Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity Kindle Edition

Good book about racial differences in managment positions. Follows personal stories of women in management of different races and the struggles to get there.

Bell and Nkomo dive straight to the heart of the matter. They base their findings on comprehensive personal interviews of African-American and white women working as managers or executives. Ultimately, the authors hit the reader over the head with the obvious: People from strikingly different backgrounds bring profound personal differences to the workplace. Too often, organizations stupidly attempt homogenizing everyone into minor variations on the existing (typically---older, white, and male) leadership theme. Unusually (Bell and Nkomo cited no such cases), organizations may wisely embrace the differences so that the organization and its people benefit from a more perceptive and inclusive world view.Folks who need not spend their working hours "fitting in" contribute (A) more (B) less to the organization. Leaders who accept their people for who and what they are get (A) more (B) less from their subordinates. Guess where the authors suggest the readers take their outfits.

I'm using this book as a part of my dissertation research. My only regret is that I didn't read it sooner. The authors were in-depth with their analyses of Black and White women's experience. The research methodology, theoretical framework, and conceptual framework were described thoroughly. The authors provide key sources for readers to use. Excellent book! Now, I understand why it is so frequently cited.

I read this book along with a white colleague of mine. It was great to see the research behind some of the challenges Black women face. This also helps women understand some of the reasons we have such a divide in the workplace. Hopefully, this will help us start the process of forging genuine relationships.

good book to bring inform of current research on actual experiences of professional women in the market place. information on the dispartity of treatment for women.