DOCSLIB.ORG

Women's Lived Experiences in Their Pathways to Leadership Positions

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Women's Lived Experiences in Their Pathways to Leadership Positions Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 4-2020 Women’s Lived Experiences in their Pathways to Leadership Positions in Universities in the Dominican Republic Laura Sartori Western Michigan University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Part of the Higher Education Administration Commons Recommended Citation Sartori, Laura, "Women’s Lived Experiences in their Pathways to Leadership Positions in Universities in the Dominican Republic" (2020). Dissertations. 3594. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/3594 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WOMEN’S LIVED EXPERIENCES IN THEIR PATHWAYS TO LEADERSHIP POSITIONS IN UNIVERSITIES IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC by Laura Sartori A dissertation submitted to the Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology Western Michigan University April 2020 Doctoral Committee: Andrea Beach, Ph. D., Chair Patricia Reeves, Ed. D. Marlene Kowalski-Braun, Ph. Copyright by Laura Sartori 2020 WOMEN’S LIVED EXPERIENCES IN THEIR PATHWAYS TO LEADERSHIP POSITIONS IN UNIVERSITIES IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Laura Sartori, Ph.D. Western Michigan University, 2020 There is a significant gender disparity in the highest leadership levels in Dominican universities. Research argues that in traditionalist societies and in some developing countries particularly, it is increasingly challenging for women to make it to top leadership. To achieve a fuller understanding of the current context for female leadership within Dominican higher education, there is a need for research that can serve to establish an initial framework of information about the experiences of female leaders. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the experiences of women who occupy leadership positions in Dominican universities. Feminist standpoint epistemology enabled the critical examination of society through women’s everyday experiences in their journeys into leadership. Through individual narratives, the study gives voice to women who have worked their way to positions of leadership, providing a better understanding of Dominican social dynamics, its culture and history. Study participants were five women occupying dean and vice-chancellor positions. Data was collected through in-depth interviews and through women’s visual and oral representations of their journeys, which they described using metaphors and analogies. Women in the study expressed being grateful for the opportunities they have been given and described their journeys as a growth process. Participants reported facing obstacles mainly influenced by gender and age. The challenges reported by participants refer to female rivalry, constant proving of their capabilities, taking on leadership roles under challenging circumstances and the pressures and demands they face due to the many roles they undertake. The study found that patriarchy and machismo permeate organizational and social dynamics, affecting women’s progress to the highest levels of leadership in universities, especially the university presidency. Finally, an emergent finding from the study suggests there is an influence of religion particularly on women’s self-conception regarding their primary roles as caregivers. Research on the influence of religion and the social dynamics that continue to place men’s power over women in the personal and professional spheres is recommended for further understanding women’s experiences in leadership in higher education and Dominican society as a whole. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I begin by acknowledging my gratitude for having had the privilege to conduct this study. Leadership and feminism are both topics I am greatly passionate about. Since the beginning of my PhD endeavor, I was aware that understanding gender social dynamics, particularly for working women, was the path I was interested in pursuing. I hope this study serves as a framework for consciousness raising in my country and as groundwork for influencing systemic change. My wish is to inspire Dominican women and society as a whole to engage in reflective processes working towards a more inclusive and equal society for women and other marginalized groups. These past five years have been a journey of growth, challenges, and achievements. Many beloved people have been a crucial part of this effort. I am grateful to my parents who have always supported and encouraged me to soar and pursue my dreams. The sacrifices you made to ensure I received quality education and the best learning experiences are always in my heart. To my husband, son, and daughter. Your support and encouragement helped me make it through. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Thank you for cheering me on and believing in me always and at times when I doubted myself. Thank you for your gift of unconditional love and time. This PhD journey entailed the sacrifice of time and my presence away from the people I love most. You are an example of loyalty, selflessness, and of pure love. Without you, I would have not been able to achieve this. Anna and Eduardo, I hope you are ii Acknowledgments-Continued proud of me and that this journey is an example of perseverance in your lives. To my husband, my primary cheerleader! Thank you for believing in me and for being my unconditional partner. To all in my PhD group. It has been an honor to complete this voyage by your side. Sharing hardships, successes, growth of our families and many other important events in our lives through these past five years has made us become a big family. A sincere appreciation and admiration to my beloved syllabus decode group (Mary, Rossi, and Nids). For the endless peer reviewing, peer debriefings, laughter, and complaints! Your friendship is a gem I will always hold close to my heart. This journey has afforded me three sisters. To Mary, words cannot describe how grateful I am for having the privilege and precious gift of your friendship. Thank you for holding my hand all the way, for encouraging me to move on, and to always stay focused on the goal. To my dear girls, thank you for the gift of your friendship. You supported me and cheered me on even while not completely understanding what and why I was doing this. Thank you for the laughter and tears. You are women who inspire and make me proud every day. The many roles you undertake gracefully are an inspiration to me and to the younger generation of women who depend on us for a better future. My sincere appreciation to the five women in my study who so courageously shared their impressive journeys with me. Thank you for the gift of your time and honesty. Your experiences helped me discover new ways of understanding women’s lives and my own experiences as a female leader and in the many roles I play. iii Acknowledgments-Continued To my advisor, Dr. Beach. Thank you for your wisdom, support and guidance. Thank you for encouraging me to never settle and to give my best even at times when I thought I could not pull through. To Dr. Reeves and Dr. Kowalski-Braun, my sincere appreciation for sharing your time and knowledge with me. Your mentoring granted me new perspectives and helped me engage in profound reflections in this journey. Laura Sartori iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................. ix CHAPTER ONE ...................................................................................................................... 1 Study Background ........................................................................................................... 2 Problem Statement .......................................................................................................... 7 Purpose Statement and Research Questions ..................................................................... 8 Conceptual Framework ................................................................................................. 10 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER TWO :LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………………..13 Overview of the History of Feminism ............................................................................ 13 Feminist Perspectives .................................................................................................... 19 Leadership and Gender .................................................................................................. 24 Think manager think male paradigm………………………………………………...30 Agency-communion paradigm…………………………………………………….....31 Masculinity-femininity paradigm………………………………………………….....31 Gendered Organizations..………………………………………………………………...33 Metaphors ..................................................................................................................... 36 v Table of Contents-Continued
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Ex Post Facto Study of the Glass Cliff Phenomenon in Higher
    AN EX POST FACTO STUDY OF THE GLASS CLIFF PHENOMENON IN HIGHER EDUCATION PRESIDENCIES by Michelle Louise Samuel Liberty University A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Liberty University 2021 2 AN EX POST FACTO STUDY OF THE GLASS CLIFF PHENOMENON IN HIGHER EDUCATION PRESIDENCIES by Michelle Louise Samuel A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA 2021 APPROVED BY: Jillian L. Wendt, Ed.D., Committee Chair Eric G. Lovik, Ph.D., Committee Member 3 ABSTRACT This study reviews if the glass cliff phenomenon is occurring in U.S. higher education presidential hires. This topic is essential to review as U.S. higher education institutions are primarily presided over by male presidents. Female presidents do exist, but more often at more risky institutions. One reason for the lack of equity may be the glass cliff phenomenon, which asserts that women are more likely to be hired into leadership roles at riskier institutions. This inequity in hiring practices places women in leadership positions at considerable career risk. This study is a nonexperimental study using an ex post facto, causal-comparative design using publicly available data. The methods review data on female presidents of private and for-profit U.S. institutions from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Purposive sampling matched female presidents with male presidents at similar institutions. Data from the financial responsibility composite score database from the U.S. Department of Education (2020) are used to look for patterns in financial responsibility composite scores (FRCS) before and after presidential hires.
    [Show full text]
  • Running Head: a META-ANALYSIS of the GLASS CLIFF PHENOMENON 1 the Who, When, and Why of the Glass Cliff Phenomenon: a Meta-Analy
    Running head: A META-ANALYSIS OF THE GLASS CLIFF PHENOMENON 1 The Who, When, and Why of the Glass Cliff Phenomenon: A Meta-Analysis of Appointments to Precarious Leadership Positions Thekla Morgenroth a1, Teri A. Kirby a1, Michelle K. Ryan a,b, Antonia Sudkämper a a. Psychology, University of Exeter, UK b. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, The Netherlands © 2020, American Psychological Association. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the final, authoritative version of the article. Please do not copy or cite without authors' permission. The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI: 10.1037/bul0000234 Author note The authors would like to thank Alex Haslam for his helpful feedback on this manuscript, Leire Gartzia, Helix Grosse-Stolentenberg, Max Montgomery, and Paweena Orapin for their help with the coding of reports in languages other than English, and Clara Tucker for her help with the reference list. We would also like to thank all authors who shared their unpublished data with us or provided additional information about their studies. 1 The first two authors contributed equally to the paper and should be considered joint first authors A META-ANALYSIS OF THE GLASS CLIFF PHENOMENON 2 Thekla Morgenroth and Teri Kirby contributed equally to the paper and are joint first authors. Thekla Morgenroth uses they/them/their pronouns, and Teri Kirby, Michelle Ryan, and Antonia Sudkämper, use she/her/hers pronouns. This work was supported by a European Commission Grant (725128) awarded to Michelle Ryan and a New Investigator Grant awarded to Teri Kirby by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/S00274X/1].
    [Show full text]
  • Women in Leadership: a Proposal to Examine the Trends and Experiences of Senior Executive Level Women in the Workforce
    St. John Fisher College Fisher Digital Publications Education Doctoral Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education 5-2020 Women in Leadership: A Proposal to Examine the Trends and Experiences of Senior Executive Level Women in the Workforce Rhoda Overstreet-Wilson [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/education_etd Part of the Education Commons How has open access to Fisher Digital Publications benefited ou?y Recommended Citation Overstreet-Wilson, Rhoda, "Women in Leadership: A Proposal to Examine the Trends and Experiences of Senior Executive Level Women in the Workforce" (2020). Education Doctoral. Paper 442. Please note that the Recommended Citation provides general citation information and may not be appropriate for your discipline. To receive help in creating a citation based on your discipline, please visit http://libguides.sjfc.edu/citations. This document is posted at https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/education_etd/442 and is brought to you for free and open access by Fisher Digital Publications at St. John Fisher College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Women in Leadership: A Proposal to Examine the Trends and Experiences of Senior Executive Level Women in the Workforce Abstract Although the presence of women in the workforce has increased and despite the advances women have made in the workplace, women still account for a small percentage of senior-level executive positions (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). Federal regulations exist to eliminate workplace discrimination, but there remains scholarly evidence that discriminatory behavior has not declined but evolved into a much more ambiguous form of discrimination defined as gender microaggressions.
    [Show full text]
  • Symbolic Management and the Glass Cliff. Evidence from the Boardroom Careers of Female and Male Directors
    Symbolic management and the glass cliff. Evidence from the boardroom careers of female and male directors. May 2016 Abstract This paper uses archival board data to demonstrate that women who take positions as directors of UK companies have shorter tenures than their male counterparts. We show that female directors face a much higher risk of dismissal as they approach nine years of service on the board when their long service deprives them of the all-important classifi- cation as ‘independent’. At this point, their position on the board becomes precarious. Male directors do not suffer the same increase in boardroom exit. This gender-specific difference is shown to be clearly linked to the independence status. It is argued that these observations are consistent with the notion that female directors are being used in the symbolic management of corporate governance and that at nine years, when the cloak of independence disappears, women directors are then exposed to the biases that arise from role congruity issues. JEL codes: J31; J62; J63 1 Introduction The Sex Discrimination Act became law in the UK in 1975. It was intended to eliminate labour market discrimination on the grounds of sex or marital status. In the year 2000, some 25 years after it came into force, only around 6% of board positions on FTSE 100 companies were held by women. By 2015 this had risen to 25%, but only after considerable government pressure 1. The situation in the FTSE250 and elsewhere is less encouraging. The analysis in this paper will show that the challenge facing women on UK boards is not only their under- representation but also their subsequent experience once they are appointed to a board.
    [Show full text]
  • The Political Glass Cliff: How Seat Selection Contributes to The
    Olivet Nazarene University Digital Commons @ Olivet Honors Program Projects Honors Program 5-23-2017 The olitP ical Glass Cliff: Potential Causes of Female Underrepresentation in the U.S. House of Representatives Erica Browning Olivet Nazarene University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/honr_proj Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Browning, Erica, "The oP litical Glass Cliff: Potential Causes of Female Underrepresentation in the U.S. House of Representatives" (2017). Honors Program Projects. 62. https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/honr_proj/62 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors Program at Digital Commons @ Olivet. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Program Projects by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Olivet. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Political Glass Cliff: How Seat Selection Contributes to the Underperformance of Female Congresswomen By Erica M. Browning Honors Scholarship Project Submitted to the Faculty of Olivet Nazarene University for partial fulfillment of the requirements for GRADUATION WITH UNIVERSITY HONORS March 2017 Bachelor of Arts in Political Science ______________________________ _________________________ _______________ Scholarship Project Advisor (printed) Signature Date ______________________________ _________________________ _______________ Honors Council Chair (printed) Signature Date ______________________________ _________________________ _______________ Honors Council Member (printed) Signature Date “We’re half the people; we should be half the Congress” -Jeannette Rankin, U.S. Representative This project is dedicated to Jeannette Pickering Rankin, who became the first woman to be sworn into Congress in 1917. A hundred years later there is still a long way to go for representative equality, but it is thanks to women like her that we have come this far.
    [Show full text]
  • Experiences in the Leadership Advancement of African American Women
    EXPERIENCES IN THE LEADERSHIP ADVANCEMENT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN Lisa E. Dubose A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION December 2017 Committee: Patrick Pauken, Advisor Dalton A. Jones, Graduate Faculty Representative Paul A. Johnson Angela R. Logan Paul Christian Willis © 2017 Lisa E. Dubose All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Patrick Pauken, Advisor The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the experiences in leadership advancement of African American women. Over 10 million African American women are in the civilian labor force (United States Department of Labor statistics, 2015)). The population of African American women with degrees having significantly increased over thirty years, with 264% more Bachelor’s degrees and 353% more Master’s degrees being earned, however barriers to opportunities continue to exist (Nooks-Wallner, 2008). Although anti-discrimination laws have existed since 1964, covert discriminatory patterns continue and are often entrenched in workplace systems, which prevent advancement opportunities (Cook & Glass, 2013) Phenomenology was the qualitative research method utilized for this study. Phenomenology is a scholarly study method that provides meaning-making, to more effectively comprehend the perspective of an individual or group of individuals. Meaning is gained through attaining data about situations or events surrounding a specific phenomenon. The intention is to determine how and why it influences others as it goes beyond the surface to gain depth. This study gathered data through various methods, such as an advance questionnaire, semi-structured interview protocol, review of participant leadership samples, and resumes/curriculum vitaes.
    [Show full text]
  • Females and Precarious Leadership Positions
    BAM 2013 This paper is from the BAM 2013 Conference Proceedings About BAM The British Academy of Management (BAM) is a learned society dedicated to developing the community of management academics. To find out more about BAM, please visit our website at http://www.bam.ac.uk/ Females and Precarious Leadership Positions: Further Evidence of the Glass Cliff Abstract The “glass cliff” posits that when women do achieve high profile roles, these are at firms in a precarious position. Previous research tested for evidence of the glass cliff by monitoring appointments (male or female), estimating the precariousness of the firms to which the appointments were made and drawing inferences about the glass cliff from resulting correlations. This study is different insofar as it directly measures causation between the reporting of an initial loss (as evidence of unequivocal precariousness) and changes in board gender diversity. The sample is those companies listed on the UK stock exchange reporting an initial loss in the years 2004– 2006. Because gender diversity has been to the forefront of corporate governance research for the last decade, a closely matched control sample is also used in a difference-in-difference analysis to avoid inadvertently attributing any improvements arising from system wide changes in gender diversity to the initial loss event. Findings suggest that when the initial loss is ‘big’ (representing a relatively more precarious situation), there is a difference in the increase in gender diversity versus both the control and the ‘small’ initial loss subsamples across the test period, i.e. evidence of the glass cliff. 1 Introduction Women who aspire to positions of leadership are often confronted with barriers that block their progress to positions of upper management (Kanter, 1977).
    [Show full text]
  • 2015 Kulich Et Al JESP Accepted Version.Pdf
    ORE Open Research Exeter TITLE Signaling change during a crisis: Refining conditions for the glass cliff AUTHORS Kulich, C; Lorenzi-Cioldi, F; Iacoviello, V; et al. JOURNAL Journal of Experimental Social Psychology DEPOSITED IN ORE 29 February 2016 This version available at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/20242 COPYRIGHT AND REUSE Open Research Exeter makes this work available in accordance with publisher policies. A NOTE ON VERSIONS The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication ÔØ ÅÒÙ×Ö ÔØ Signaling Change During a Crisis: Refining Conditions for the Glass Cliff Clara Kulich, Fabio Lorenzi-Cioldi, Vincenzo Iacoviello, Klea Faniko, Michelle K. Ryan PII: S0022-1031(15)00089-X DOI: doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.07.002 Reference: YJESP 3336 To appear in: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Received date: 1 December 2014 Revised date: 20 July 2015 Accepted date: 22 July 2015 Please cite this article as: Kulich, C., Lorenzi-Cioldi, F., Iacoviello, V., Faniko, K. & Ryan, M.K., Signaling Change During a Crisis: Refining Conditions for the Glass Cliff, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.07.002 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
    [Show full text]
  • Feminist Resource List
    Feminist Resources INTRODUCTION This document provides a varied list of feminist resources, including academic readings in feminist theory as well as accessible blog articles, videos, zines/comics, and organizations. Be aware feminism is composed of a diverse group of individuals and a diverse range of discourse, and there have been and still are many debates within feminism. In an attempt to organize the expansive list, I have arranged sources by category. Because of my own scholarly location, this list does tend to be US-centric (especially in regards to historical work listed). However, I have made an effort to include intersectional, transnational, and global feminist work. I have included some work that is not explicitly feminist, but which speaks to women’s history or studies of sexuality/gender in important ways. This list also includes several foundational readings which have been critiqued since their publication; despite this, I felt it was important to provide resources that capture the way feminism has evolved over time [with a focus on the last fifty years specifically]. I often link to amazon.com so you can read reviews and use the “look inside” feature for books. With that said, I encourage ordering any books through your local bookstore. ​ ​ ​ ​ KEY Book or article resource Blog, magazine article, or other accessible resource Multimedia resource (zine, graphic novel, video, podcast, or music) ⬤ ⬤ ⬤ Last Updated: 02/25/2017 ​ Compiled by: Amara Miller (http://amaralmiller.wixsite.com/educator) ​ ​ ​ Feminist Resources Feminist
    [Show full text]
  • Alison Cook January, 2021 Curriculum Vitae
    ALISON COOK JANUARY, 2021 CURRICULUM VITAE Department of Management Tel: 435-797-7654 Jon M. Huntsman School of Business Fax: 435-797-1091 Utah State University Cell: 801-815-9699 Logan, UT 84322-3555 Email:[email protected] EDUCATION Purdue University Doctor of Philosophy Major: Organizational Behavior Minor: Human Resource Management Dissertation: Connecting Work-family Policies to Supportive Work Environments Weber State University Secondary Education Teaching Certification Major: Business Education Minor: Marketing University of Utah Bachelor of Science Major: Finance PEER- REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS *Authors contributed equally to the paper. For convenience, they have been listed alphabetically or have alternated author order. 1. *Ingersoll, A.R., Glass, C., & Cook, A. (forthcoming). Corporate lawyers in the USA: Pathway to gender parity? Gender in Management: an International Journal 2. Glass, C. & Cook, A. (2020). Performative contortions: How white women and people of colour navigate elite leadership roles. Gender, Work & Organization, 27, 1232-1252. 3. Glass, C., Cook, A., & Pierce, B. (2020). Do Women in Leadership Reduce Sexual Harassment Claims on College Campuses? Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 13, 193-210. *publication with a student 4. Glass, C. & Cook, A. (2020). Pathways to the glass cliff: A risk tax for women and minority leaders? Social Problems, 67, 637-653. 2 5. Cook, A., Ingersoll, A., & Glass, C. (2019). Gender gaps at the top: Does board composition affect executive pay structures? Human Relations, 72, 1292-1314. 6. Ingersoll, A., Glass, C., Cook, A., & Olsen, K.J. (2019). Power, status, and expectations: How narcissism manifests among women CEOs. Journal of Business Ethics, 158, 893-907.
    [Show full text]
  • Taking Gender Into Account: Theory and Design for Women's Leadership Development Programs
    Taking Gender into Account: Theory and Design for Women’s Leadership Development Programs _______________ Robin J. ELY Herminia IBARRA Deborah KOLB 2011/69/OB (Revised version of 2011/57/OB) Taking Gender into Account: Theory and Design for Women’s Leadership Development Programs Robin J. Ely* Herminia Ibarra** Deborah Kolb*** Revised version of 2011/57/OB Forthcoming as “Taking Gender into Account: Theory and Design for Women’s Leadership Development Programs” in SPECIAL ISSUE--Teaching Leadership - Taking Gender into Account: Theory and Design for Women’s Leadership Development Programs, Issue: Volume 10, Number 3 September 2011 – Copyright © Academy of Management Learning & Education Order of authorship is alphabetical. The authors contributed equally to the ideas and writing of this paper. * Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration, Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community at Harvard Business School, Soldiers Field, Boston, Massachusetts 02163, USA. Email: [email protected] ** The Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, Boulevard de Constance 77305 Fontainebleau, France. Email: [email protected] *** Professor Emiritus at Simmons School of Management, Simmons College 300 The Fenway Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. Email: [email protected] A Working Paper is the author’s intellectual property. It is intended as a means to promote research to interested readers. Its content should not be copied or hosted on any server without written permission from [email protected] Click here to access the INSEAD Working Paper collection Taking Gender into Account: Theory and Design for Women’s Leadership Development Programs We conceptualize leadership development as identity work and show how subtle forms of gender bias in the culture and in organizations interfere with the identity work of women leaders.
    [Show full text]
  • Symbolic Management and the Glass Cliff: Evidence from the Boardroom Careers of Female and Male Directors
    British Journal of Management, Vol. 00, 1–20 (2017) DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12208 Symbolic Management and the Glass Cliff: Evidence from the Boardroom Careers of Female and Male Directors Brian G. M. Main and Ian Gregory-Smith1 University of Edinburgh, 29 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9JS, Scotland, UK, and 1University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 4DT, UK Corresponding author email: [email protected] This paper uses archival board data to demonstrate that women who take positions as di- rectors of UK companies have shorter tenures than their male counterparts. The authors show that female directors face a much higher risk of dismissal as they approach nine years of service on the board, when their long service deprives them of the all-important classification as ‘independent’. At this point, their position on the board becomes pre- carious. Male directors do not suffer the same increase in boardroom exit. This gender- specific difference is clearly shown to be linked to the independence status. It isargued that these observations are consistent with the notion that female directors are being used in the symbolic management of corporate governance and that, at nine years, when the cloak of independence disappears, women directors are then exposed to the biases that arise from role congruity issues. Introduction Women tend to experience briefer tenures as boardroom directors than men do. The Sex Discrimination Act became law in the This points to a possible additional source UK in 1975. It was intended to eliminate labour of discrimination over and above those already market discrimination on the grounds of sex or identified and described by the epithets ‘glass marital status.
    [Show full text]