Blackwell Reference Online

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“For all practical purposes, all business today is global” ( Mitroff, 1987: ix ). As management scholar Ian Mitroff (1987: ix) aptly observes, “Those individual businesses, firms, industries, and whole societies that clearly understand the new rules of doing business in a world economy will prosper; those that do not will perish.” “Global competition has forced executives to recognize that if they and their organizations are to survive, let alone prosper, they will have to learn to manage and to think very differently” (Mitroff, l987: x). How prepared are multinational enterprises to recognize that their global competitiveness depends on including the most talented people in the world on their executive teams, women as well as men? Based on history, the answer would appear to be, “Not very.” Women today hold less than 3 percent of the most senior management positions in major corporations in the United States ( Wellington, 1996 ) and less than 2 percent of all senior management positions in Europe ( Dwyer, Johnston, and Lowry, 1996 ). In countries such as Italy, the proportion of women executives falls to a paltry 0.1 percent ( Dwyer et al., 1996 ; see also International Labor Office, 1997 ). Can companies – or countries – afford to continue their historic pattern of maledominated leadership? As global competition intensifies, the opportunity cost of such traditional patterns ... log in or subscribe to read full text