Bell and Nkomo are co-authors of Our Separate Ways, an acclaimed study on women and leadership.

Women’s Leadership Subject of Women’s History Month Program

March 5, 2003

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Ella L.J. Edmondson Bell and Stella M. Nkomo, co-authors of a critically acclaimed study of the career paths of black and white female executives, will address "Women’s Leadership and Career Path Strategies" at Illinois Wesleyan University on March 10 at 7 p.m. in the Main Lounge of Memorial Center. The program is free and open to the public.

The program is in recognition of Women’s History Month and is part of a series of events, "Work/Life Issues Facing Women Professionals," being held in conjunction with an Illinois Wesleyan course on women in business. In addition to the public presentation, students, faculty, staff, and interested members of the University community are invited to join an informal discussion in Room 14 of Stevenson Hall from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on March 10.

Bell and Nkomo conducted an eight-year survey of 825 black and white female managers in preparing their book, Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity, which was published in 2001 by Harvard Business School Press.

In addition to that extensive survey, the book relates the stories of seven black and seven white women executives at prestigious American companies. The authors show that "the combined effects of race and gender create not only very different organizational identities and career experiences, but also very separate paths to the doors of corporate America."

Although their study shows significant differences in the experiences of white and black female executives, the authors conclude that the similarities in those experiences illustrate "the extent to which managerial careers are steeped in patriarchal ideology."

Bell is associate professor of business administration at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business where she specializes in issues of race, gender, and social class in organizations and organizational change.

Nkomo is Bateman Distinguished Professor of Business Leadership at the University of South Africa’s Graduate School of Business. She is former chair of the Department of Management in the Belk College of Business Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She teaches in the fields of human resource management, organization behavior, general management, diversity management and change management.

The presentation is sponsored, in part, through a grant from State Farm Insurance Companies®.