Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Risky Business: A Theoretical Model Applied to the Advancement of Executive Women

尽管女性现在占美国劳动力的近一半，占大学毕业生的大多数，占中层管理人员和mba新生的三分之一以上，但她们在商界领导职位上的比例仍然相对较低。本研究使用风险评估模型来确定高管晋升的潜在过程，并考虑这些过程是如何运作的，从而为男性和女性创造截然不同的结果。该风险评估模型的几个关键命题将通过两个实验实验室研究进行检验。第一项研究是一个旨在确定的实验：1)决策者是否将更高的风险归因于雇佣或提拔那些被认为能力较差、一致、忠诚和可信的人；2)在客观条件相同的情况下，女性是否被认为在这些方面都不如男性合格，从而在雇佣和晋升决策中被视为比男性承担更高的风险。第二项研究是一系列四项相同的实验，参与者各不相同（本科生、mba、emba和高管），旨在测试雇佣女性是否比雇佣男性有更大的感知风险，以及这种更高的感知风险是否意味着女性被雇佣和晋升的频率更低。本项目所处理的研究问题是一个复杂的问题，因为这种现象可能是由同时对妇女不利的多个过程驱动的。与之前的大多数工作不同，本项目采用了一种适合该问题的系统方法，同时考虑了能力、一致性、承诺和可信度对风险认知和雇佣决策的影响。因此，这项研究不仅将阐明女性是否被认为比男性更有风险，还将阐明其中的原因。此外，通过整合来自性别研究和风险与决策领域的研究，本研究采用了一种新颖的方法，可能使旨在减少性别不平等的政策的制定更容易处理。大多数商业组织都擅长于在许多环境中进行风险/回报权衡和决策。本项目使各组织能够从它们所熟悉的角度看待性别不平等，从而有助于它们在努力创造性别平等方面制定和颁布更有效的政策。

Despite the fact that women now represent nearly half of the U.S. workforce, a majority of college graduates and more than a third of mid-level managers and new MBAs, their representation in positions of leadership within the business world remains relatively low. This research uses a risk assessment model to identify the processes underlying executive advancement and consider how these processes operate to create very different outcomes for men and women. Several key propositions of this risk assessment model will be tested through two experimental lab studies. The first study is an experiment aimed at determining 1) whether decision makers attribute higher risk to hiring or promoting individuals that are perceived as less competent, congruent, committed and credible; and 2) whether women are perceived as less qualified on each of these dimensions than men with objectively identical qualifications, and as a result are seen as carrying higher risk in hire and promotion decisions than men. The second study is a series of four identical experiments with varying participants (undergraduates, MBAs, executive MBAs and executives) aimed at testing whether greater perceived risk is attributed to hiring women than men and whether this higher perceived risk translates to women being hired and promoted less frequently.The research question being addressed in this project is a complex one, as the phenomenon is likely driven by multiple processes operating simultaneously to disadvantage women. Unlike most previous work, this project takes a systemic approach appropriate to the problem by simultaneously considering the impact of perceptions of competence, congruence, commitment and credibility upon risk perceptions and hiring decisions. As a result, the research will clarify not just whether women are perceived as riskier than men, but also why. Further, by integrating research from the fields of both gender studies and risk and decision-making, this research takes a novel approach that may make the development of policies aimed at reducing gender inequality more tractable. Most business organizations are adept at making risk/reward tradeoffs and decisions across many contexts. By enabling organizations to see gender inequality through a lens with which they are familiar, this project may help them to develop and enact more effective policies in their efforts to create gender equality.