Glass Ceiling in Human Resources

The glass-ceiling effect in organiza-tions (Morrison & Von Glinow, 1990)has received a great deal of popularand scholarly attention in recentyears, perhaps due to its persistence

over time. Recent studies on the lack ofwomen in senior management (Helfat, Har-ris, & Wolfson, 2007) and the gender paygap (Blau & Kahn, 2007) indicate thatwomen are disproportionately underrepre-

THE GLASS CEILING IN HUMAN

RESOURCES: EXPLORING THE LINK

BETWEEN WOMEN’S

REPRESENTATION IN MANAGEMENT

AND THE PRACTICES OF STRATEGIC

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

AND EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT

S H A U N P I C H L E R , PAT R I C I A A . S I M P S O N , A N D L I N D A K . S T R O H

Research on sex stereotypes suggests that gender bias is an invisible barrier—theso-called glass ceiling—preventing women from breaking into the highest levelsof management in business organizations. Using data from a state-based pro-fessional HR organization, we investigated this phenomenon in the field of HRmanagement. Building on the lack of fit model of gender discrimination and pre-vious research, we tested two hypotheses: that women in HR are more likely tobe concentrated in lower-level managerial positions in organizations that em-phasize employee involvement (because of a related emphasis on stereotypicallyfeminine managerial abilities) and that women in HR also are more likely to beconcentrated in lower-level managerial positions in organizations that emphasizestrategic human resource management (because of a related emphasis onstereotypically masculine characteristics). Our results support the first but not thesecond hypothesis. Theoretical and practical implications related to the glass ceil-ing are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: gender discrimination, glass ceiling, strategic human resource man-agement, employee involvement

Correspondence to: Shaun Pichler, School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Michigan State University, 241 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, E-mail: [email protected].

HHuummaann RReessoouurrccee MMaannaaggeemmeenntt,, Fall 2008, Vol. 47, No. 3, Pp. 463–479

© 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.20227

04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 463

464 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2008

sented in top management and are paid lessthan men are when they do reach the top(Kochan, 2007). For instance, while the pro-portion of women in management roles hasincreased more in human resources than inany other field (Blau, Simpson, & Anderson,1998), women’s representation in top levelsof management has remained essentially un-changed over the last ten years (Pomeroy,2007). In their analysis of executive officers

of Fortune 1000 companies,Helfat et al. (2007) found thatthere were more than twice asmany male executives than fe-male executives in HR manage-ment. Given these trends, howare HR management practices re-lated to women’s advancement inthe HR field?

Previous research has docu-mented disparities between menand women in terms of wagesand career success in HR. For in-stance, using U.S. Census and Bu-reau of Labor Statistics data,Hardin (1991) found that al-though women dominated thefield overall in the 1970s and1980s and were increasingly rep-resented among the ranks of per-sonnel managers, their earningswere relatively low compared tothose of men, despite identicaldemographic and work profiles—that is, hours of work, age, andeducation. Based on 1970 and1980 census data, Gray (1987)similarly found that men domi-nated top management jobs and

tended to earn more than women did. Datafrom a study conducted by the Institute ofPersonnel Management (IPM) in Britain in-dicated that although women were dispro-portionately represented in jobs at the per-sonnel officer level and below, “a glassceiling operates around personnel officer”(Gooch, 1994, p. 17). A previous IPM studyfound that women were underpaid com-pared to men, were underrepresented in sen-ior management, were less involved in strat-egy setting, moved more slowly through

lower-level management positions, and hadless access to management training thanmen did (Long, 1984).

The existing empirical data tend to indi-cate that women are overrepresented in HRgenerally and in the managerial ranks of HR,yet tend to face a glass ceiling when it comesto reaching top management, despite theirbeing as equally qualified as men. That said,researchers have yet to investigate why thisis the case. Some scholars have proposed thatan emphasis on strategic human resourcemanagement (SHRM) may prevent womenfrom becoming managers in the HR function(Legge, 1987), whereas an emphasis on em-ployee involvement (EI) may facilitatewomen’s movement into management (But-tner, 2001; Gooch, 1994).

The current study integrates research andtheory from the sex stereotypes literature tofurther explore these propositions and usesdata from a state branch of a professional HRorganization to formally test whether EI andSHRM are related to the proportion ofwomen in HR. Developing a framework thatexplains why women have been able to enterinto HR management roles in such strikingnumbers but have yet to make similarprogress in top management is an importantcontribution. To date, literature on the glassceiling has focused on the characteristics ofwomen that either limit or promote their ad-vancement in organizations, such as person-ality traits (Tharenou, 2001), career interrup-tions (Lyness & Thompson, 1997), andcareer strategies (Ragins, Townsend, & Mat-tis, 1998), as well as on how salient organi-zational characteristics, such as organizationage and industry, are systematically relatedto women’s advancement in organizations(Goodman, Fields, & Blum, 2003). Althoughthese studies have been illuminating, re-search tends to indicate that the glass ceilingpersists even when controlling for these fac-tors (Gray, 1987; Hardin, 1991). It is impor-tant, therefore, to study the glass ceilingusing an occupational lens, because explana-tions for the phenomenon have focused lessattention on how occupation-specific factorsmight promote or prohibit women’s ad-vancement. The next step in the research

The existing

empirical data tend

to indicate that

women are

overrepresented in

HR generally and in

the managerial

ranks of HR, yet

tend to face a glass

ceiling when it

comes to reaching

top management,

despite their being

as equally qualified

as men.

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm


The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources 465

base is to consider women’s career success inspecific occupations, given the importantdifferences between occupations in terms ofmobility, female representation, and histori-cal treatment of women (Legge, 1987; Stroh,Brett, & Reilly, 1992).

Given the fact that HR has traditionallybeen a female-dominated profession, onewould expect that women should be moreable to break through the glass ceiling in HRas compared to other professions that are rel-atively male-dominated (Heilman, 1983).Thus, if sex-typed management practices areindeed related to the proportion of womenin HR management, this could have impor-tant implications for other business profes-sions. For instance, although research haspreviously indicated that women are pre-vented from reaching positions of power inmale-dominated occupations (Reskin, 1988),research in the management literature hasyet to investigate whether women are ex-cluded from top management jobs when anoccupation’s top managers are gaining pres-tige, as is the case with HR (Oberstein, 1999).Moreover, sex-typed management practicesmay be even more detrimental—or benefi-cial—to women’s advancement in profes-sions that are relatively male-dominated,since the positive effect of female representa-tion on women’s advancement (Goodman etal., 2003) is reduced.

This work, therefore, advances the studyof organizational diversity and inclusion byinvestigating how two prominent and in-creasingly dispersed HR practices are relatedto women’s representation in HR manage-ment—above and beyond salient organiza-tional characteristics (such as age and indus-try), structural characteristics of organizations(such as managerial representation ofwomen), and the formalization of HR prac-tices (such as open job postings). Althoughthis article focuses on how EI and SHRM arerelated to women’s representation in HRspecifically, the theoretical implications ofthese results can translate into importantpractical implications for women working inoccupations other than HR. In the sectionthat follows, we review theory and researchfrom the sex stereotypes literature in order to

organize our article theoretically. We then re-view the employee involvement and strategichuman resource management literaturesusing this theoretical lens and offer formal hy-potheses regarding the glass ceiling in HR.

On Sex Stereotyping

The section that follows reviews the theoryand research from the sex stereo-types literature, as well as theemployee involvement andstrategic human resource man-agement literatures, using thelack of fit model as a theoreticallens. It concludes with formalhypotheses regarding the glassceiling in HR.

Sex Stereotypes and theLack of Fit Model of GenderDiscrimination

Stereotyping occurs when indi-viduals are judged not on theirunique characteristics or merits,but on generalized characteristicsassociated with the group towhich they belong (Perdue, Do-vidio, Gurtman, & Tyler, 1990).For instance, sex stereotypes haveconsistently been found to por-tray men and women as oppo-sites, with men perceived as mas-culine and achievement-orientedand women as being nurturingand facilitative (Heilman, 2001).Applied to employment-relateddecisions, such portrayals canlead to biased evaluations ofwomen’s performance and quali-fications (Eagly & Karau, 2002).Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, sexstereotypes have been found to bedisadvantageous to women in selection,placement, and promotion decisions (Welle& Heilman, 2005), especially for managerialjobs (Powell, Butterfield, & Parent, 2002).

There are two types of sex stereotypes:descriptive and prescriptive. Both are theoret-ically relevant to our hypotheses because

This work …

investigates how

two prominent and

increasingly

dispersed HR

practices are

related to women’s

representation in

HR management—

above and beyond

salient

organizational

characteristics …

structural

characteristics of

organizations …

and the

formalization of HR

practices.




they cumulatively determine women’s po-sition in management. Descriptive stereo-types are “constellation(s) of traits that arethought to uniquely describe men andwomen” (Welle & Heilman, 2005, p. 25).The lack of fit model (Heilman, 1983) pro-poses that when one’s gender is incongru-ent with the sex type of the job in ques-tion, sex bias will lead to decreasedperformance expectations and evaluations(Heilman, 2001). The sex type of a job isdetermined by two factors: the genderedcharacteristics believed to be required of

that job and the proportion ofmen (or women) occupying thejob (Welle & Heilman, 2005).

In contrast, prescriptivestereotypes describe how menand women should be—that is,what behaviors are (and are not)appropriate, based on one’s gen-der. When women demonstratemasculine behavior or succeed atmale-typed tasks—that is, behav-ior that violates a prescriptivestereotype—they are greetedwith hostility and are disliked,ultimately resulting in down-wardly biased performance eval-

uations (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, &Tamkins, 2004).

Heilman (2001) argues that sex biasstemming from both types of stereotypeshas contributed to the glass ceiling—that is,the invisible barriers that prevent womenfrom reaching the upper echelons of man-agement (Hymnowitz & Schellhardt,1986)—and contends that those invisiblebarriers are sex stereotypes. More specifi-cally, when a woman exhibits stereotypi-cally feminine behavior, she is considered apoor fit for most managerial jobs (descrip-tive stereotyping), and when a woman ex-hibits stereotypically masculine behavior,she is typically perceived as being unneces-sarily aggressive and hostile (prescriptivestereotyping). However, the lack of fit modelalso opens the possibility that specific man-agement jobs may be sex-typed to women’sadvantage. In the sections that follow, thelack of fit model of gender discrimination is

used to develop hypotheses about the con-trasting ways in which the introduction ofEI and SHRM within business organizationsaffect women’s representation in managerialpositions.

Sex Stereotypes and EmployeeInvolvement

Some scholars have proposed that descriptivestereotypes and the sex typing of work rolesshould actually help women break throughthe glass ceiling. At first glance, the historicalevidence seems to support the propositionthat women’s representation in HR manage-ment varies as a function of the extent towhich HR is sex-typed as feminine (Legge,1987). For example, early personnel depart-ments concentrated on providing such serv-ices as employee counseling, basic skills train-ing, and in-kind support to sick workers andtheir families (Simpson & Lenoir, 2003).Legge (1987) notes that females typicallywere recruited into the field because this typeof service work had already been sex-typed as“feminine” in nature (Heilman, 1983), thusexplaining women’s parallel success in theemerging field of nonprofit social work. In-deed, many of the women who were hiredinto the first personnel departments hadbeen social workers. Thus, in its early years,the field of HR as a whole was viewed as“women’s work,” in contrast to the “men’swork” of line management.

Women entered the HR profession in largenumbers again in the 1960s when the emer-gence of a complex web of federal employ-ment legislation dramatically increased the de-mand for HR staff (Simpson & Lenoir, 2003).This rapid increase in demand apparently out-stripped the supply of available men andopened up new opportunities for women (Re-skin & Roos, 1990; Simpson & Lenoir, 2003).The increase in clerical work associated withlegal compliance also may have contributed tothe increase in women incumbents during thistime, since men may have been perceived as amisfit for this type of work.1 Certainly the con-temporary feminization trend within person-nel work (Legge, 1987; Simpson & Lenoir,2003) dates from this period.

Thus, in its early

years, the field of

HR as a whole was

viewed as “women’s

work,” in contrast to

the “men’s work” of

line management.




This overview of the historical recordsuggests that the sex typing of HR jobs asfeminine has worked to women’s advantagein the past. Currently, a similar dynamicmay be at work in the field. Scholars have ar-gued that an emphasis on employee involve-ment in business organizations should bene-fit women because communal characteristicsare required (or perceived to be required) ofmanagers. The essential features of employeeinvolvement are that employees are encour-aged to work autonomously and participatein decisions that can affect organizationalperformance (Lawler, 1988). As Fondas’s(1997) review clearly indicates, popular andscholarly writers alike have contended thatthis type of management tends to emphasizestereotypically feminine—that is, commu-nal—characteristics, such as supporting andnurturing employees (Bridges, 1994; Kanter,1989; Kiechel, 1992; Peters, 1989; Rosener,1990). The emphasis on involvement andparticipatory work, scholars argue, shouldbenefit female managers in HR because“where facilitation is a prized skill, onewould expect to see a change in the balanceof power the personnel function holds,”such that women would have advantages incareer opportunities (Gooch, 1994, p. 17).

In this connection, effective implemen-tation of employee involvement requiresthat managers adopt a new managementstyle (Tesluk & Mathieu, 1999) that empha-sizes relationality over hierarchy. This beingthe case, some scholars have argued thatwomen are more desirable as managers inthese settings because they have been social-ized to emphasize the relational domain ofinterpersonal relationships, while men havebeen socialized to emphasize the instrumen-tal aspect of relationships (Buttner, 2001).Again, stereotypes about gendered behaviorare relevant; some scholars assume thatwomen “naturally” lead in a more participa-tive way (Iannello, 1992; Rosener, 1990). In-deed, some commentators have even gone sofar as to suggest that men should adopt fem-inine leadership characteristics when em-ployed in firms that emphasize employee in-volvement programs (Aburdene & Naisbitt,1992; Peters, 1989).

Although empirical evidence suggestswomen and men demonstrate similar taskand interpersonal leadership skills (Eagly &Karau, 2002) and have similar career aspira-tions (Morrison, Van Velsor, & White, 1987),the propositions mentioned immediatelyabove are consistent with the lack of fitmodel of gender discrimination. That is,managerial jobs in a high-involvement con-text require, or at least are perceived to re-quire, “communal” skills. More specifically,since employee involvement requires thatmanagers work cooperatively with subordi-nates, build relationships withthem, encourage relationshipbuilding among them, and man-age through facilitation instead ofobjectives (Gooch, 1994; Rosener,1990; Tesluk & Mathieu, 1999),women should, theoretically, beperceived as more appropriatecandidates for these jobs (Heil-man, 1983). HR roles that are as-sociated with the implementa-tion of employee involvement,such as training and developmentmanagers, are particularly likelyto be perceived as requiring more“communal,” or feminine, traitsand abilities.

Managers must be trainedwhen their role evolves from su-pervision to coaching or facilitat-ing (Bridges, 1994). Front-line em-ployees also have new trainingneeds. For instance, employeesoften are charged with decision-making re-sponsibility for distributing rewards and de-termining disciplinary action (Wellins et al.,1990). The need to retrain supervisors andemployees in participatory managementtechniques may stimulate a related prefer-ence for training and development managersand specialists who are perceived to emulatethe skills and abilities they are instilling. Infact, the vast majority of training specialistsand managers are female (Pomeroy, 2007).Like other scholars, we presume that genderstereotyping will be advantageous to womenin the workplace under these circumstances.Indeed, the lack of fit model is explicit in ar-

This overview of the

historical record

suggests that the

sex typing of HR

jobs as feminine

has worked to

women’s advantage

in the past.

Currently, a similar

dynamic may be at

work in the field.




guing that gender discrimination can extendto men when they are perceived to lack thetraits and abilities required of a feminine sex-typed job, and empirical evidence supportsthis (Heilman, 1997).

That said, we contend that employee in-volvement will benefit women only inlower-level managerial jobs. This is becauseprescriptive stereotypes dictate that womenshould act as facilitators, thus benefitingthem when managerial jobs emphasize par-

ticipation. Employee involve-ment requires that lower-levelmanagers relinquish authorityand share knowledge and infor-mation with employees (Bridges,1994). However, senior managersare still required to embodystereotypically masculine charac-teristics (Welle & Heilman, 2005).As such, where employee involve-ment is emphasized, womenmanagers will be perceived as a fitfor lower-level management jobsbecause of descriptive stereotyp-ing. Women managers will notnecessarily be perceived as a bet-ter fit for senior managementjobs, however, because of prescrip-tive stereotyping. Since the major-ity of human resource jobs thatincorporate such training tend tobe located in the lower strata ofthe HR management hierarchy(Burke, 2004), we propose:

H1: Women will be represented sig-nificantly more in lower-levelhuman resource management jobs inorganizations that emphasize em-ployee involvement.

Sex Stereotypes andStrategic Human ResourceManagement

Referring to a historical analysis of the per-sonnel function, Legge (1987) argued that“women’s position in personnel manage-ment will inversely reflect the power of thefunction” (p. 50). The proxy for power she

refers to is the degree to which the functionis associated with strategy setting. Morespecifically, she argues that women in HRface a paradox. When the function is periph-eral to strategic management, women can“reach the top”; yet when the function isseen “as a valid contributor to strategic deci-sion-making, then women, if not elbowedout, are politely pushed aside” (p. 34).

Legge repeatedly mentions sex stereotyp-ing as an explicit cause of the glass ceiling inHR. History seems to support this thesis. Forinstance, during World War I, the relation-ship between personnel work and produc-tion efficiency was strengthened because ofextreme levels of demand and became asso-ciated more with line management and lesswith social welfare (Jacoby, 1985). Perhapsthe most substantive change emerged in the1930s, however, as corporate welfarism lostits credibility and a modern industrial rela-tions system emerged in Western societies.Personnel departments then concentratedon collective bargaining and resolving laborrelation conflicts (Kaufman, 2007). Thischange in functional emphasis alteredwomen’s relative authority (Legge, 1987). Be-cause the emphasis among personnel depart-ments focused on dealing firmly and aggres-sively with union representatives in conflictsituations, “masculine” qualities were valuedexplicitly (Simpson & Lenoir, 2003). As thefield became more strategic in terms of han-dling labor-management relations and asjobs were increasingly male sex-typed, menoutnumbered women in the field and filledmost senior positions. This is consistent withwhat would be expected according to the sexstereotypes literature and the lack of fitmodel (Heilman, 1983).

Over the past two decades, the concept ofstrategic human resource management(SHRM), or the “pattern of planned humanresource deployments and activities intendedto enable the firm to achieve its goals”(Wright & McMahan, 1992, p. 298), emergedand became increasingly influential in deter-mining how HR departments made policyand shaped processes (Kochan, 2007). Increas-ingly, organizations have tried to directly linkHR policies and practices to business goals

As the field became

more strategic in

terms of handling

labor-management

relations and as jobs

were increasingly

male sex-typed,

men outnumbered

women in the field

and filled most

senior positions.

This is consistent

with what would be

expected according

to the sex

stereotypes

literature and the

lack of fit model.




(known as vertical alignment) as they are de-veloped in response to assessing present andpredicted internal and external environmen-tal realities (Delery & Doty, 1996).

The trend toward the strategic manage-ment of human resources has represented apromise of increased prestige, both for theoccupation itself and for its practitioners(Kochan, 2007). For example, with strategicintegration, the head of an HR departmenttypically reports directly to the CEO orpresident of an organization, participatesin all top management meetings, and issubstantively engaged in helping an organ-ization make decisions about domestic andglobal strategy, including decisions regard-ing overseas subsidiaries and operations(Oberstein, 1999).

In conjunction, the skills that are re-quired, or that are perceived to be required,of HR managers have changed. In The HRScorecard, Becker, Huselid, and Ulrich (2001)provide a model of the major skill sets essen-tial to contemporary human resource man-agers. Foremost was “knowledge of the busi-ness,” meaning an understanding of the“financial, strategic, technological, and orga-nizational capabilities” (p. 170) of the busi-ness in which one operates. Clearly, then, HRhas come a long way, from providing basicsocial services to employees to providingstrategic planning as part of a top manage-ment team. Scholars emphasize that the so-called soft skills of human resource manage-ment have been replaced by a need for morebottom line–oriented business skills (Barney& Wright, 1998).

Drawing from Legge (1987) and the lackof fit model (Heilman, 1983), we propose:

H2: Women will be represented significantly lessin top-level human resource managementjobs in organizations that emphasize strate-gic human resource management.

This is because stereotypically successfulcandidates in such organizations are men,given the characteristics and behaviors per-ceived to be required of the upper-level man-ager and the dominance of men in uppermanagement (Welle & Heilman, 2005).

Putting the Hypotheses to the Test

Working in collaboration with an Illinoisstate branch of a U.S. organization of humanresource professionals, we surveyed top HRmanagers on the extent and use of strategichuman resource management, employee in-volvement, and the representation ofwomen in HR. There were two parts to thesurvey, the second of which noted: “Thispart of the survey can be completed by top-level human resources executives with com-prehensive knowledge of strategic and finan-cial information important totheir organization and its humanresources unit. If you fall into thiscategory, please consider fillingout Part B.” Thus, we did not de-fine for respondents what a top-level HR manager was; instead,participants self-identified as ca-pable of responding to this sec-ond set of survey items. We wereable to minimize the possibilitythat multiple respondents fromthe same organization were re-sponding about the same busi-ness unit by comparing the age,size, and industry of each organi-zation, as well as other organiza-tional-level characteristics, suchas annual operating budget. Notwo organizations were compara-bly similar on each of these di-mensions.

Surveys were sent to approxi-mately 3,000 members of the professionalagency. Although 902 were returned, repre-senting a response rate of 30%, only 155 re-spondents completed both parts of the sur-vey. According to the professionalorganization, 22% of its members are topHR managers; therefore, this represents aneffective response rate of 23.4%. Thus, ourreturn rate is well within the range recom-mended by Baruch (1999) when surveyingtop managers (that is, 36 +/– 13).

Approximately 72.1% of the organiza-tions in the sample were nonunionized, and29% were from the goods-producing sector.These figures are comparable to firms from

The trend toward

the strategic

management of

human resources

has represented a

promise of

increased prestige,

both for the

occupation itself

and for its

practitioners.




the same geographic area in terms of the pro-portion of firms that are nonunionized(82.4%; Union Membership and Conver-gence Database, http://www.unionstats.com)and operate in the goods-producing sector(22%; Geospatial and Statistical Data Center,http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/cbp-bin/post97/go.cgi). The percentage of largefirms, 29%, contrasted with the populationof firms operating in Cook County, wherethe largest category by establishment size is0–50 employees (90.8%; Geospatial and Sta-

tistical Data Center, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/cbpbin/post97/go.cgi). This is notsurprising, since few small firmshave the resources available tocreate and maintain separate HRdepartments. The results of thisstudy, then, are perhaps best gen-eralized to firms large enough tosustain such units. The depend-ent variable in the study waswomen’s representation in HR. Weasked participants to indicate thepercentage of women in each ofthree HR job strata: senior-level,middle-level, and lower-level po-sitions. Since organizations usedifferent job titles to describe re-sponsibilities at each manageriallevel, we did not specifically de-fine these strata. We were inter-ested, instead, in the relative rep-resentation of women in each,given the specificity of our hy-potheses regarding the effects ofindependent variables on differ-ent levels of management. Theindependent variables are de-scribed in the next sections.

Employee Involvement

We based our measure on the keyfacets of employee involvement

programs—namely, participative decisionmaking and autonomous work (Lawler,1988). We operationalized the constructwith these two items: (1) “Self-directed teamsare used in this organization to get work

done” and (2) “Participative (subordinate in-volvement) decision-making approaches arecharacteristic within this organization.” Wemeasured the items on a four-point scale (1 =to no extent; 4 = to a great extent) and com-puted an average. The estimated internalconsistency reliability of this scale is α = .66.This relatively low reliability is expected,based on the small number of items(Cortina, 1993).

Strategic Human ResourceManagement

Nineteen items that measured the strategicintegration of the HR function were scaled toform the SHRM variable (Cronbach’s α =.92).The items were all drawn from a strategic HRaudit developed by Oberstein (1999). Allitems ranged from 1 (to no extent) to 4 (to agreat extent).

We incorporated several other controlvariables into our analysis that have been re-peatedly confirmed to influence female rep-resentation in management.

HR Formalization

This variable was designed to capture the ex-tent to which HR activities were formalizedwithin an organization. In line with the ap-proach adopted by Reskin and McBrier(2000), respondents answered “yes” or “no”to a series of seven questions. “Yes” re-sponses were then totaled to create the HRformalization variable.

Government Regulation

Since government regulation has beenfound to predict the proportion of womenin management (Konrad & Linnehan, 1995),“yes” and “no” answers were also solicitedfor two items: (1) “Is your organization sub-ject to a periodic review by an outside ac-creditation or licensing organization?” and(2) “Is your organization’s operation regu-lated in any way by government agencies?”The “yes” answers were totaled to create agovernment regulation variable (Reskin &McBrier, 2000).

Clearly, then, HR has

come a long way,

from providing basic

social services to

employees to

providing strategic

planning as part of a

top management

team. Scholars

emphasize that the

so-called soft skills

of human resource

management have

been replaced by a

need for more

bottom

line–oriented

business skills.




Market Competition

This has been found to be related to theproportion of women in management (Re-skin & McBrier, 2000). We controlled formarket competition by asking respondentsto indicate on a four-point scale the extentto which the following statement was truefor their organization: “This organizationfaces competition in its product or servicemarket.”

Industry

Service industries tend to have more womenin top management positions than manufac-turers do (Blum, Fields, & Goodman, 1994;Goodman et al., 2003). As such, an industrydummy variable was created and coded, with1 representing a manufacturing firm and 0 anonmanufacturing firm.

Organization Size

This was measured as follows: 1 = 1 to 50 em-ployees; 2 = 51 to 500 employees; 3 = 501 to1,000 employees; 4 = 1,001 to 2,000 employ-ees; and 5 = more than 2,000 employees. Or-ganizational size has been consistently re-lated to the adoption of innovative HRpractices (Kochan, McKersie, & Chalykoff,1986; Osterman, 1994).

Organization Age

This was measured based on the numeric re-sponse to the question, “Approximately howold is your organization (in years)?” We con-trolled for this variable since organizationalage is related to the proportion of women inmanagement (Blum et al., 1994).

Unionization

The percentage of employees unionizedwithin a firm served as this variable.

Female Representation

Since the representation of women in an or-ganization’s management positions is related

to the overall proportion of women in an or-ganization (Blum et al., 1994; Goodman etal., 2003), we measured female representa-tion in the organization according to threevariables. Respondents were asked the per-centage representation of women in techni-cal human resource positions (technical HR);in clerical, administrative, orother support staff positions inHR (clerical HR); and in nonman-agerial positions within the or-ganization as a whole (that is,non-HR positions). Since our hy-potheses concerned the relativeposition of women in specificstrata, instead of defining strataof the HR management functionfor respondents, we asked themto report the relative proportionof women at the senior, middle,and lower levels of management,as well as the proportion ofwomen in technical staff and cler-ical staff.

A multivariate analysis of co-variance (MANCOVA) was con-ducted to test our hypotheses be-cause we presumed that ourdependent variables were not nec-essarily independent of one an-other, as female representation atone level within the HR manage-ment hierarchy might influence fe-male representation at anotherlevel. We verified the factor struc-ture of our independent variablesusing confirmatory factor analysisin LISREL 8.7.

Results

Means, standard deviations, and correlationscan be found in Table I. As expected, strate-gic human resource management and em-ployee involvement are highly related butclearly distinct constructs (r = .57, p < .01).Moreover, both the strategic human resourcemanagement variable (r = .47, p < .01) andthe employee involvement variable (r = .26,p < .01) are significantly related to the extentof HR formalization, thus buttressing the va-

Respondents were

asked the

percentage

representation of

women in technical

human resource

positions (technical

HR); in clerical,

administrative, or

other support staff

positions in HR

(clerical HR); and in

nonmanagerial

positions within the

organization as a

whole (that is, non-

HR positions).





Vari

ab

leM

ean

SD

12

34

56

78

910

11

12

1. S

HR

M

2.74

.65

--

2. E

I2.

62.8

4.5

7--

3. H

R F

orm

aliz

atio

n6.

031.

34.4

0.2

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lidity and nomological net of our independ-ent variables.

Before testing our substantive hypothe-ses, we compared two nested measurementmodels to further establish the construct anddiscriminant validity of our measures. For asummary of these results, see Table II. Thefirst confirmatory factor analysis modeledtwo latent variables, employee involvementand strategic human resource management,on their respective indicators. This modelprovided an adequate fit to the data. Our al-ternative model was a single latent factor, HRmanagement. The fit of this model wasclearly less adequate than the proposedmeasurement model, and the change in chi-square between the two models was also sig-nificant (∆χ2 = 174.12, ∆df = 1). As such, weproceeded by testing our substantive hy-potheses using our proposed independentmeasures.

Results of the MANCOVA analysis can befound in Table III. Inspection of the relation-ship between employee involvement andeach of the dependent variables indicatesthat this variable was positively related tothe percentage of women in lower-levelhuman resource management positions only(F (1, 154) = 3.989, b = .061, p = .048). Con-sistent with Hypothesis 1, women were morelikely to be represented in lower-level HRmanagement positions among organizationshaving employee involvement programs.The results also indicate that the relationshipbetween SHRM and the representation ofwomen in senior-level HR positions was notsignificant (F (1, 154) = .522, b = –.034, p =.471). Similarly, SHRM was not significantlyrelated to the representation of women inlower- and middle-level HR positions. Con-trary to Hypothesis 2, SHRM does not appearto be related to women’s presence in HR.

Results also indicate that the extent ofHR formalization was positively related tothe proportion of women in lower- and mid-dle-level level management, and that therepresentation of women in the organizationmore broadly—that is, in lower-level non-management positions—generally was alsopositively related to the representation ofwomen in managerial positions. Interest-ingly, only the extent of women in technicalHR positions and government regulationwere positively related to the representationof women in top management positions.

Discussion

It has been 16 years since the U.S. Depart-ment of Labor released its report on the glassceiling, formally defining the phenomenonand investigating its potential causes, conse-quences, and treatments (U.S. Department ofLabor, 1991). Since then, there has been aconsistent stream of research on the invisiblebarriers that have prevented women fromreaching the upper echelons of manage-ment. Despite this, women remain excludedfrom senior-level management positions andare not as highly paid as men are, eventhough they are equally qualified. This is cer-tainly the case in HR, where women are over-represented in the field as a whole and inlower- and middle-level management but arestill dramatically underrepresented in topmanagement.

Given that women are more likely to berepresented in lower-level HR managerialjobs in organizations that emphasize em-ployee involvement, our results further sup-port existing theory and research that sug-gest that women will be favored for jobs thatare sex-typed as feminine (Heilman, 1983),as well as related arguments that employee


Fit Indices χχ2 df RMSEA NNFI GFI IFI CFI

Proposed Measurement Model (Two-Factor) 1252.89 184 .079 .96 .90 .96 .96

Single-Factor Measurement Model 1427.01 185 .085 .97 .87 .96 .96

T A B L E I I Results of Confirmatory Factor Analyses



involvement requires stereotypically femi-nine characteristics (Bass & Avolio, 1994;Gooch, 1994).

A related theoretical contribution is theuse of the lack of fit model for understandinggender discrimination at the organizationallevel of analysis. Although Heilman andWelle (Heilman, 2001; Welle & Heilman,2005) have argued that gender discrimina-tion should be most detectable at the organi-zational level, as opposed to during interper-sonal interactions, the lack of fit model hasbeen applied almost invariably to under-standing organizational decision makers’ in-dividual perceptions of gender in the work-place, or to interpersonal discrimination.That is, most of the existing research that hasused the lack of fit model to investigate gen-der discrimination has found that gender in-congruity between a particular job type (thatis, a managerial job) and a job applicant(that is, a female applicant) results in de-creased performance expectations and em-ployment ratings (Heilman, 2001). Our re-sults are consistent with the proposition thatgendered features of jobs can result in de-

tectable differences in terms of gender repre-sentation within a particular job type at theorganizational level of analysis (Welle &Heilman, 2005).

The proportion of women in senior man-agement in HR was not inversely related tothe extent to which strategic human re-source management was emphasized, con-trary to what other scholars have proposed(Legge, 1987). Given the high reliability ofthe SHRM measure, as well as comparablevariability between the representation ofwomen in lower- and top-level management,these results indicate that women are notbeing excluded from top management be-cause of the strategic integration of HR withorganizational strategy. In other words, topmanagement jobs are sex-typed as masculineregardless of the extent to which organiza-tions use SHRM. Our data parallel existing re-ports, however, that indicate that men aretwice as likely as women to hold top HRmanagement positions (see Table I). Scholarsmust, therefore, continue to search for alter-native explanations for the lack of women intop management.


Variable Percent Women Percent Women Percent Women

in Lower-Level HR in Middle-Level HR in Senior-Level HR

F-Value b F-Value b F-Value b

SHRM 2.587 –.067 2.010 –.058 .522 –.034

EI 3.989* .061* 3.478 .056 .519 .025

HR Formalization 5.050* .038* 5.560* .040* .644 .015

Government Regulation .185 –.011 .551 –.020 4.509* –.064*

Market Competition 1.149 .029 3.010 .047 .002 .001

Sector 1.929 .067 1.299 .054 1.039 .056

Organization Size 1.123 .018 .153 .007 .808 .017

Organization Age .126 .001 .430 .001 .073 .001

Technical HR 15.999** .462** 12.530** .288** 31.905** .373**

Clerical HR 2.724 .118 1.276 .080 .036 .015

Nonmanagerial 11.139** .328** 9.344* .299* 1.512 .138

*p < .05

**p < .01

T A B L E I I I MANCOVA Results: The Effects of SHRM, Employee Involvement, and Control Variables onWomen’s Representation in Managerial Human Resource Management Positions



One explanation that is consistent withboth theory and our results is that womenwho employ stereotypically feminine mana-gerial abilities and behaviors progress up thecareer ladder in HR. Those characteristicsmay benefit women in lower levels of man-agement but prevent them from reachingtop management jobs, since “with few ex-ceptions, upper-level managerial positionsappear to be characterized in masculineterms” (Heilman, 2001, p. 660). This propo-sition is consistent with social closure mod-els that argue that behavioral differentiationbased on gender excludes women from topmanagement, since the dominant group at-tempts to illustrate that “superordinate andsubordinate groups differ in essential waysand that such differences are natural andeven desirable” (Reskin, 1988, p. 63).

Our results tend to support this explana-tion. Research has consistently indicatedthat the proportion of women in an organi-zation should positively relate to the propor-tion of women in upper management. Putsimply, the more women there are in a laborpool, the more they should be represented inmanagement. Our results indicate, however,that the proportion of women in the non-managerial labor pool is most strongly re-lated to the proportion of women in lower-level management in HR and least stronglyrelated to the proportion of women in topmanagement (see Table I). Consistent withprevious research (Gooch, 1994; Helfat et al.,2007; Long, 1984), this would tend to sug-gest that women are able to make it intomiddle management in HR but are essen-tially stuck at this level, perhaps because ofstereotyping.

Practical Implications

Our results suggest that HR practitionersshould be aware of the glass-ceiling prob-lem and attempt to remedy its causes. Mey-erson and Fletcher (2000) outline three ap-proaches to the management of genderdiversity in organizations: (1) trainingwomen to be successful in a male-domi-nated world of management, (2) assimilat-ing and accommodating women through

supportive policies and practices, and (3)valuing gender diversity.

Providing women with the knowledgeand skills needed to make it into top man-agement is one way to eliminate the glassceiling. In the HR function, so-called hardbusiness skills are increasingly important toHR managers (Becker et al., 2001). To ad-vance in their career, HR managers are ex-pected to develop knowledge and skills in fi-nance, operations management, andstrategy. Thus, organizations should attemptto recruit women with related business train-ing and line management experi-ence into HR, especially manage-rial roles. Our results furthersuggest that it is important forwomen to pursue technical skillsin their education and trainingand for organizations to furtherdevelop these skills.

Supporting women throughorganizational policies and prac-tices targeted at facilitating theirinclusion in the workplace is alsoessential. Research suggests thatso-called women-friendly policiesand practices, such as employer-sponsored child care, are posi-tively related to the inclusion ofwomen in the workplace, particu-larly at the executive level (Dreher, 2003).Adopting women-friendly policies also cantranslate into a competitive advantage for or-ganizations when there is a competitive mar-ket for talent, especially when the skillswomen bring to the workplace are valuableand difficult to imitate (Wooten, 2001).

As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) note,valuing gender diversity often involves sen-sitivity or diversity training. This type oftraining could be used to explain to practi-tioners the biases that are related to the dif-ferential staffing of men and women intogendered jobs. Although very little system-atic research has been conducted to evaluatethe effectiveness of diversity training pro-grams, the existing evidence suggests thatsuccess is more likely when managerial re-wards are linked to diversity goals (Rynes &Rosen, 1995). Thus, diversity training pro-

Our results suggest

that HR

practitioners should

be aware of the

glass-ceiling

problem and

attempt to remedy

its causes.




grams designed to reduce gender bias in or-ganizations could focus on rewarding behav-ior that limits stereotyped decision makingamong managers, such as performance ap-praisal systems that emphasize objective per-formance standards (Heilman, 2001).

Although these three approaches to gen-der diversity management can help supportthe inclusion of women in the workplace, aswell as their advancement into senior man-agement, even in combination they may notbe enough to remove the invisible barriersthat form the glass ceiling. As Meyerson andFletcher (2000) noted, the exclusion ofwomen from top management is related tobiases entrenched in institutionalized orga-nizational systems, such as performance ap-praisals; therefore, these systems, too, mustbe changed. Removing gender bias fromsuch organizational systems as selection de-cisions and performance evaluation is essen-tial to increasing gender diversity in organi-zations, especially at the highest levels ofmanagement (Heilman, 2001).

Limitations and Directions forFuture Research

Now that empirical data support an associa-tion between EI and women in management,further research is needed as to why womenare preferred among lower-level manage-ment in HR. This may be because women arestereotypically perceived to lead in a partici-patory way, but we were unable to evaluatethis using our current data. Since we did notfind that employee involvement helpedwomen to shatter the glass ceiling, as someresearchers speculated (i.e., Bass & Avolio,1994), exploratory research could also inves-

tigate why this is so, and whether involve-ment-based management is somehow re-lated to women in HR being stuck in lowerlevels of management.

Although we did not predict that the pro-portion of women in technical HR jobswould be related to the representation ofwomen in senior management, future re-search is certainly needed to explain why thisis the case. Research indicates that occupa-tions dominated by women require relativelylower levels of technical skill, thus limitingthe extent to which these jobs are valued byorganizations (Cleveland, Vescio, & Barnes-Farrell, 2005, p. 163). Thus, one explanationcould be that the more women there are torecruit from technical HR jobs, the morelikely they are to reach senior management.

Finally, we found that women were morelikely to make it into top management in HRwhen their organization was either regulatedby an outside accrediting agency or subjectto government regulation. This is consistentwith existing research (Konrad & Linnehan,1995; Reskin & McBrier, 2000), as well aswith organizational theory on coercive insti-tutional pressures. It would be worthwhile tomore thoroughly investigate how regulationby accrediting and government agencies isrelated to women’s ability to make it intosenior-level HR management positions.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Ellen Kossek,Mark Roehling, Arup Varma, and the fouranonymous reviewers for their helpful and con-structive comments. Special thanks go to LynnWooten for her guidance and suggestions on anearlier version of this article.


SHAUN PICHLER is a PhD candidate in the School of Labor & Industrial Relations atMichigan State University. His research interests include workplace discrimination, workand family, and performance management and appraisal. His research has been pub-lished in Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, the International Jour-nal of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management, the Journal of Oc-cupational and Organizational Psychology, the Journal of Vocational Behavior, and theOxford Handbook of HRM, among others.



NOTE

1. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer forthis observation.

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