Senior Managers

The current body of literature lacks studies related to organizational managers' classification of systems thinking (ST) skills based on both their overall systemic tendency and the organizational ownership structure. The purpose of this study is to assess and classify the ST skills of senior managers who currently work in a complex business environment. Initially, we clustered managers' overall systemic thinking (OST) using the Bayesian latent class analysis (BLCA) method into two distinct clusters: managers with upper OST (holistic thinker) and managers with lower OST (reductionist thinker). Further, we classified managers' ST skills into two predefined classes to understand the characteristics of each group better. A total of 51 senior managers from two different organizational structures participated in this study. Results show that the ST skills of managers in public are more towards the upper OST/holistic cluster, whereas managers from the private sector have an inclination towards the lower OST/reductionist cluster.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the opinions of educational administrators about the factors that arise from the glass ceiling syndrome which prevents women from becoming senior managers in educational organizations. In addition, in this study, suggestions have been developed for women to overcome the obstacles they face in reaching senior management positions. Qualitative method was used in this research. The research was conducted as a descriptive study in the survey model. The participants of the study consisted of educational administrators working in Niğde province. Semi-structured interview technique was used to examine and reveal the views of the participants in depth. Content analysis method was used in the analysis of data. According to the results, all participants think that women face glass ceiling barriers in the promotion of senior managerial positions. Obstacles to the glass ceiling are mostly due to individual factors. Individual factors were followed by organizational and social factors, respectively. Among the individual factors, the most important obstacles are women's negative view of management and their family responsibilities. Women do not aspire to management tasks because they require more workload and responsibility. In addition, male-dominated organizational policies and the sexist approach, which sees management as man's job are barriers for women. It has been suggested that women should be more willing and challenging to overcome the glass ceiling barriers. In addition, suggestions were made for senior management positions such as allocating quotas and providing flexible working hours for women.