DOI: 10.7910/dvn/le374e
title: Minority Executives in Corporate America, 1993

description: The purpose of this study was to understand the processes of development and advancement that produce minority executives by examining the cultures, orientations toward executive development, and approach to promoting racial diversity in management of three major U.S. organizations.
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The participants were employees at three major U.S. companies. The companies were selected because they are leaders in their industries in promoting racial diversity in management. They represent industries with different levels of technological intensity, and their culture and employment practices were all different. The target participants included 54 employees: 20 Minority Executives, 13 Minority Managers, 13 White Executives, and 8 White Managers. Of theses participants, 8 were women. In addition, 158 interviews were conducted with current or former supervisors, peers, and subordinates of the target participants, and 28 interviews were conducted with corporate officers, HR professionals, and others who were or had played a role in diversity management positions such as key succession planning, affirmative action, or diversity management of the three companies.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;

Companies were asked to provide the contributor with a list of African American, Asian American, and Hispanic Americans who met the executive criteria for the study. A subset of these individuals was selected. Based on this group of minorities, a group of individuals was then selected from each of the comparison groups: White executives, plateaued minority managers, and plateaued White managers. The study consisted of Focal Interviews, Role Set Interviews, Corporate Interviews, and included personnel records, archival data, and other documents. The Focal Interview was administered to the 54 target participants and its purpose was to enable the participants to describe their upbringing, education, and career as they experienced it. This interview collected information to build personal histories and career biographies, explored issues salient to career experiences such as race, developmental relationships, and critical career incidents, sought to understand the effects of corporate context on career and development, and enabled participants to describe their careers from their personal perspective. The Role Set interview was administered to the 158 current or former supervisors, peers, and subordinates of the target participants. The purpose of this interview was to obtain additional perspectives on the target participants' strengths, weaknesses, management style, their career development, and the extent their race and gender influenced behavior. The Corporate Interview was administered to the 28 corporate officers, HR professionals, and others who were or had played a role in diversity management positions such as key succession planning, affirmative action, or diversity management of the three companies. The purpose of this final interview was to understand the histories, culture, executive development, and approaches to promoting racial diversity in management of the three organizations. Lastly, personnel records were used to construct individual career biographies and to validate interview data, archival records from one organization was used to validate career trajectory patterns, and published and unpublished documents were gathered on each companies' diversity efforts over a thirty year period. Variables assessed include supervisory positions, tenure, upbringing, career history, education, race, mentors, high and low career points, management style, and strengths and weaknesses.
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The Murray Research Archive holds electronic text file transcripts from this study.