled as tokens. Tokens are stereotyped and viewed as the representative of their entire group rather than as individuals. When African Americans are perceived as tokens by majority group employees, their behavior and job performance, whether good or bad, is magnified, distorted, and overly scrutinized. They are also subjected to the slippery slope of double standards. To overcome their presumed incompetence, they experience pressure to over perform. Yet high performance may not lead to comparable rewards and the same level of recognition received by Whites.
According to the Glass Ceiling Commission the psychological effects of being treated as a token take a heavy toll on the emotional and psychic energy of African Americans. They find themselves isolated with colleagues who do not want to work with them and have few outlets to express their frustrations and disappointments. As tokens, they have to spend an inordinate amount of time legitimizing their place in the organization. Continued isolation and under-valuation can ultimately affect their self-esteem and self-confidence. They are constantly burdened with the role of representing all African Americans. They are not allowed to function as individuals. Consequently, they are well aware that if they do not perform well, all African Americans will be viewed as incompetent. On the other hand if they do perform well, it is attributed to luck or getting extra help, rather than competence. There appears to be no positive aspect to applying tokens in expectations. Unfortunately this is also a major problem in the workforce as a result of subtle racism.
Group Level Barriers
At the group level, the research revealed two significant barriers to the advancement of African Americans: The first barrier was perceptions of cultural differences and ethnocentrism; and the second was minority group density. Inter-group cultural differences have been shown to have strong effects on the behaviors, attitudes, and interactions between African Americans and Whites in the workplace (Alderfer, et al., 1988; Alderfer, 1992; Alderfer, et al., 1992; Jackson, Stone and Alvarez, 1993; Cox, Lobel, and McLeod, 1991; Cox, 1993). For example, there is substantial support of significant differences among racial groups in managing interpersonal conflict, cooperative versus competitive behavior, communication styles, and perceptions of organization experiences (Kochman, 1981; Davidson, 1993).
In the first inter-group level barrier, Alderfer et al. (1980) found that the greatest disagreement between African American and White managers was on the information provided about promotions. White managers reported sharing career-relevant information with African American managers at more than twice the rate that African Americans reported receiving such information from White managers. Another effect of intergroup bias bearing on accurate feedback on job performances is that the in-group does not differentiate among individuals in the out-group. It is difficult for individual African Americans to be seen or judged as individuals. They are subjected to stereotypes and whatever summary views Whites hold of them (e.g. African Americans are lazy).
The second and last group-level barrier for African-Americans in the workplace is minority group density. Minority group density refers to the relative percentage of minorities in a work group. There is a rather complex relationship between the number of African Americans in a work group or organization and their treatment. A number of studies have examined how the varying proportions of minority versus majority group members affect group interactions and attitudes
Organization Level Barriers
At the organizational level, the barriers include: (1) access to mentoring; (2) performance evaluation and promotion processes; (3) functional segregation into staff-type jobs; and (4) downsizing policies.
Research on organizations has long documented the importance of mentoring in the development of top-level managers. Mentor-protégé relationships provide budding managers with information instrumental to career advancement and also provide "psychosocial support". A major element of the classic mentor-protégé relationship is a high level of rapport and interpersonal chemistry. Research indicates that mentors and sponsors are more likely to choose protégés who are more similar to them in terms of race and gender. To the extent that mentors tend to avoid risk in selecting protégés, stereotypes of African Americans as incompetent pose a substantial barrier to their selection as protégés.
Studies of African American managers' experiences with mentoring and sponsorship do suggest it is more difficult for them to get mentors and to build the type of developmental relationships necessary to long-term career development. A survey of 397 members of the National Black MBA Association conducted by Raymond Friedman and Donna Carter in 1993 found that 53 % felt they did not have the support of a mentor. Another study of 729 African American and White MBAs also found that African Americans reported significantly less mentoring assistance than Whites. Limited access to mentoring disadvantages African Americans in terms of skill development, promotion opportunities, and career satisfaction. They do not receive the grooming they need to assume top positions.
Even when African Americans gain access to mentors, there are a number of racial dynamics that affect the quality and benefits of the relationship. David Thomas's (1990) study of developmental relationships of African American and White managers in a major public utility company provided a number of insights about the cross-race and cross-gender dynamics that occur in such relationships. He found that African American men and women had a majority of their mentoring relationships with White men. This finding is not surprising since White males dominate upper management positions in most organizations. Thus gender seems to be an easier barrier to negotiate than race. Yet these cross-race relationships provided less psychosocial support compared to same-race relationships. As Thomas concluded: "The difficulty in developing the psychosocial support aspect of cross-racial relationships most likely contributes to and is caused by the lack of comfort that White and Black managers feel with each other."
The long-term result may be that African American managers are not given difficult and important assignments of the type that lead to high visibility and advancement because such assignments create risk to the mentor. To find psychosocial and emotional support, African American managers must venture beyond their departmental and hierarchical boundaries to establish relationships with other African Americans. In fact, Thomas's research showed that African American men and women formed relationships with other African American men and women in numbers that exceeded their proportional representation in the management workforce in the company. Because of their small numbers in organizations, senior African American managers have to assume an extraordinary burden when mentoring their junior colleagues.
More current research provides insights into the ways in which the performance of African Americans is evaluated. Studies demonstrate how White supervisors often attribute the performance of African Americans to luck or to job ease. Jeffrey Greenhaus and Saroj Parasuraman (1993) examined attributions of performance and career advancement prospects for 814 African American and 814 White managers from three companies. The performance of African American managers in their sample was less likely to be attributed to ability than the performance of White managers. African American managers' performance was less likely to be attributed to effort and was more likely to be attributed to help than the comparable performance of White managers. These perceptions can lead to African Americans being viewed as less competent than their White counterparts. Continued negative feedback can cause African American managers to lose self-esteem and question their own abilities.
The next organization barrier is the functional segregation of African Americans into jobs that are not on the pipeline to top management. Sharon Collins (1989) has noted that the occupational structure supporting the Black middle class was transformed during the 1960s and particularly the 1970s due to the unique emergence of African Americans in the professional/managerial strata of jobs within major White corporations. She points out, however, that the jobs that African Americans were relegated to were "racialized." They were placed in jobs dealing with community relations, public relations, personnel and labor relations, affirmative action, and equal employment opportunity. So despite having several years of corporate experience, their work experience was less likely to be in jobs that were directly related to the organization's business operations or in jobs with significant power and influence.
In her study of 76 of the highest ranking African American managers, she found that 66 % had their careers in the areas of Black consumer issues or jobs related to affirmative action. An examination of the career paths of CEOs of large American firms reported in the 1990 annual BusinessWeek 1000 Profile showed that the critical career path for senior management positions has historically been finance, marketing, or operations/engineering, but certainly not human resources and community relations. This finding combined with the reality of the types of jobs African American managers hold is a major cause of their absence from top-level management positions.
The final organization barrier affecting the advancement of African American managers is the recent phenomenon of downsizing. Downsizing has had negative consequences for many employees. However, downsizing is believed to effect African Americans more than other groups for two reasons (Whigham-Desir, 1993). First, because African Americans are often the last hired, they are the first laid off during corporate downsizing. Second, if they are selected as a survivor, they are conflicted about the motives of management--whether they were kept because they were good or simply because they were African American.
There are very few studies that have examined the impact of downsizing on African American managers. However, a comprehensive study conducted by The Wall Street Journal using Equal Employment Opportunity statistics showed that African Americans experienced deeper cuts than any other group. According to the Journal's findings African Americans were the only group to experience a net job loss during the 1990-1991 economic downturn. African Americans lost 59,479 jobs, while gains were experienced by Hispanics (60,040), Asians (55,104), and Whites (71,144). The article reported that many of the companies were not even aware their downsizing policies had negatively affected African American employees. In other words affirmative action goals were not explicitly part of downsizing planning.
Summary
The popular view is that under affirmative action African American managers have not only entered the doors of some of the most elite and prestigious corporations, but they have also succeeded in climbing the corporate ladder. But the question remains whether or not this is true. The investigation of the barriers that African American managers face leads one to doubt it.
The Commission found that the three barriers overlap and can be the result of each other. Thus, the effects of any one barrier may overlap or interact with one in another level to create a multiple impact on the career mobility of African Americans. For example, discriminatory promotion policies are considered to be an organizational level barrier. But because individual White managers can be racially biased in their promotability rankings of minority managers, it also has a devastating emotional affect on the individual employee while limiting his or her chances for upward mobility.
Although the Glass Ceiling review uncovered a number of studies addressing the barriers to advancement of African Americans, there are several areas that were either under-researched or not researched at all. The topics studied rarely included succession planning systems and their effects on African American managers, salary discrimination, the effects of downsizing on the career mobility and longevity of African American managers, their access to training and development programs, leadership styles of African Americans and their impact on advancement potential, and the causes of power inequities between African Americans and Whites in the workplace.
Beyond the theoretical frames, it is strongly accepted that traditional research methodologies simply do not capture the powerfully complex effects of race, race relations, and racism in the workplace. Honestly, this should not come as a surprise because the reasons for these phenomena operate on the subconscious, conscious, interpersonal, and structural levels in organizations. Thus survey methods can never fully provide an accurate picture of the barriers African American managers experience and their consequences.