The career-organization nexus. The emergence of gender inequality among Swedish managers

Funded by: Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation
Time period: 2018-2021
Project members:Charlotte Holgersson, KTH, Anders Broström, KTH; Ali Mohammadi, CBS; Karl Wennberg, Linköping University.
Project contact persons:

Background:

For more than five decades, the lack of women and dominance of men on management positions has been a topic of research in a wide variety of disciplines, using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods. Although women have moved up through the ranks of management, particularly middle management, men still dominate higher management positions. For example, women hold 20% of senior management positions in the US, 19% in the UK, and 27% in Sweden (Catalyst 2014). Social science scholars in different disciplines have investigated different theoretical mechanisms that contribute to the reproduction of male dominance on top management positions. In particular, gender scholars have developed an increasingly refined understanding of mechanisms of labor market inequality that may generate gendered patterns in management careers. At the same time, quantitatively oriented studies rooted in sociology, management studies and economics have developed methodological baselines for rigorous examination of aggregate patterns of gender inequality in terms of pay and promotion opportunities. We believe that it is time to deepen the dialogue between these different bodies of literature and take advantage of their insights to further study the organizational factors that condition the career trajectories of women and men. Our proposed project seeks to take advantage of this opportunity by drawing together five scholars with complementary expertise on gender, organizations and careers and by exploiting unique Swedish data.

The core of our project is to quantitatively test gendered differences in a selected few theoretically salient processes identified in previous research: the recruitment, promotion, and retention of managers. The empirical data is composed of career trajectories in Swedish industry during the period 1990-2013. By studying the organizational factors shaping the career paths of men and women in different ways, we will explore at what levels in organizations and by what core theoretical mechanisms systematic gender differences emerge.