A third set of factors thought to give rise to different career attainments is the executives' level of career expectations and aspirations. Differences in career plans and desires can result from psychological bases such as childhood socialization patterns, sociological factors such as perceived or real discrimination or even consciously chosen goals like preferences for more time with family. This section of the report compares the race/ethnic groups on intent to remain in their current position, preferred future jobs and the kinds of resources that would be called upon if a job change was planned.

Intent to leave. One measure of how content the groups are with their present position is their intent to leave within the next 12 months. The question resulted in significant differences. As shown in Table 30, twice as many black and Asian women as white women said there was either a good chance or they definitely would leave their current employer in the next year. For men, fewer blacks than others said the chances were very slight or that they definitely would not leave their employer in the next year. Hispanic men and women fell between the poles set by the other race/ethnic groups.

Future aspirations. Thinking more long term, respondents were asked in what type of organization they wanted to work 5 years hence. Previous results showed that more blacks than whites wanted to work in provider settings other than general hospitals such as specialty hospitals, long term care facilities, managed care organizations or community health centers. Today, these differences are virtually wiped out; though about 3 out of 5 whites want to work in a hospital compared to one out of two blacks, these differences are not significant. We conclude that approximately equal proportions of all race/ethnic groups seek employment in the various settings. (Table 31)

Another key indicator of career aspirations concerns the expectation to achieve a CEO position (Table 32). As was true in 1992, there continues to be no significant difference in the proportion of blacks and whites who expect to be CEOs. It is notable that these data confirm previously published studies showing that compared to men, fewer women aspire to CEO positions. In fact, overall, compared to 1992, lower proportions of the 1997 respondents expect CEO positions in five, ten and 15 years. It is unclear in this research if this represents a different internally driven motivation or an adaptation to the reduced number of such positions that are expected to be available.

We conclude this section on career expectations by presenting respondents' ranking of resources that would be used to change jobs. Table 33 gives an indication of the resources the members of the race/ethnic groups would call upon to achieve their career plans. All four groups said the first source they would turn to when changing jobs would be their personal network. Then, interesting differences appear by gender and race/ethnicity.

For example, among the women, blacks would turn secondly to NAHSE and then, to an executive search firm. Whites said they would secondly turn to the executive search firms and then to a local healthcare executive group or women's healthcare executive network. Hispanic women had a tie between their second source for assistance: a local healthcare executive group or women's healthcare executive network and published advertisements. Finally, Asian women ranked published advertisements second and executive search firms in third place.

Men of all race/ethnicities resembled the white women's strategy--after consulting their personal network, they would next turn to an executive search firm. All the male groups ranked the ACHE in third place as their principal source for assistance in changing jobs.

In sum, apart from the current intent of more blacks to leave their employers in the coming year than whites, Hispanics or Asians, we showed that about the same proportion of all these executives want to work in various healthcare settings in the next half decade. Moreover, about the same proportion plan to become CEOs in 5, 10 and 15 years. We concluded by showing that while all groups would initially turn to their personal network if they were planning a job change, women in the various race/ethnic groups differed on subsequent sources for help--whites for example, would go to search firms, blacks to NAHSE. All the men however, agreed on their rankings: (1) personal network, (2)search firm and (3) ACHE.