The Making and Maintenance of CEOs in Large Australian Firms - Case Study Example

The Making and Maintenance of CEOs in Large Australian Firms Australia just like any other country has firms. Some are small; others are medium and some are large. The large firms in Australia are headed mostly by older white males. One may ask him/herself a question; what do we mean when we say ‘old’, ‘white’ and ‘male’? The word ‘old’ is an adjective. This word is used to talk about the age of something or someone. When talking about an old person, we say that he/she has lived for a long time and that he/she cannot be called young (Pham, Suchard, & Zein, 2011). The word white on the other hand is an adjective, a noun and a verb depending on its use in context. When used as a noun and as an adjective, the aspect of color is very much applicable here. When talking about white people, this mostly refers to those who are of US origin (Rindfleish & Sheridan, 2003). The word male, on its part, is both an adjective and a noun depending on how the speaker or the writer is using it. It also refers to any sex that does not give birth is male. This word relates mostly to men since it is at times synonymously used in place of man. Therefore, when we talk of a person being male, we are saying that the person is not a person but a man of any age (Rindfleish & Sheridan, 2003). Therefore, when we talk about an old white male one should get a picture of what category of people w are talking in Australia. We are talking about men whose skin color is white and people who have advanced in age (Stimpert, Duhaime, & Chesley, 2010 p208-223). Large firm is any business or organization that is big enough to be able to outdo other firms. It expands in such a way that it benefits from the economies of scale. In most cases, organizational structure in large firms is complex. The number of employees is big to be able to give their services ad skills to the many departments that characterize most of these large firms. In return, these employees are paid for their novel input in the development and success of these large firms. Payments may be made daily. There are those employees who are either paid weekly or monthly. Other employers are paid on contract basis. Whichever the type of employment agreement that guarantees the rights and freedoms of each person in these large firms, the truth is that the turnovers of these firms are usually high (Mats Alvesson, 2009). From the brief descriptions of the terms above, it is clear that we are talking about old white men in the context of large firms. In Australia, large firms have their top most employers being these white men who have advanced in age. They are the most people who are the CEOs of these large firms. Different sources paint a picture of large Australian firms that have continued to perpetuate the undesirable features of gender discrimination, age discrimination and racism as well. Recruitment in these firms is discriminatory (Rongrong Chen Affiliation: Department of Accounting and Finance at Macquarie University in Sydney, Maria Cadiz Dyball Affiliation: Accounting at Macquarie University in Sydney, & Univer, 2009).The concept of age is not a new phenomenon in Australia. It is a wide spread phenomenon in this country. As far as the process of recruitment is concerned, Australians have very bizarre stories regarding their experiences in the recruitment process. People are discriminated on the basis of how old or young depending on the type of job they are applying for (Chen, Dyball, & Wright, 2009).The more you advance Large in Australia the less likely t is for you to land a new job of choice. The Federal Discrimination Act 2004 seems not to have been able to check out this issue and come up with a lasting solution and remedy. The Australian Human Rights Commission is trying to look on this issue. The most unfortunate thing is that this commission has not been able to end this Australian work place vice. The bureau of statistics of Australia defines mature age workers as those that are beyond the age of 45 years. In most of these firms, the basic rights and freedoms of mature workers is greatly violated. Many are the instances when they are not preferred for opportunities of training characterize most firms. Training these employees is seen and regarded as a total waste of time and precious resources in form of money. They are seen as being unworthy of such privileges (Chen, Dyball, & Wright, 2009). When it comes to promotion, most of these mature works are ignored. Many are the times most of these works are bullied. They are mistreated. This perpetuates their suffering in different ways. Most of them suffer psychological ailments while working for these firms (Shekhar & Stapledon, 2007). What one may ask him/herself at this point is: why are we saying that old people are preferred in most Australian firms? One will note that as a young Australian man or Australian woman, getting a job in any of the small, medium and large sized firms is relatively easy compared to mature people. However, getting a promotion especially in the large firms as a young Australian is not easy. Young Australian may just grow old and become mature workers with unfulfilled desires of being promoted to the top most firm leadership as CEOS. The unfortunate thing is that these young Australian upon getting into the mature workers bracket start to be treated in the manner this category of employees is treated (Murray & Syed, 2005). Differences that are constructed socially have played a major role in advancing the injustices found in most large Australian firms. This inequality persists in these firms. Both the opportunity and the condition inequality persist (Peretz & McGraw, 2011). The ASX 100 list, which outlines the top Australian firms and their profits, reflects the truth that young Australian professionals have not been given an opportunity to lead. The position of CEO is reserved to other ageing white men. The most innovative and daring Australians can only found their own companies and firms if they want to be called CEOs. Concerns are raised all over Australia why. Critics and reviewers have too found out this. In fact according to (Bailey, 2013), “… there is still a long way to go, with the next challenge being greater diversity in the next tier of companies, between the 101st largest and 200th largest listed on the ASX. The boards of these ‘mid caps’ are made up of only 9.9 per cent women, with more than half having no female directors at all in 2012.” In 2002, Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) of the Australian Federal government, conducted a research that clearly demonstrated this inequality. Out of the top most performing 200 firms in Australia, the composition of board members was worrying. In every one female board female director, there were 10male board directors. The case for CEOs was the worst. In every one female CEO, the agency found that there were 33 male CEOs. When most of these business leaders are whites, you can then imagine the number of white CEOs there are in Australian large firms (Broderick, 2010). During the time, the survey was conducted only 6 firms among the top 200 Australia firms had females as CEOs. Noting that more than half of all Australian workers are women, this imbalance and inequality is very unfair. Why is this allowed to continue may be a good question to ask now? In Australia, people refuse to wok not because they have no access to a job, but because the job they are looking for is not forth coming. Australia being one of those countries with high rate of rural-urban migration, there is a big probability of an imbalance occurring somewhere. Most people, especially the young people, are finding the rural places having ‘dirty’ job opportunities. I rural areas, work is in the farms, cattle stations, places where we have sheep and in the orchards. To most tech generation they are finding this being unfashionable and hence the genesis from the ‘primitive rural’ to ‘classic urban’ areas. Large cities have experienced an influx of people from the rural areas. Melbourne and Sydney are some of the towns that have experienced this unfortunate thing. Australians should understand this system well. It is a system designed to favor well-known aged men. What they should never fail to identify is the politics that exist among the league of top CEOs, which can be referred to as a club of ‘old boys’ majority of whom are whites (Sheridan, 2002. Recruitment in these high profile positions is not only competitive, but for you to land into any you must be at one time or another co-existed with the top leadership. This coexistence may be understood as having schooled together once, having been born and brought up in the same place or having ever worked together. Chances that those people who are very close in race, gender and age are most likely to get such a position. The widespread of homophile will be responsible for the sustenance of this trend if the government of Australia fail to intervene. It is even more dangerous when people refuse to focus their attention on other sectors of the Australian economy that may be more profitable than keep fighting for the few CEOs slots found in the large Australian firms .There is some cause for alarm when people find the work of professionals and managers being more prestigious compared to operating and driving machines (Shekhar & Stapledon, 2007). Therefore, from the above observation, the type of an outcry so far by many Australians is no doubt driven by the natural inclinations to be associated with the high and the mighty. Majority would like to find themselves in commanding positions as opposed to being the subjects of order and command. This is the reason many Australians do not want to b laborers. They want to lead. They do not want o command sheep and cows in the rural environs, but they want to find themselves giving orders and directions to human beings. To most of them, this is prestigious (COLIC-PEISKER, 2006 In conclusion, it is true that most Australians have been denied opportunities to display their leadership skills mostly as CEOs. It is even painfully true that women have been gravely ignored in these firms even when they meet the minimum qualifications. Further, into this, it is unfair for these firms to continue being led by people who should be considering of retiring tomorrow morning if they fail to retire today; they are old. However, if when this is fought for, it is good that Australian young men and women look for more innovative ways of demonstrating their knowledge instead of focusing on these few executive positions, which come at a price. References Bailey, M. (2013, September 26). Women directors break ‘100 in the ASX 100’ barrier for first time. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from BRW: http://www.brw.com.au/p/leadership/women_directors_break_in_the_asx_oCQtsuSrrrE0VGJkdOarpI Broderick, E. (2010). Age discrimination –. Sydney: Australian Human Rights Commission. Chen, R., Dyball, M. C., & Wright, S. (2009). The Link Between Board Composition and Corporate Diversification in Australian Corporations. Corporate Governance: An International Review, v17 n2 (March 2009): 208-223 , 17 (2), 208-223. COLIC-PEISKER, V. (2006). Employment Niches for Recent Refugees:Segmented Labour Market in Twenty-first. Journal of Refugee Studies , 19 (2), 1-24. Mats Alvesson, T. B. (2009). Business and Management, Human Resource Management, Organizational Theory. In K. L. Ashcraft, The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies. Oxford Handbooks Online:. Murray, P., & Syed, J. (2005). Critical issues in managing age diversity in Australia. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources , 43 (2), 210-224. Peretz, M., & McGraw, P. (2011). Trends in Australian human resource development practice, 1996-2009. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources , 49 (1), 36-54. Pham, P., Suchard, J.-A., & Zein, J. (2011). Corporate governance and alternative performance measures: evidence from Australian firms. Australian Journal of Management , 3, 371-386. Rindfleish, J., & Sheridan, A. (2003). No change from within: senior women managers’ response to gendered organizational structures. Women in Management Review , 18 (6), 299-310. Rongrong Chen Affiliation: Department of Accounting and Finance at Macquarie University in Sydney, A., Maria Cadiz Dyball Affiliation: Accounting at Macquarie University in Sydney, A., & Univer, S. W. (2009). The Link Between Board Composition and Corporate Diversification in Australian Corporations. Corporate Governance: An International Review , 17 (2), 208-223. Shekhar, C., & Stapledon, G. ( 2007). Governance Structures of Initial Public Offerings in Australia. Corporate Governance: An International Review, : 1177-1189 , 15 (6), 1177-1189. Sheridan, A. (2002). What you know and who you know: “successful” women’s experiences of accessing board positions. Career Development International , 7 (4), 203-210. Stimpert, J. L., Duhaime, I., & Chesley, J. (2010). Learning to Manage a Large Diversified Firm. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies , 17 (4), 411-425. Read More