Running Head: Critical Thinking Application
Critical Thinking Application
Christine Marchi
University of Phoenix
Abstract
With such business issues as unemployment, becoming the focus of the news today, an issue like women struggling to become business leaders may not seem as important. Nevertheless, according to the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, a fourth annual study performed in 2008 painted a disappointing picture of this matter. The findings showed that only “10.9%” of women held top executive positions or board seats in the top 400 largest public corporations in California, a number that had remained virtually unchanged since the prior year and a story that seem to be the same across the country (UC Regents, 2008).
The big questions that experts ask are why do women have such a hard time attaining executive leadership positions and what can be done to help women in the pursuit of this goal. The purpose of this paper is to examine this issue and apply critical thought to analyze the extent of deductive or inductive reasoning that decision makers have used and highlight the presence of any fallacies of logic that were used to deny or support the decision process.
Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning and Fallacies
After careful review of the facts and evidence of the 2008 study, the UC Davis Graduate School used deductive reasoning when drawing the conclusion that women remain an untapped resource in the business world in California. The group was able to prove with certainty that the conclusion formed was accurate based on the evidence provided. However, some inductive reasoning was used when the group formed the conclusion that the innovative minds that drive the eighth largest economy in world are not pushing women into major leadership positions in the biggest companies in California. This conclusion cannot be proven based solely on the percentages shown in the study. The conclusion is a questionable cause fallacy in...