Despite the fact that women now represent nearly half of the U.S. workforce, a majority of college graduates and more than a third of mid-level managers and new MBAs, their representation in positions of leadership within the business world remains relatively low. This research uses a risk assessment model to identify the processes underlying executive advancement and consider how these processes operate to create very different outcomes for men and women. Several key propositions of this risk assessment model will be tested through two experimental lab studies. The first study is an experiment aimed at determining 1) whether decision makers attribute higher risk to hiring or promoting individuals that are perceived as less competent, congruent, committed and credible; and 2) whether women are perceived as less qualified on each of these dimensions than men with objectively identical qualifications, and as a result are seen as carrying higher risk in hire and promotion decisions than men. The second study is a series of four identical experiments with varying participants (undergraduates, MBAs, executive MBAs and executives) aimed at testing whether greater perceived risk is attributed to hiring women than men and whether this higher perceived risk translates to women being hired and promoted less frequently.
The research question being addressed in this project is a complex one, as the phenomenon is likely driven by multiple processes operating simultaneously to disadvantage women. Unlike most previous work, this project takes a systemic approach appropriate to the problem by simultaneously considering the impact of perceptions of competence, congruence, commitment and credibility upon risk perceptions and hiring decisions. As a result, the research will clarify not just whether women are perceived as riskier than men, but also why. Further, by integrating research from the fields of both gender studies and risk and decision-making, this research takes a novel approach that may make the development of policies aimed at reducing gender inequality more tractable. Most business organizations are adept at making risk/reward tradeoffs and decisions across many contexts. By enabling organizations to see gender inequality through a lens with which they are familiar, this project may help them to develop and enact more effective policies in their efforts to create gender equality.
