Work Uncertainty and the Promotion of Professional Women: The Case of Law Firm Partnership

Gorman, Elizabeth H.

doi:10.1353/sof.2007.0004

Cited by 119 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…More direct support for homophily effects in promotions comes from a study of women's careers within California savings and loan associations: promotions were curvilinearly related to higher proportions of female superiors, with increasingly positive effects up to a threshold (Cohen et al 1998). In a professional service setting, analyses of promotions across a nationwide sample of U.S. law firms revealed higher proportions of male partners within a firm were negatively associated with the odds that the firm would promote women into the partnership ranks (Gorman 2006). Across a broader, representative sample of employed workers in three U.S. cities, White men, Black men and women, and Latino men reporting to ascriptively similar managers were twice as likely to have been promoted in the preceding year as those reporting to ascriptively dissimilar managers, but these effects did not hold for White women and Latinas (Elliott and Smith 2004).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity Among Professionals

McGinn

Milkman

2013

Organization Science

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We investigate the role of workgroup gender and race composition on the career mobility of professionals in “up-or-out” organizations. We develop a nuanced perspective on the potential career mobility effects of workgroup demography by integrating the social identification processes of cohesion, competition, and comparison. Using five years of personnel data from a large law firm, we examine the influence of demographic match with workgroup superiors and workgroup peers on attorneys’ likelihood of turnover and promotion. Survival analyses reveal that higher proportions of same-sex superiors enhance junior professionals’ career mobility. On the flip side, we observe mobility costs accruing to professionals in workgroups with higher proportions of same-sex and same-race peers. Qualitative data offer insights into the social identification processes underlying demographic similarity effects on turnover and promotion in professional service organizations.

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confidence: 99%

Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity Among Professionals

McGinn

Milkman

2013

Organization Science

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“…Second, focusing on the top offers an opportunity for analysis of conditions where power and bias are likely to be most intertwined because the ambiguity of evaluation is the greatest and discrimination is likely to be most pronounced (Auster and Drazin 1988;Gorman 2006;Heilman 2001). Third, analyzing promotion bias in top positions allows for exploration of bias at the center of power where the stakes are likely the highest.…”

Section: An Intra-organization Power Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Why Do Women Still Not Make It to the Top? Dominant Organizational Ideologies and Biases by Promotion Committees Limit Opportunities to Destination Positions

Auster

Prasad

2016

Sex Roles

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Prior studies have made important strides in understanding the drivers of gender bias facing women at the top. Yet, relatively little is known about the intra-organizational power dynamics of how and why these patterns still persist despite a plethora of initiatives to redress the phenomenon over the last several decades. This paper develops an intraorganizational power perspective on the dynamics of promotion bias to destination positions. We propose that social dominance emerges as social categorization based on a candidate's visible and invisible markers leads to distorted perceptions and stereotyping which, when combined with group favoritism and conformity pressures within committee practices, engender the perceived degree of ideological asymmetry between the candidate and the organization. It is the magnitude of the perceived degree of ideological asymmetry that drives promotion bias. This bias has potent effects on the institutionalization of power over time. Our perspective ultimately offers new insights into the role of dominant organizational ideology and dynamics of biases that continue to limit promotion opportunities of women to destination positions.

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“…As discussed early, Kanter (1977) provided an early account of these dynamics, and more recent studies have elaborated on her conclusions (e.g., Elliott and Smith 2004;Roth 2004). Gorman shows, for example, that women's disadvantage in hiring (Gorman 2005) and promotion decisions (Gorman 2006) in law firms declines as the proportion of female employees, particularly female partners, in the firm increases. Similarly, Cohen and Huffman (2007) show that women's pay disadvantage declines as the proportion of female managers, particularly high-status managers, in a firm increases.…”

Section: Network Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, more systematic merging of the network theory with culturally-based theories, such as expectation states theory or affect control theory, may also be useful. Indeed, the findings from several recent network studies suggest the value of merging network proposi-tions with insights from expectation states theory (Gorman 2006;Huffman and Torres 2002;Roth 2004). …”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social Psychology of Gender Inequality

Kroska

2014

Handbook of the Social Psychology of Inequality

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Despite progress toward gender equality in several areas, gender inequality persists in the United States and throughout the world, and it persists across multiple institutions: education, employment, family, politics, and law. Despite a vast literature documenting these inequalities, questions remain about how they are created and maintained. Social psychology is uniquely positioned to explain those processes. The discipline includes a rich body of theories, including several multilevel theories, which give analysts the ideal tools for illuminating the production and reproduction of inequality across multiple contexts. I begin this chapter by briefly reviewing evidence of gender inequality, focusing on the United States. I then summarize social psychological theories that can be used to explain this inequality, highlighting the theoretical claims, findings, and limitations central to each account. I conclude with a discussion of the areas that warrant further attention. Gender Inequality in the United StatesAlthough women today receive a larger share of post-secondary degrees than men in the U.S., women are far less likely than men to receive degrees in the typically lucrative areas of science, math, and engineering (SME). The gap is especially pronounced in engineering and computer and information science, where women receive only 18 % of the bachelor degrees in both fields (National Center for Education Statistics 2011). This educational segregation creates similar forms of segregation in the labor market, where women are a minority in most SME sub-fields ( Women also earn less than men. In 2011, women's earnings were 77% of men's among full-time year-round workers ages 15 and over (U. S. Census Bureau 2012), a gap that is only a few percentage points smaller than it was in the mid-1990s when the decline in the gap began to slow substantially (Blau and Kahn 2006; U.S. Census Bureau 2012). Gaps persist within age and educational categories as well. For example, in 2011, women's earnings were 74% of men's among full-time year-round workers 25 and over with a bachelor's degree (U.S. Census Bureau A. Kroska ()

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Work Uncertainty and the Promotion of Professional Women: The Case of Law Firm Partnership

Cited by 119 publications

References 69 publications

Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity Among Professionals

Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity Among Professionals

Why Do Women Still Not Make It to the Top? Dominant Organizational Ideologies and Biases by Promotion Committees Limit Opportunities to Destination Positions

The Social Psychology of Gender Inequality

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