Chew on that statistic for a moment…
How’s it taste?
As a Caucasian male living in a first-world society I consider myself grossly unqualified to write about the social injustices, and oppression, minorities face within the business world of today. I have never experienced these same societally constructed inequities, and therefore cannot relate to them on an anecdotal level.
With that being said, if there were more Caucasian males living in first-world societies speaking about, being empathetic towards and acting upon the inequities minorities face within the business world today, we’d probably see a better representation of women (also known as 50% of the world’s population) as supply chain executives.
Gender equality, in SCM professions, is a topic much discussed and seldom acted upon, ironically enough. But, speaking of the topic sheds light upon the systematic perpetuations of gender inequity in business, which society has built for years, in our curriculum, in our media and in our personal life.
Back to school
In a chapter from the book Integrating Gender Equality into Business and Management Education: Lessons learned and Challenges remaining, author, Maureen A. Kilgour provides poignant commentary about what she believes could be one of the main accelerants of gender inequity within the business management sector.
Kilgour theorizes that the sex-role stereotyping in curriculum assigned to students, in business management universities and colleges, reflects the actual imbalance of women in executive management positions.
This theory offers a very interesting approach to understanding the development of a business executive’s psyche and norms.
Kilgour goes on to defend this theory by displaying the lack of female protagonists in literature according to case studies conducted by HBS (Harvard Business School). These case studies revealed there is a blatant negligence of the lopsidedly male-based literature being mirrored upon pupils, in classrooms, of even the most prestigious of business schools in the world.
The example of HBS’ lack of female representation in curriculum is just a small blip on the radar of literature riddled with gender inequality.
“In 2011, only 194 out of 5,816 Caseplace teaching resources (cases, syllabi and other documents) mentioned women” (Caseplace 2014).
How do we expect to empower women, utilizing their competencies in executive supply chain management positions, if there is such an awesome imbalance in the representation of female roles in literature taught in business management courses?
Sex-role stereotyping- literature taught in business schools can have a cumulative effect reinforcing stereotypes students will face as they graduate and begin their career in management professions (Kilgour 2015).
Time to face the facts
We can talk about the reasoning for gender inequity in supply chain management positions, and other business executive positions, until our faces turn blue.
Whether it’s the perpetuations of stereotypes, norms of leadership roles, cumulative effects of literature, a direct correlation of the media’s images, or caused by the taking of maternity leave etc., no one knows for sure.
One way or the other, there is a misrepresentation of women in executive business roles, especially within the field of SCM, and the only way to really drive home that fact is to display the facts.
Break out your best poker face, because these statistics are appalling.
- Females in the supply chain management profession can expect to make 75% of their male counterpart’s salary; sometimes even within the same corporation (Procurement Leaders 2017).
- 45% women fill entry-level supply chain positions, but only 10% are presently active in executive level positions. That means that from the pool of women working within supply chain management positions, there is only a 4.5% chance of a female becoming a supply chain executive.
- In a 2014 study by Industry Week magazine, it was found that “there If more than 50% of the population is women and less than 20% of the people in senior supply chain positions are women, then by default, we cannot be hiring the most talented people” (kinaxis.com).
Organizations globally must look within their hiring programs to actively fill positions of executives and board members with female professionals. Meeting quotas may receive naysayers whom will call it ‘unjust employment’, but not quite as much as the 9 men to 1 woman ratio that exists presently in SCM exec positions.
Administration, faculty, researchers and students of academic establishments worldwide must challenge their curriculum to ensure the empowerment of femininity in business management literature.
And then, there’s you.
I implore you, as the stakeholders in the gender equality of future generations to come, stay informed, have a voice and do your part to make a change.
Until next week.
Check out some jobs in supply chain or more on this topic in this article on Supplier Diversity: One Small Step for Procurement, one Giant Leap for the World
