Studies on career self-efficacy have failed to investigate race and ethnicity entirely

I think for many doctoral learners understanding and grasping the concept of needing a gap in the research is often a daunting task. It wasn’t until Residency I that fully understood what was needed in order to begin a study. I can recall many of my classmates having a hard time understand why the obvious need isn’t always the need for further research. I believe that the literature that I have analyzed points to the distinctive need to examine my phenomena from a different perspective.

Amidst the lack of diversity among the decision makers and leaders in corporate America. I have found examined reasons for the gap in the underrepresentation of females and minorities in executive leadership. Extensive research has been conducted examining the reasons and explanations for lack of diversity among executive leadership in organizational settings. Barriers such as implicit- leadership bias, racism, discrimination, lack of quality mentoring, exclusion from social and informational networks, voluntary turnover and tokenism have all been cited as barriers to female and minority career progression into executive level positions (Cook & Glass, 2014). My research seeks to assess the phenomenon from the social cognitive perspective of female and minority employees in these organizational settings. I have found evidence which suggest that self-efficacy could play a major role in female and minority appointment into executive leadership. Self-perceptions and outcome expectations are often shaped and reinforced by how an individual views themselves within a given situation or environment.

The purpose of my research is to assess the Career Self-Efficacy of females and minorities employed at Fortune 500 companies. Often referred to as the “Biology of Confidence” prior research points to the need for research and examination of this phenomenon in reference to female and minorities. “Future Studies should examine possible self-selection tendencies by ethnic minorities as a function of their internalization of the pro-white leadership bias (Gündemir et al., 2014).”

“Despite the emerging empirical warrant for the career self-efficacy construct and for social cognitive theory in general, many important issues have yet to be satisfactorily addressed (Hackett & Lent, 1992).” Primary among these issues is the exploration of cultural influences on career self-efficacy (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994).

According to Hackett (1996), Studies on career self-efficacy have failed to investigate race and ethnicity entirely. “Moreover, almost no attention has been focused on the intersection of gender and ethnic influences on career self-efficacy; the special career circumstances of racial and ethnic minority women have yet to be carefully investigated within this literature (Hackett & Lent, 1992).”

In 2011 in the Journal of International Diversity the authors discuss the aspects surrounding career and workplace self-efficacy and state there is a need for leadership to understand that career and workplace self-efficacy from a multidimensional vantage point (Van Der Roest, Kleiner & Kleiner, 2011).

Dorien

P.S. The pre-residency assignment currently ask for 5 articles…..

Cook, A., & Glass, C. (2014). Women and top leadership positions: Towards an institutional analysis. Gender, Work & Organization, 21(1), 91-103. doi:10.1111/gwao.12018

Gündemir, S., Homan, A. C., de Dreu, C. K. W., van Vugt, M. (2014). Think leader, think white? Capturing and weakening an implicit pro-white leadership bias. PLoS ONE, 9(1), e83915. Retrieved from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.137… Google Scholar

Hackett, G., & Lent, R. W. (1992). Theoretical advances and current inquiry in career psychology. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of Counseling Psychology ( 2nd ed., pp. 419–452 ). New York: Wiley.

Hackett, G., & Byars, A. M. (1996). Social Cognitive Theory and the Career Development of African American Women. Career Development Quarterly, 44(4), 322-40

Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (1994). Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and performance [Monograph]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45, 79-122.

Van Der Roest, D., Kleiner, K., & Kleiner, B. (2011). Self Efficacy: The Biology Of Confidence. Journal Of International Diversity, (4), 49-56