This themed issue of Women in Management
Review describes efforts by organizations to
support the career aspirations of professional
and managerial women. It thus has a prag-
matic orientation, focusing on changing
workplaces and organizations to make them
more women-friendly. As a result, this
emphasis connects women in management
issues with the broader organization develop-
ment and change literature[1]. It has proved
to be both complex and difficult to bring
about planned organizational change, and
changing workplaces to make them more
women-friendly will be no different. In fact so
few efforts have been described and docu-
mented in the latter area that we are just
beginning to understand their unique, and
common, challenges.
As with all relatively new areas of research
and practice, initial attempts to provide assis-
tance to organizations include lists of poten-
tially useful initiatives[2]. These lists tend to
be repeated by others, sometimes with addi-
tions or deletions. This is then followed by
attempts actually to implement one or more
of these suggestions[3]. These efforts are
time-consuming, labour-intensive and require
the co-operation of enlightened “guinea
pigs”, which accounts for the small number of
such projects reported in the literature.
There is considerable agreement that
organizational change efforts require both
solid commitment from senior executive levels
and a systematic diagnosis of the situation at
hand[4-6]. Organizational diagnosis can take
many forms. These include questionnaires
and employee surveys, interviews, focus
groups, and company records. In addition,
these approaches can be used together to
provide a more complete picture of the situa-
tion at hand.
Morrison[7] outlines a process for identify-
ing options and assisting in making decisions
in the design and implementation of organiza-
tional initiatives aimed at levelling the playing-
15
Women in Management Review
Volume 10 · Number 7 · 1995 · pp. 15-20
MCB University Press · ISSN 0964-9425
Using an employee
attitude survey to
understand level
playing-field issues
Ronald J. Burke
The author
Ronald J. Burkeis Professor of Administrative Sciences in
the Faculty of Administrative Studies, York University,
Ontario, Canada.
Abstract
Describes a consulting project in which survey data were
analysed to further an organization’s understanding of
level playing-field issues. Data were collected from 1,608
women and men employed by a single large professional
services firm, using questionnaires completed anonymous-
ly. Only 5 per cent of the partners of the firm were women,
though half of new professional hires from universities
were women. Women working in particular departments,
and women working in particular offices, reported more
negative experiences. Women and men, however, showed
similar patterns in relationships among measures of work
experiences and work outcomes, suggesting that women
and men would both benefit from organizational initia-
tives addressing issues in this area. The role of the partners
in supporting and bringing about fundamental change was
highlighted.
This research was supported in part by the Faculty
of Administrative Studies, York University. The
author would like to acknowledge the co-operation
of the organization in making the data available to
him. The author would also like to thank Cobi
Wolpin for assistance with data analysis and Bruna
Gaspini for preparing the manuscript. The views
expressed here are the author’s and do not neces-
sarily reflect those of the organization.