Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Health Services

Advisor

Kimberly Dixon-Lawson

Abstract

The rapid change of the U.S. population has prompted many organizations in both the private and public sectors to adjust their C-Suite leadership to reflect the population that they serve. Unfortunately, healthcare seems to be the exception to this. Several studies have been done to explore the issue of diversity in general; however, limited research has been done to address the diversity gap in the U.S. Healthcare System C-Suite. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the reasons behind the lack of diversity in the U.S. Healthcare C-Suite. The C-Suite is defined as the group of executives that work closely with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The research focus and questions were employed through Roosevelt diversity management theory. In phone, interviews were conducted to collect data from 20 diverse current healthcare C-Suite members who had first-hand knowledge of the diversity gap in healthcare C-Suite. To confirm the accuracy of the findings, content analysis as well as thematic coding were used. The results from this qualitative case study identified several reasons for the diversity gap in healthcare C-Suite. Some of those reasons are lack of potential effort by healthcare organizations’ leadership to include minority communities, resulting in predominantly white community members in the C-suite. The recruitment of more ethnic and cultural minorities by providing them with more opportunities during the recruitment process and also providing them with support to ensure the sustainability of a high number of ethnic and cultural minority C-suite members, and creating a sustainable environment for ethnic and cultural minorities. The findings from this study may have implications for social change in healthcare organizations’ senior leadership and awareness of the need to have the senior leadership reflect the community they serve as well as positive social changes at the individual, family, and societal level.

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