Out on a Limb: The Role of Context and Impression Management in Selling Gender-Equity Issues

Abstract

We thank Larry Cummings, Herminia Ibarra, Anne Tsui, Bill Wooldridge, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous drafts of this paper. We thank Jill Graham for her discussant comments at the Academy of Management meetings, 1995. We thank the School of Business Administration, Interdisciplinary Committee for Organizational Studies and the vice president for research at the University of Michigan for their support of this research. Finally, we also thank Jeff Edwards for his advice about LISREL (although any misunderstandings remain our own). Under what conditions will women raise and promote gender-equity issues in their work organizations? We used structural equation modeling to analyze responses from a sample of over a thousand female managers to address this question. The results suggest that the perceived favorability of the organizational context fosters a willingness to sell gender-equity issues in organizations. The contextual factors that influenced willingness to sell were perceptions of a high degree of organizational support and of a warm and trusting relationship with critical decision makers, which enhanced the perceived probability of selling success and diminished the perceived image risk in selling. Organizational norms for issue selling also increased willingness to sell gender-equity issues by deflating perceived image risk. Individual differences did not predict willingness to sell gender-equity issues. We address the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.' Managerial time and attention are scarce resources in organizations (Pfeffer, 1992). Both managers and non-managers compete to gain the attention of top policy makers for issues that they believe are important to the organization. To do so, they engage in what Dutton and Ashford (1993: 398) labeled issue selling, calling the organization's attention to key trends, developments, and events that have implications for organizational performance. Through issue selling, people's concerns become part of the organization's collective awareness (Narayanan and Fahey, 1982; Ocasio, 1997). While relevant to all organizational members, issue selling is an activity that is typically associated with those who have managerial responsibility.

The Determinants of Innovative Work Behavior in the Knowledge Intensive Business Services Sector in Malaysia

“…Based on the result of the Pearson analysis of this study, there is a significant relationship exists between pro-innovation climate and IWB. This finding supported by previous literatures in which a pro-innovation organizational climate encourages IWB because it legitimates experimentation (West & Wallace, 1991), creates psychological safety for trial and error, and reduces the image risk involved in innovation attempts (Ashford, Rothbard, Piderit & Dutton, 1998). Furthermore, this finding also demonstrates the importance of pro-innovation climate for IWB at the implementation stage since innovation is a social process; the implementation of ideas relies more heavily on the involvement of others (Axtell et al, 2000).…”

Proactive work behavior: Forward-thinking and change-oriented action in organizations.

“…Further, Morrison and Phelps (1999) found that top managements' openness to change was positively related with employees' willingness to engage in taking charge behaviors (β=.15, p<.01). Similarly, Dutton and colleagues (1997) (Ashford et al, 1998) are more likely to engage in proactive behaviors. Similarly, the perception of being supported by coworkers (Griffin et al, 2007;Kanfer et al, 2001), or by the organization (Ashford et al, 1998;Dutton et al, 1997), positively relates to proactive behaviors at work.…”

“…Second, proactive strategic behavior includes those behaviors aimed at taking control of, and causing change in, the broader unit's strategy and its fit with the external environment. For example, individuals can 'sell' important issues to the leader and thereby influence strategy (Ashford, Rothbard, Piderit, & Dutton, 1998), and they can scan the environment to anticipate new products and services the organization might introduce to better achieve competitive advantage (Parker & Collins, in press). Third, proactive person-environment fit behavior includes those selfinitiated behaviors that aim to achieve greater compatibility between one's own attributes (skills, knowledge, values, preferences) and the organizational environment.…”

Disentangling role perceptions: How perceived role breadth, discretion, instrumentality, and efficacy relate to helping and taking charge.

“…In past research, scholars found self-efficacy to be associated with a number of OCB-related behaviors such as issue selling (Ashford, Rothbard, Piderit, & Dutton, 1998) and proactive behavior that supports work unit functioning (Parker, 2000;Parker, Williams, & Turner, 2006).…”