LECTURE 8: ORGANISATIONAL DIVERSITY - labour force: line 50% (men started out at 68% to 54%) (women 32% to 46%)

labour force: line 50% (men started out at 68% to 54%) (women 32% to 46%) = rich parity
- management: gap is narrowed over time, but in 2012, 59% is men. Really stabilise &
STEREOTYPES regressed = not quite rich
- housework: increasing parity in amount of domestic labour
- “stereotypes are beliefs about the characteristics, attributes and behaviours of members - drop over time: slowed down in recent years (men>women)
of certain groups” (Hilton & von Hippel, 1996)
- Stereotypes can be accurate representations of observed group differences (and like
object schemas, they can allow for efficient information processing) … however, they can GEN DER SEGREGATION
also be entirely inaccurate & disconnected from any real differences
There are two main domains of gender segregation in Western countries: occupation & status
THE SURGEON RIDDLES

- Last week, a boy who was badly injured in the car crash that killed his father was rushed to
the Royal Brisbane and Women’s hospital
- On walking into the operating theatre, however, the surgeon refused to carry out the
operation, saying “I can’t operate on the boy, he’s my son!”
- How is this possible? The surgeon is the mother
o in 2014, 86% of Boston UGs could not solve the riddle
- the power of stereotype in gender

GEN DER DIVERSITY AT W ORK

The last 5 decades has seen a substantial improvement in the representation of women in the
workforce. Many of these changes (at least among higher income, non-minority women) can be
traced back to WWII - In the university representation of gender
- Women are overrepresented at undergraduate students until president (men dominate)
- support men o more senior = more likely are men
- however, it wasn’t necessarily plain sailing
W O(MEN )’S WORK
And although women now participate at high levels in most Western countries, gender differences
still exist and change appears to be stagnating - Most job can be categorised as men’s or women’s work
- Not many occupations have equal gender
- Women = cleaner, teacher, nurse, child-taker
- Men = construction industry, strength, senior, arm services, influential positions

IS IT A PROB LEM?

- Women’s work is typically less well paid, excludes many desirable jobs and provides
women with less voice when responding to important issues
 - Discourage women from pursuing masculine occupations

STEREOTYPES: DUA L A SPECTS

- Gender stereotypes have both descriptive & prescriptive components

- This means that gender stereotypes not only describe the characteristics that men &
women do possess (how they behave on average)
- They also act as prescriptions of the characteristics that the members of a gender should
possess (violate what they should do or should not do = penalised)

GEN DERED DESCRIPTIONS

- Men are (believed to be) agentic

o They are dedicated, rational, determined, cold, aggressive & competitive
o Agentic = captured by strong, capacity to have power & make a different in the
- Strong gender segregation world
- It also means that traditionally masculine occupations are not able to draw on women’s - Women are (believed to be) communal
skills and abilities o They are caring, sensitive, modest, emotional, submissive & collaborative
o If only attracting either women or men = select from half of the potential
population, there is half of the population that could be good for the job that GEN DERED SKILLS
are not considered
- In most occupation, the job that is dominated by men = paid far more than the job that is - MEN are assumed to excel in interactions with things (rather than people) and in
dominated by women strenuous, physical or demanding labour
o Computer, machine
Occupational segregation: - WOMEN are assumed to excel in interactions with people

- Perhaps women and men just intrinsically want to do different things?

GEN DERED REQUIREMENTS
- If different interest: it isn’t a problem
- Tony Abbott (2010) = “it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even - MALE dominated occupations are assumed to require stereotypically masculine attributes
approach equal representation in a large number of area simply because their aptitudes, for success
abilities & interest are different for physiological reasons” – really what you expect, thus o Requires agentic
not a problem - FEMALE dominated occupations are assumed to require stereotypically feminine
attributes
Status segregation: o Very caring, communal & interaction with people

- Perhaps women are not interested in making the sacrifices associated with climbing the
career ladder? – have to work more, more stress etc: not a problem
- Perhaps it is just a pipeline problem?
CEJKA & EAGLY (1999): GENDERED REQUIREMENTS
Part of deciding whether these patterns are a problem or not – lies in an understanding their causes. - Asked students to rate the extend to which 6 aspects of gender stereotypes were seen to
We will consider: contribute to occupational success:
o Male or female physical attributes (e.g., tall, cute)
- The nature of gendered workplace stereotypes … as well as evidence that these o Male or female personality attributes (e.g., daring, gentle)
stereotypes o Male or female cognitive attributes (e.g., analytical, intuitive)
- Disadvantages women at work

- How much essential vs attributed in female & male?
- If doing male dominated occupation:
o having masculine physical attributes was essential to success than feminine
physical attributes
o Personality = having stereotypically masculine personality attributes was
essential for success relative to female, different wasn’t large
o Cognitive = similar pattern
- In female dominated occupation:
o Physical = not much different that masculine & feminine were essential for
success
o Personality = large different, students much more likely to say that having
feminine personality is essential for success
o Cognitive = didn’t distinguish between gender
- Assume what you need to succeed in a job maps on gender on the basis of what we see in
the world
APPOINTING CANDIDATES: STEINPREIS, ANDERS & RITZKE (1999)
- Sent CV of applicant applying for a starting job (lower level)/tenure (higher level) as
psychology academic to 582 male and female academic psychologists – junior vs senior
status
- The CV was based on that of a real female academic at earlier/ later points in her career
- Gender manipulated with applicant name
- Men have more potential!
- FIRST FEMALE JOB: Should NOT hire her > hire her
- FIRST MALE JOB: should hire > not hire = bias toward male
- In tenure: doesn’t make much different whether male or female = should hire her or him!
- Male & female respondents didn’t behave differently!
o Hire male applicant than female applicant
Appointing candidates: “blind audition” – avoid bias of selecting men in orchestra – look at the
quality of performance
- The recruitment of women increased!
GEN DERED POSITIONS
- There is evidence that women’s career pipeline ‘leaks’
o Wait for that women to be at the top
o EVIDENCE: women dropping off at career ladder – either stuck at particular
level or choose to opt out when get into certain level
 Glass signing = when women get into management, there is invisible
barrier, but the pattern representation of men and women shows
something that stop most women to go above that
- Men are more likely to be at the top of occupation
ARE MANAGERS GENDERED? SCHEIN (1973,1975)
- Presented managers with a list of 92 person-descriptors (e.g., frank, certain, timid,
ambitious …)
- Asked to select the terms that described men, or women, or successful managers in
general
- Think Manager – Think Male (TMTM)
 o Both male & female managers (respondents) identify far more attributes that - Women are seemed to more likely have the skill to succeed than manner
are shared by managers and men (60 in total) than by managers and women (8 - Stock market increased vs declined
in total)

SCHEIN, MUELLER, LITUCHY & LIU (1996): MANAGERS ARE STILL MEN
- Investigated whether TMTM association held 2 decades later across countries
- On average, they found evidence for the TMTM across countries and both genders
- However, the association of what you thought what the manager & what man was
generally stronger for men than women, especially in the US
o Female respondents did not show any gender bias

RYAN, HASLAM, HERSBY & BONIORNO (2011): THINK CRISIS, THINK FEMALE

Women get a glass cliff

- People are more likely to think that women have what it takes to be a successful leader
- Different in stereotypes of what it takes to be a manager of a successful organisation vs
failing organisation
- Circle the attributes that characterise a good manager of successful organisation and a
good manager of failing organisation
- Manager of successful organisation = similar to TMTM (men > female)
- BUT, in failing organisation = women > men – being women is an advantage in doing a
good job [Think Crisis Think Female]
o Women are better at dealing with tricky situations
RYAN & HASLAM (2004): APPOINTING LEADERS
- Participants were asked to select a candidate (from 2 men and 1 woman) for a leadership
position when things are going well or going badly
o CV: 1 man has weaker CV, and both another man and woman has equivalent
appropriateness to be a leader in a company
- Found - that the woman was preferred when the position was risky
- Similar to TRTF = when in improving company, man > female
- When declining, female > man
o CV is better in woman = better opportunity to be chosen
- GLASS CLIFF = women are more likely to get the tough one
o When want to try something different at struggling company = choose woman
CA REER PROGRESSION
- Discrimination is less pronounced
- But still see underrepresentation of women
- Today, occupational choice is largely seen to be seen to be a matter of free choice
- But, having a choice doesn’t mean being free of subtle forms of influences
CA REER PROTOTYPES
 - What kind of ideal person is like?
- Highly influenced by most senior people
o Mostly, the senior people are men – ideal to have masculine attributes
o When woman in an organisation & look up in the occupation which have men =
see that you’re different from ideal leading member of occupation  opt out
because feel don’t fit in
THE SURGICA L CA REER
- Still strong segregation
- Paediatric surgeon = women
- Orthopaedic surgeon = men – requires strength
- Only 33% of surgery is women – not to pursue surgery or they opt out from training
SURGEON PROTOTYPES
- Asked male & female surgical trainees = describe attributes of surgeon that are
stereotypically masculine
o On average, both male & female trainees felt that surgeon has highly masculine
attributes
- When asked to describe themselves:
o Males tend to say, “not characteristic or characteristic of me” – less masculine
than surgeon, not completely unrealistic
 Saw themselves as somewhat different from leading surgeon
o Females = not really characteristics of me
 Saw themselves as big different from prototypes
- Overall, male trainees had higher level of surgical identification
- How masculine they thought they were?
o Because men perceived themselves as more mature = more identify
themselves with surgery = feel that they fit in
o Women = demotivating because don’t feel like fit in – opt out
THE PROB LEM
- Must have masculine attributes
PETERS ET AL (2015): NOT MAN ENOUGH?
- Tested the impact of men’s perceptions that they are as macho as RM commandos and
surgical consultants on their perceptions that they fitted in with their occupational & were
motivated to get ahead
- They found that men who felt that they were less masculine reported not fitting in and
greater desire to opt out
- Masculine prototype can be problem to men and women
It is a problem…
- There are strong gendered stereotypes in the workplace
- When we think of many occupations and positions, we think of men or women
- In stereotypically masculine occupations, this can
o Disadvantage women at work
o Discourage women from pursuing these occupations
DOES MERITOCRA CY HELP?
- There is a general belief that meritocratic systems will alleviate discrimination in
organisations
o Discount everything that irrelevant to actual objective performance = best
person is appointed
 - MERITOCRACY: social system in which merit or talent is the basis for sorting people into
positions and distributing rewards” (Scully, 1997)
o Most society claimed that they are meritocracy
o Meritocracy is powerful
- People believe that meritocracy is both the way in which system should work & do work

CASTILLA & BENARD (2010): MERITOCRACY PARADOX

- Reduce gender bias?
- Asked participants to make bonus recommendations for male (2) and female (1)
employees
- Manipulated the company’s emphasis on meritocracy in evaluation and compensation
(versus on management autonomy)
- Presented CV and performance of employees

- In meritocratic condition = people show greatest gender bias (higher bonus in male than
female)
- In autonomy condition = people gave equal bonusses to both gender