Karen S. Lyness

Climbing the corporate ladder: do female and male executives follow the same route?

This study compares the careers of matched samples of 69 female executives and 69 male executives by examining perceived barriers and facilitators of advancement, self-reported developmental experiences, and career histories. Consistent with tokenism theory, women reported greater barriers, such as lack of culture fit and being excluded from informal networks, and greater importance of having a good track record and developing relationships to facilitate advancement than did men. Career success, measured by organizational level and compensation, was positively related to breadth of experience and developmental assignments for both genders, but successful women were less likely than successful men to report that mentoring facilitated their advancement. Developmental experiences and career histories were similar for female and male executives, but men had more overseas assignments and women had more assignments with nonauthority relationships.

When fit is fundamental: performance evaluations and promotions of upper-level female and male managers.

Using archival organizational data, the authors examined relationships of gender and type of position (i.e., line or staff) to performance evaluations of 448 upper-level managers, and relationships of performance evaluations to promotions during the subsequent 2 years. Consistent with the idea that there is a greater perceived lack of fit between stereotypical attributes of women and requirements of line jobs than staff jobs, women in line jobs received lower performance ratings than women in staff jobs or men in either line or staff jobs. Moreover, promoted women had received higher performance ratings than promoted men and performance ratings were more strongly related to promotions for women than men, suggesting that women were held to stricter standards for promotion.

Left behind? The impact of leaves of absence on managers' career success.

We examined the relationship between taking a leave of absence and rewards among 11,815 managers in a financial services organization. Results indicated that leaves of absence, regardless of the re...

The relationships of national gender equality and organizational support with work-family balance: A study of European managers

Most prior research about employees’ work-family balance has examined relationships to organizational characteristics or individual characteristics, but ignored the larger national context in which these relationships occur. We developed a model suggesting that the degree of national gender equality is an important contextual variable that is positively related to organizational work-family supports (i.e. supportive work-family culture and flexible work arrangements), which are in turn related to individual managers’ balance of their work and family responsibilities. We tested the model using survey responses from 505 managers and professionals from 20 European countries and United Nations’ Gender Development Index scores of national gender equality for their countries, and found some support for the predicted relationships. These results highlight the importance of considering the larger context, and especially a nation’s standing in terms of its gender equality, for understanding work-family balance.

Can a manager have a life and a career? International and multisource perspectives on work-life balance and career advancement potential.

The present study was the first cross-national examination of whether managers who were perceived to be high in work-life balance were expected to be more or less likely to advance in their careers than were less balanced, more work-focused managers. Using self ratings, peer ratings, and supervisor ratings of 9,627 managers in 33 countries, the authors examined within-source and multisource relationships with multilevel analyses. The authors generally found that managers who were rated higher in work-life balance were rated higher in career advancement potential than were managers who were rated lower in work-life balance. However, national gender egalitarianism, measured with Project GLOBE scores, moderated relationships based on supervisor and self ratings, with stronger positive relationships in low egalitarian cultures. The authors also found 3-way interactions of work-life balance ratings, ratee gender, and gender egalitarianism in multisource analyses in which self balance ratings predicted supervisor and peer ratings of advancement potential. Work-life balance ratings were positively related to advancement potential ratings for women in high egalitarian cultures and men in low gender egalitarian cultures, but relationships were nonsignificant for men in high egalitarian cultures and women in low egalitarian cultures.

It’s all about control: Worker control over schedule and hours in cross-national context.

Workers’ ability to control their work schedules and hours varies significantly among industrialized countries. We integrate and extend prior research from a variety of literatures to examine antecedents of control and worker outcomes. Using hierarchical linear modeling and data for 21 countries from the 1997 ISSP Work Orientations Survey supplemented with national indicators developed from a variety of sources, we find that control is associated with country characteristics (affluence, welfare state generosity, union coverage, and working-time regulations), worker attributes (being male, being older, and being better educated), and job characteristics (working part-time, being self-employed, having higher earnings, and having more advancement opportunities). We also examine the relationship of control to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and strain-based work-family conflict. Generally, low levels of control are linked to negative outcomes for workers, especially for women, an effect sometimes modulated by country-level policy measures.

Work and pregnancy: individual and organizational factors influencing organizational commitment, timing of maternity leave, and return to work.

The authors surveyed 86 pregnant women (73%White, 8% Asian, 7% African American, 6% Hispanic, and1% Native American) to examine individual andorganizational factors associated with organizationalcommitment and planned timing of their maternity leavesand return to work after childbirth. Women whoseorganizations offered guaranteed jobs after childbirthplanned to work later into their pregnancies and toreturn to work sooner after childbirth. Women whoperceived supportive work-family cultures were morecommitted to their organizations and planned to returnmore quickly after childbirth than women who perceived less supportive cultures. Also, women with lesstraditional attitudes toward parenting planned to worklater into their pregnancies and return to work soonerafter childbirth.

Moving Ahead or Just Moving?: An Examination of Gender Differences in Senior Corporate Management Appointments

Prior research has shown that employees learn by coping with new experiences. However, we examined gender differences in job moves described in 952 Wall Street Journal announcements of senior management appointments and found that women’s new positions were more similar to their previous positions than was true for their male counterparts. Women were less likely than men to be promoted to the management level or move to new organizations, and a greater proportion of women than men were appointed to line positions with prior female incumbents. Among managers in staff positions, women were less likely than were men to move to line positions or different organizational functions. Taken together, these findings raise questions about whether women’s job moves offered career benefits that were comparable to those received by men.

Cultural Values and Potential Nonresponse Bias A Multilevel Examination of Cross-National Differences in Mail Survey Response Rates

Using data from a prior survey of managers in 20 European countries, the authors conducted multilevel analyses to illustrate the value of examining relationships of both individual characteristics and country characteristics to likelihood of responding. Consistent with inferences about likely salience of the survey topic, they found that likelihood of responding was higher for women than for men and was also higher in countries with more gender equality than in countries with less gender equality. These findings underscore the need to examine national cultural values that might be related to both survey topic salience and country response rates as potential sources of nonresponse (and nonresponse bias) in international survey-based research.