percentage points over this period. The percentage of executive posts held by white
women, African American women, and Asian American women rose respectively by 1.9,
1.3, and 1.5 points. Latinas lost some ground; two American Indian women served in
governors' executive offices in 2003. Thus, across the public and private sector little
advancement for these women exists.
[
Table 3 About Here]
What accounts for this lack of progress? Could it be, as reported by Baldi and Mc Brier
(1997), the subjective nature of the promotion process implies that there is greater
probability that discrimination occurs in shrewd and most times difficult ways to detect?
Or as Greenhaus et. al. (1990) and Nkomo and Cox (1990) suggest that
managers/sponsors, who are white, are more likely to associate with and sponsor persons
like themselves in terms of color and social background subtly signaling that Whites are
more likely than Blacks to be promoted.
[
Table 4 About Here]
T
HE
P
ROFESSIONAL
M
ODEL
, A
FFIRMATIVE
A
CTION
,
AND
T
OURNAMENT
M
OBILITY
About 20 years ago in a series of articles, Di Prete (1987, 1987a ) and Di Prete
and Soule (1986, 1988) argued that modifications by government have penetrated the
administrative and professional model of personnel organization, and the beneficiaries of
these changes were primarily women and minorities employed in lower level managerial
positionspromoted due to pressure from Civil Rights groups during the 1960s and 1970s,
and depending on rates of organizational growth. Promotion, they argue, depends
heavily on an organization's shape and demographic composition, which was followedup
9
Convention