WOMEN IN POWER: Undoing or Redoing the Gendered Organization?

A growing literature examines the organizational factors that promote women's access to positions of organizational power. Fewer studies, however, explore the implications of women in leadership positions for the opportunities and experiences of subordinates. Do women leaders serve to undo the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Gender & society 2016-02, Vol.30 (1), p.109-135
Main Authors: STAINBACK, KEVIN, KLEINER, SIBYL, SKAGGS, SHERYL
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access
Business entities
Business executives
Change agents
Corporate boards
Directors
Executives
Females
Gender equality
Gender equity
Gender studies
Leadership
Men
Occupational segregation
Organizational power
Organizational structure
Power
Segregation
Sexes
Sexual division of labor
Women
Women in business
Workplaces
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Summary:A growing literature examines the organizational factors that promote women's access to positions of organizational power. Fewer studies, however, explore the implications of women in leadership positions for the opportunities and experiences of subordinates. Do women leaders serve to undo the gendered organization? In other words, is women's greater representation in leadership positions associated with less gender segregation at lower organizational levels? We explore this question by drawing on Cohen and Huffman's (2007) conceptual framework of women leaders as either "change agents" or "cogs in the machine" and analyze a unique multilevel data set of workplaces nested within Fortune 1000 firms. Our findings generally support the "agents of change" perspective. Women's representation among corporate boards of directors, corporate executives, and workplace managers is associated with less workplace gender segregation. Hence, it appears that women's access to organizational power helps to undo the gendered organization.
ISSN:0891-2432
1552-3977
DOI:10.1177/0891243215602906