Abstract:
In this article, we present findings of an Australia-wide empirical
study that investigated the impact of the presence of senior women executives
on management cultures. We found that both men and women clearly agreed
that the presence of women in senior roles had changed management cultures.
When there was a critical mass of women employed at senior levels, both
women and men believed that women encouraged greater collaboration, more
consultative decision-making processes and more collegial workplaces. Whilst
this might represent a welcome shift towards less instrumental management
cultures, the findings also strongly resonate with stereotypical images of
women's traditional roles in Western culture ~ roles associated with the domestic
sphere. Such perceptions have the potential to disadvantage women executives
particularly if women accept that it is their role to manage these aspects of a
culture - a scenario which could lead to the reproduction of a gender-based
system of relations at the most senior levels in organisations.
