04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 463

THE GLASS CEILING IN HUMAN

RESOURCES: EXPLORING THE LINK
BETWEEN WOMEN’S
REPRESENTATION IN MANAGEMENT
AND THE PRACTICES OF STRATEGIC
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
AND EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
S H A U N P I C H L E R , PAT R I C I A A . S I M P S O N , A N D
LINDA K. STROH

Research on sex stereotypes suggests that gender bias is an invisible barrier—the

so-called glass ceiling—preventing women from breaking into the highest levels
of management in business organizations. Using data from a state-based pro-
fessional HR organization, we investigated this phenomenon in the field of HR
management. Building on the lack of fit model of gender discrimination and pre-
vious research, we tested two hypotheses: that women in HR are more likely to
be concentrated in lower-level managerial positions in organizations that em-
phasize employee involvement (because of a related emphasis on stereotypically
feminine managerial abilities) and that women in HR also are more likely to be
concentrated in lower-level managerial positions in organizations that emphasize
strategic human resource management (because of a related emphasis on
stereotypically masculine characteristics). Our results support the first but not the
second hypothesis. Theoretical and practical implications related to the glass ceil-
ing are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: gender discrimination, glass ceiling, strategic human resource man-

agement, employee involvement

he glass-ceiling effect in organiza- over time. Recent studies on the lack of

T tions (Morrison & Von Glinow, 1990)

has received a great deal of popular
and scholarly attention in recent
years, perhaps due to its persistence
women in senior management (Helfat, Har-
ris, & Wolfson, 2007) and the gender pay
gap (Blau & Kahn, 2007) indicate that
women are disproportionately underrepre-

Correspondence to: Shaun Pichler, School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Michigan State University,
241 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, E-mail: pichlers@msu.edu.

H u m a n R e s o u r c e M a n a g e m e n t , Fall 2008, Vol. 47, No. 3, Pp. 463–479

© 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
DOI: 10.1002/hrm.20227
04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 464
464 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2008
sented in top management and are paid less
than men are when they do reach the top
(Kochan, 2007). For instance, while the pro-
portion of women in management roles has
increased more in human resources than in
any other field (Blau, Simpson, & Anderson,
1998), women’s representation in top levels
of management has remained essentially un-
changed over the last ten years (Pomeroy,
2007). In their analysis of executive officers
of Fortune 1000 companies,
Helfat et al. (2007) found that
The existing there were more than twice as
many male executives than fe-
empirical data tend male executives in HR manage-
ment. Given these trends, how
to indicate that are HR management practices re-
women are lated to women’s advancement in
the HR field?
overrepresented in Previous research has docu-
mented disparities between men
HR generally and in and women in terms of wages
and career success in HR. For in-
the managerial
stance, using U.S. Census and Bu-
ranks of HR, yet reau of Labor Statistics data,
Hardin (1991) found that al-
tend to face a glass though women dominated the
field overall in the 1970s and
ceiling when it
1980s and were increasingly rep-
comes to reaching resented among the ranks of per-
sonnel managers, their earnings
top management, were relatively low compared to
those of men, despite identical
despite their being
demographic and work profiles—
as equally qualified that is, hours of work, age, and
education. Based on 1970 and
as men. 1980 census data, Gray (1987)
similarly found that men domi-
nated top management jobs and
tended to earn more than women did. Data
from a study conducted by the Institute of
Personnel Management (IPM) in Britain in-
dicated that although women were dispro-
portionately represented in jobs at the per-
sonnel officer level and below, “a glass
ceiling operates around personnel officer”
(Gooch, 1994, p. 17). A previous IPM study
found that women were underpaid com-
pared to men, were underrepresented in sen-
ior management, were less involved in strat-
egy setting, moved more slowly through
lower-level management positions, and had
less access to management training than
men did (Long, 1984).
The existing empirical data tend to indi-
cate that women are overrepresented in HR
generally and in the managerial ranks of HR,
yet tend to face a glass ceiling when it comes
to reaching top management, despite their
being as equally qualified as men. That said,
researchers have yet to investigate why this
is the case. Some scholars have proposed that
an emphasis on strategic human resource
management (SHRM) may prevent women
from becoming managers in the HR function
(Legge, 1987), whereas an emphasis on em-
ployee involvement (EI) may facilitate
women’s movement into management (But-
tner, 2001; Gooch, 1994).
The current study integrates research and
theory from the sex stereotypes literature to
further explore these propositions and uses
data from a state branch of a professional HR
organization to formally test whether EI and
SHRM are related to the proportion of
women in HR. Developing a framework that
explains why women have been able to enter
into HR management roles in such striking
numbers but have yet to make similar
progress in top management is an important
contribution. To date, literature on the glass
ceiling has focused on the characteristics of
women that either limit or promote their ad-
vancement in organizations, such as person-
ality traits (Tharenou, 2001), career interrup-
tions (Lyness & Thompson, 1997), and
career strategies (Ragins, Townsend, & Mat-
tis, 1998), as well as on how salient organi-
zational characteristics, such as organization
age and industry, are systematically related
to women’s advancement in organizations
(Goodman, Fields, & Blum, 2003). Although
these studies have been illuminating, re-
search tends to indicate that the glass ceiling
persists even when controlling for these fac-
tors (Gray, 1987; Hardin, 1991). It is impor-
tant, therefore, to study the glass ceiling
using an occupational lens, because explana-
tions for the phenomenon have focused less
attention on how occupation-specific factors
might promote or prohibit women’s ad-
vancement. The next step in the research
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 465
base is to consider women’s career success in
specific occupations, given the important
differences between occupations in terms of
mobility, female representation, and histori-
cal treatment of women (Legge, 1987; Stroh,
Brett, & Reilly, 1992).
Given the fact that HR has traditionally
been a female-dominated profession, one
would expect that women should be more
able to break through the glass ceiling in HR
as compared to other professions that are rel-
atively male-dominated (Heilman, 1983).
Thus, if sex-typed management practices are
indeed related to the proportion of women
in HR management, this could have impor-
tant implications for other business profes-
sions. For instance, although research has
previously indicated that women are pre-
vented from reaching positions of power in
male-dominated occupations (Reskin, 1988),
research in the management literature has
yet to investigate whether women are ex-
cluded from top management jobs when an
occupation’s top managers are gaining pres-
tige, as is the case with HR (Oberstein, 1999).
Moreover, sex-typed management practices
may be even more detrimental—or benefi-
cial—to women’s advancement in profes-
sions that are relatively male-dominated,
since the positive effect of female representa-
tion on women’s advancement (Goodman et
al., 2003) is reduced.
This work, therefore, advances the study
of organizational diversity and inclusion by
investigating how two prominent and in-
creasingly dispersed HR practices are related
to women’s representation in HR manage-
ment—above and beyond salient organiza-
tional characteristics (such as age and indus-
try), structural characteristics of organizations
(such as managerial representation of
women), and the formalization of HR prac-
tices (such as open job postings). Although
this article focuses on how EI and SHRM are
related to women’s representation in HR
specifically, the theoretical implications of
these results can translate into important
practical implications for women working in
occupations other than HR. In the section
that follows, we review theory and research
from the sex stereotypes literature in order to
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources 465
organize our article theoretically. We then re-
view the employee involvement and strategic
human resource management literatures
using this theoretical lens and offer formal hy-
potheses regarding the glass ceiling in HR.
On Sex Stereotyping
The section that follows reviews the theory
and research from the sex stereo-
types literature, as well as the
This work …
employee involvement and
strategic human resource man- investigates how
agement literatures, using the
lack of fit model as a theoretical two prominent and
lens. It concludes with formal
hypotheses regarding the glass increasingly
ceiling in HR. dispersed HR
Sex Stereotypes and the practices are
Lack of Fit Model of Gender
related to women’s
Discrimination
representation in
Stereotyping occurs when indi-
viduals are judged not on their HR management—
unique characteristics or merits,
but on generalized characteristics above and beyond
associated with the group to
salient
which they belong (Perdue, Do-
vidio, Gurtman, & Tyler, 1990). organizational
For instance, sex stereotypes have
consistently been found to por- characteristics …
tray men and women as oppo-
sites, with men perceived as mas- structural
culine and achievement-oriented characteristics of
and women as being nurturing
and facilitative (Heilman, 2001). organizations …
Applied to employment-related
decisions, such portrayals can and the
lead to biased evaluations of
formalization of HR
women’s performance and quali-
fications (Eagly & Karau, 2002). practices.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, sex
stereotypes have been found to be
disadvantageous to women in selection,
placement, and promotion decisions (Welle
& Heilman, 2005), especially for managerial
jobs (Powell, Butterfield, & Parent, 2002).
There are two types of sex stereotypes:
descriptive and prescriptive. Both are theoret-
ically relevant to our hypotheses because
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466 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2008
they cumulatively determine women’s po-
sition in management. Descriptive stereo-
types are “constellation(s) of traits that are
thought to uniquely describe men and
women” (Welle & Heilman, 2005, p. 25).
The lack of fit model (Heilman, 1983) pro-
poses that when one’s gender is incongru-
ent with the sex type of the job in ques-
tion, sex bias will lead to decreased
performance expectations and evaluations
(Heilman, 2001). The sex type of a job is
determined by two factors: the gendered
characteristics believed to be required of
that job and the proportion of
men (or women) occupying the
job (Welle & Heilman, 2005).
Thus, in its early
In contrast, prescriptive
years, the field of stereotypes describe how men
and women should be—that is,
HR as a whole was what behaviors are (and are not)
appropriate, based on one’s gen-
viewed as “women’s
der. When women demonstrate
work,” in contrast to masculine behavior or succeed at
male-typed tasks—that is, behav-
the “men’s work” of ior that violates a prescriptive
stereotype—they are greeted
line management.
with hostility and are disliked,
ultimately resulting in down-
wardly biased performance eval-
uations (Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, &
Tamkins, 2004).
Heilman (2001) argues that sex bias
stemming from both types of stereotypes
has contributed to the glass ceiling—that is,
the invisible barriers that prevent women
from reaching the upper echelons of man-
agement (Hymnowitz & Schellhardt,
1986)—and contends that those invisible
barriers are sex stereotypes. More specifi-
cally, when a woman exhibits stereotypi-
cally feminine behavior, she is considered a
poor fit for most managerial jobs (descrip-
tive stereotyping), and when a woman ex-
hibits stereotypically masculine behavior,
she is typically perceived as being unneces-
sarily aggressive and hostile (prescriptive
stereotyping). However, the lack of fit model
also opens the possibility that specific man-
agement jobs may be sex-typed to women’s
advantage. In the sections that follow, the
lack of fit model of gender discrimination is
used to develop hypotheses about the con-
trasting ways in which the introduction of
EI and SHRM within business organizations
affect women’s representation in managerial
positions.
Sex Stereotypes and Employee
Involvement
Some scholars have proposed that descriptive
stereotypes and the sex typing of work roles
should actually help women break through
the glass ceiling. At first glance, the historical
evidence seems to support the proposition
that women’s representation in HR manage-
ment varies as a function of the extent to
which HR is sex-typed as feminine (Legge,
1987). For example, early personnel depart-
ments concentrated on providing such serv-
ices as employee counseling, basic skills train-
ing, and in-kind support to sick workers and
their families (Simpson & Lenoir, 2003).
Legge (1987) notes that females typically
were recruited into the field because this type
of service work had already been sex-typed as
“feminine” in nature (Heilman, 1983), thus
explaining women’s parallel success in the
emerging field of nonprofit social work. In-
deed, many of the women who were hired
into the first personnel departments had
been social workers. Thus, in its early years,
the field of HR as a whole was viewed as
“women’s work,” in contrast to the “men’s
work” of line management.
Women entered the HR profession in large
numbers again in the 1960s when the emer-
gence of a complex web of federal employ-
ment legislation dramatically increased the de-
mand for HR staff (Simpson & Lenoir, 2003).
This rapid increase in demand apparently out-
stripped the supply of available men and
opened up new opportunities for women (Re-
skin & Roos, 1990; Simpson & Lenoir, 2003).
The increase in clerical work associated with
legal compliance also may have contributed to
the increase in women incumbents during this
time, since men may have been perceived as a
misfit for this type of work.1 Certainly the con-
temporary feminization trend within person-
nel work (Legge, 1987; Simpson & Lenoir,
2003) dates from this period.
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 467
This overview of the historical record
suggests that the sex typing of HR jobs as
feminine has worked to women’s advantage
in the past. Currently, a similar dynamic
may be at work in the field. Scholars have ar-
gued that an emphasis on employee involve-
ment in business organizations should bene-
fit women because communal characteristics
are required (or perceived to be required) of
managers. The essential features of employee
involvement are that employees are encour-
aged to work autonomously and participate
in decisions that can affect organizational
performance (Lawler, 1988). As Fondas’s
(1997) review clearly indicates, popular and
scholarly writers alike have contended that
this type of management tends to emphasize
stereotypically feminine—that is, commu-
nal—characteristics, such as supporting and
nurturing employees (Bridges, 1994; Kanter,
1989; Kiechel, 1992; Peters, 1989; Rosener,
1990). The emphasis on involvement and
participatory work, scholars argue, should
benefit female managers in HR because
“where facilitation is a prized skill, one
would expect to see a change in the balance
of power the personnel function holds,”
such that women would have advantages in
career opportunities (Gooch, 1994, p. 17).
In this connection, effective implemen-
tation of employee involvement requires
that managers adopt a new management
style (Tesluk & Mathieu, 1999) that empha-
sizes relationality over hierarchy. This being
the case, some scholars have argued that
women are more desirable as managers in
these settings because they have been social-
ized to emphasize the relational domain of
interpersonal relationships, while men have
been socialized to emphasize the instrumen-
tal aspect of relationships (Buttner, 2001).
Again, stereotypes about gendered behavior
are relevant; some scholars assume that
women “naturally” lead in a more participa-
tive way (Iannello, 1992; Rosener, 1990). In-
deed, some commentators have even gone so
far as to suggest that men should adopt fem-
inine leadership characteristics when em-
ployed in firms that emphasize employee in-
volvement programs (Aburdene & Naisbitt,
1992; Peters, 1989).
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources 467
Although empirical evidence suggests
women and men demonstrate similar task
and interpersonal leadership skills (Eagly &
Karau, 2002) and have similar career aspira-
tions (Morrison, Van Velsor, & White, 1987),
the propositions mentioned immediately
above are consistent with the lack of fit
model of gender discrimination. That is,
managerial jobs in a high-involvement con-
text require, or at least are perceived to re-
quire, “communal” skills. More specifically,
since employee involvement requires that
managers work cooperatively with subordi-
nates, build relationships with
them, encourage relationship
building among them, and man- This overview of the
age through facilitation instead of
objectives (Gooch, 1994; Rosener, historical record
1990; Tesluk & Mathieu, 1999),
women should, theoretically, be suggests that the
perceived as more appropriate
sex typing of HR
candidates for these jobs (Heil-
man, 1983). HR roles that are as- jobs as feminine
sociated with the implementa-
tion of employee involvement, has worked to
such as training and development
women’s advantage
managers, are particularly likely
to be perceived as requiring more in the past.
“communal,” or feminine, traits
and abilities. Currently, a similar
Managers must be trained
when their role evolves from su- dynamic may be at
pervision to coaching or facilitat- work in the field.
ing (Bridges, 1994). Front-line em-
ployees also have new training
needs. For instance, employees
often are charged with decision-making re-
sponsibility for distributing rewards and de-
termining disciplinary action (Wellins et al.,
1990). The need to retrain supervisors and
employees in participatory management
techniques may stimulate a related prefer-
ence for training and development managers
and specialists who are perceived to emulate
the skills and abilities they are instilling. In
fact, the vast majority of training specialists
and managers are female (Pomeroy, 2007).
Like other scholars, we presume that gender
stereotyping will be advantageous to women
in the workplace under these circumstances.
Indeed, the lack of fit model is explicit in ar-
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468 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2008
guing that gender discrimination can extend
to men when they are perceived to lack the
traits and abilities required of a feminine sex-
typed job, and empirical evidence supports
this (Heilman, 1997).
That said, we contend that employee in-
volvement will benefit women only in
lower-level managerial jobs. This is because
prescriptive stereotypes dictate that women
should act as facilitators, thus benefiting
them when managerial jobs emphasize par-
ticipation. Employee involve-
ment requires that lower-level
As the field became
managers relinquish authority
and share knowledge and infor-
more strategic in mation with employees (Bridges,
1994). However, senior managers
terms of handling are still required to embody
stereotypically masculine charac-
labor-management
teristics (Welle & Heilman, 2005).
relations and as jobs As such, where employee involve-
ment is emphasized, women
were increasingly managers will be perceived as a fit
for lower-level management jobs
male sex-typed,
because of descriptive stereotyp-
men outnumbered ing. Women managers will not
necessarily be perceived as a bet-
women in the field ter fit for senior management
jobs, however, because of prescrip-
and filled most tive stereotyping. Since the major-
senior positions. ity of human resource jobs that
incorporate such training tend to
This is consistent be located in the lower strata of
the HR management hierarchy
with what would be (Burke, 2004), we propose:
expected according
H1: Women will be represented sig-
to the sex nificantly more in lower-level
human resource management jobs in
stereotypes organizations that emphasize em-
ployee involvement.
literature and the
lack of fit model.
Sex Stereotypes and
Strategic Human Resource
Management
Referring to a historical analysis of the per-
sonnel function, Legge (1987) argued that
“women’s position in personnel manage-
ment will inversely reflect the power of the
function” (p. 50). The proxy for power she
refers to is the degree to which the function
is associated with strategy setting. More
specifically, she argues that women in HR
face a paradox. When the function is periph-
eral to strategic management, women can
“reach the top”; yet when the function is
seen “as a valid contributor to strategic deci-
sion-making, then women, if not elbowed
out, are politely pushed aside” (p. 34).
Legge repeatedly mentions sex stereotyp-
ing as an explicit cause of the glass ceiling in
HR. History seems to support this thesis. For
instance, during World War I, the relation-
ship between personnel work and produc-
tion efficiency was strengthened because of
extreme levels of demand and became asso-
ciated more with line management and less
with social welfare (Jacoby, 1985). Perhaps
the most substantive change emerged in the
1930s, however, as corporate welfarism lost
its credibility and a modern industrial rela-
tions system emerged in Western societies.
Personnel departments then concentrated
on collective bargaining and resolving labor
relation conflicts (Kaufman, 2007). This
change in functional emphasis altered
women’s relative authority (Legge, 1987). Be-
cause the emphasis among personnel depart-
ments focused on dealing firmly and aggres-
sively with union representatives in conflict
situations, “masculine” qualities were valued
explicitly (Simpson & Lenoir, 2003). As the
field became more strategic in terms of han-
dling labor-management relations and as
jobs were increasingly male sex-typed, men
outnumbered women in the field and filled
most senior positions. This is consistent with
what would be expected according to the sex
stereotypes literature and the lack of fit
model (Heilman, 1983).
Over the past two decades, the concept of
strategic human resource management
(SHRM), or the “pattern of planned human
resource deployments and activities intended
to enable the firm to achieve its goals”
(Wright & McMahan, 1992, p. 298), emerged
and became increasingly influential in deter-
mining how HR departments made policy
and shaped processes (Kochan, 2007). Increas-
ingly, organizations have tried to directly link
HR policies and practices to business goals
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 469
(known as vertical alignment) as they are de-
veloped in response to assessing present and
predicted internal and external environmen-
tal realities (Delery & Doty, 1996).
The trend toward the strategic manage-
ment of human resources has represented a
promise of increased prestige, both for the
occupation itself and for its practitioners
(Kochan, 2007). For example, with strategic
integration, the head of an HR department
typically reports directly to the CEO or
president of an organization, participates
in all top management meetings, and is
substantively engaged in helping an organ-
ization make decisions about domestic and
global strategy, including decisions regard-
ing overseas subsidiaries and operations
(Oberstein, 1999).
In conjunction, the skills that are re-
quired, or that are perceived to be required,
of HR managers have changed. In The HR
Scorecard, Becker, Huselid, and Ulrich (2001)
provide a model of the major skill sets essen-
tial to contemporary human resource man-
agers. Foremost was “knowledge of the busi-
ness,” meaning an understanding of the
“financial, strategic, technological, and orga-
nizational capabilities” (p. 170) of the busi-
ness in which one operates. Clearly, then, HR
has come a long way, from providing basic
social services to employees to providing
strategic planning as part of a top manage-
ment team. Scholars emphasize that the so-
called soft skills of human resource manage-
ment have been replaced by a need for more
bottom line–oriented business skills (Barney
& Wright, 1998).
Drawing from Legge (1987) and the lack
of fit model (Heilman, 1983), we propose:
H2: Women will be represented significantly less
in top-level human resource management
jobs in organizations that emphasize strate-
gic human resource management.
This is because stereotypically successful
candidates in such organizations are men,
given the characteristics and behaviors per-
ceived to be required of the upper-level man-
ager and the dominance of men in upper
management (Welle & Heilman, 2005).
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources 469
Putting the Hypotheses to the Test
Working in collaboration with an Illinois
state branch of a U.S. organization of human
resource professionals, we surveyed top HR
managers on the extent and use of strategic
human resource management, employee in-
volvement, and the representation of
women in HR. There were two parts to the
survey, the second of which noted: “This
part of the survey can be completed by top-
level human resources executives with com-
prehensive knowledge of strategic and finan-
cial information important to
their organization and its human
resources unit. If you fall into this The trend toward
category, please consider filling
out Part B.” Thus, we did not de- the strategic
fine for respondents what a top-
level HR manager was; instead, management of
participants self-identified as ca-
human resources
pable of responding to this sec-
ond set of survey items. We were has represented a
able to minimize the possibility
that multiple respondents from promise of
the same organization were re-
increased prestige,
sponding about the same busi-
ness unit by comparing the age, both for the
size, and industry of each organi-
zation, as well as other organiza- occupation itself
tional-level characteristics, such
and for its
as annual operating budget. No
two organizations were compara- practitioners.
bly similar on each of these di-
mensions.
Surveys were sent to approxi-
mately 3,000 members of the professional
agency. Although 902 were returned, repre-
senting a response rate of 30%, only 155 re-
spondents completed both parts of the sur-
vey. According to the professional
organization, 22% of its members are top
HR managers; therefore, this represents an
effective response rate of 23.4%. Thus, our
return rate is well within the range recom-
mended by Baruch (1999) when surveying
top managers (that is, 36 +/– 13).
Approximately 72.1% of the organiza-
tions in the sample were nonunionized, and
29% were from the goods-producing sector.
These figures are comparable to firms from
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470 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2008
the same geographic area in terms of the pro-
portion of firms that are nonunionized
(82.4%; Union Membership and Conver-
gence Database, http://www.unionstats.com)
and operate in the goods-producing sector
(22%; Geospatial and Statistical Data Center,
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/cbp-
bin/post97/go.cgi). The percentage of large
firms, 29%, contrasted with the population
of firms operating in Cook County, where
the largest category by establishment size is
0–50 employees (90.8%; Geospatial and Sta-
tistical Data Center, http://
fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/
Clearly, then, HR has cbpbin/post97/go.cgi). This is not
surprising, since few small firms
come a long way,
have the resources available to
from providing basic create and maintain separate HR
departments. The results of this
social services to study, then, are perhaps best gen-
eralized to firms large enough to
employees to sustain such units. The depend-
providing strategic ent variable in the study was
women’s representation in HR. We
planning as part of a asked participants to indicate the
percentage of women in each of
top management three HR job strata: senior-level,
middle-level, and lower-level po-
team. Scholars
sitions. Since organizations use
emphasize that the different job titles to describe re-
sponsibilities at each managerial
so-called soft skills level, we did not specifically de-
fine these strata. We were inter-
of human resource
ested, instead, in the relative rep-
management have resentation of women in each,
given the specificity of our hy-
been replaced by a potheses regarding the effects of
independent variables on differ-
need for more
ent levels of management. The
bottom independent variables are de-
scribed in the next sections.
line–oriented
business skills. Employee Involvement
We based our measure on the key
facets of employee involvement
programs—namely, participative decision
making and autonomous work (Lawler,
1988). We operationalized the construct
with these two items: (1) “Self-directed teams
are used in this organization to get work
done” and (2) “Participative (subordinate in-
volvement) decision-making approaches are
characteristic within this organization.” We
measured the items on a four-point scale (1 =
to no extent; 4 = to a great extent) and com-
puted an average. The estimated internal
consistency reliability of this scale is α = .66.
This relatively low reliability is expected,
based on the small number of items
(Cortina, 1993).
Strategic Human Resource
Management
Nineteen items that measured the strategic
integration of the HR function were scaled to
form the SHRM variable (Cronbach’s α =.92).
The items were all drawn from a strategic HR
audit developed by Oberstein (1999). All
items ranged from 1 (to no extent) to 4 (to a
great extent).
We incorporated several other control
variables into our analysis that have been re-
peatedly confirmed to influence female rep-
resentation in management.
HR Formalization
This variable was designed to capture the ex-
tent to which HR activities were formalized
within an organization. In line with the ap-
proach adopted by Reskin and McBrier
(2000), respondents answered “yes” or “no”
to a series of seven questions. “Yes” re-
sponses were then totaled to create the HR
formalization variable.
Government Regulation
Since government regulation has been
found to predict the proportion of women
in management (Konrad & Linnehan, 1995),
“yes” and “no” answers were also solicited
for two items: (1) “Is your organization sub-
ject to a periodic review by an outside ac-
creditation or licensing organization?” and
(2) “Is your organization’s operation regu-
lated in any way by government agencies?”
The “yes” answers were totaled to create a
government regulation variable (Reskin &
McBrier, 2000).
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 471
Market Competition
This has been found to be related to the
proportion of women in management (Re-
skin & McBrier, 2000). We controlled for
market competition by asking respondents
to indicate on a four-point scale the extent
to which the following statement was true
for their organization: “This organization
faces competition in its product or service
market.”
Industry
Service industries tend to have more women
in top management positions than manufac-
turers do (Blum, Fields, & Goodman, 1994;
Goodman et al., 2003). As such, an industry
dummy variable was created and coded, with
1 representing a manufacturing firm and 0 a
nonmanufacturing firm.
Organization Size
This was measured as follows: 1 = 1 to 50 em-
ployees; 2 = 51 to 500 employees; 3 = 501 to
1,000 employees; 4 = 1,001 to 2,000 employ-
ees; and 5 = more than 2,000 employees. Or-
ganizational size has been consistently re-
lated to the adoption of innovative HR
practices (Kochan, McKersie, & Chalykoff,
1986; Osterman, 1994).
Organization Age
This was measured based on the numeric re-
sponse to the question, “Approximately how
old is your organization (in years)?” We con-
trolled for this variable since organizational
age is related to the proportion of women in
management (Blum et al., 1994).
Unionization
The percentage of employees unionized
within a firm served as this variable.
Female Representation
Since the representation of women in an or-
ganization’s management positions is related
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources 471
to the overall proportion of women in an or-
ganization (Blum et al., 1994; Goodman et
al., 2003), we measured female representa-
tion in the organization according to three
variables. Respondents were asked the per-
centage representation of women in techni-
cal human resource positions (technical HR);
in clerical, administrative, or
other support staff positions in
HR (clerical HR); and in nonman- Respondents were
agerial positions within the or-
ganization as a whole (that is, asked the
non-HR positions). Since our hy-
percentage
potheses concerned the relative
position of women in specific representation of
strata, instead of defining strata
of the HR management function women in technical
for respondents, we asked them
to report the relative proportion human resource
of women at the senior, middle, positions (technical
and lower levels of management,
as well as the proportion of HR); in clerical,
women in technical staff and cler-
ical staff. administrative, or
A multivariate analysis of co-
other support staff
variance (MANCOVA) was con-
ducted to test our hypotheses be- positions in HR
cause we presumed that our
dependent variables were not nec- (clerical HR); and in
essarily independent of one an-
nonmanagerial
other, as female representation at
one level within the HR manage- positions within the
ment hierarchy might influence fe-
male representation at another organization as a
level. We verified the factor struc-
whole (that is, non-
ture of our independent variables
using confirmatory factor analysis HR positions).
in LISREL 8.7.
Results
Means, standard deviations, and correlations
can be found in Table I. As expected, strate-
gic human resource management and em-
ployee involvement are highly related but
clearly distinct constructs (r = .57, p < .01).
Moreover, both the strategic human resource
management variable (r = .47, p < .01) and
the employee involvement variable (r = .26,
p < .01) are significantly related to the extent
of HR formalization, thus buttressing the va-
 472
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8/11/08
11:10 AM

TABLE I Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations of Study Variables

Page 472

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1. SHRM 2.74 .65 --
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2008

2. EI 2.62 .84 .57 --

3. HR Formalization 6.03 1.34 .40 .26 --
4. Market Competition 3.60 .75 .16 .23 .08 --
5. Organizational Size 2.23 1.21 –.08 –.05 –.05 .01 --
6. Organizational Age 51.39 41.35 .00 –.12 .18 –.09 .00 --
7. Technical HR .35 .32 .31 .20 .09 .06 –.07 –.02 --
8. Clerical HR .74 .31 .14 .08 .03 .07 .04 –.02 .34 --
9. Nonmanagerial .47 .25 .12 .22 .10 –.01 –.05 .09 .53 .16 --
10. Top Management .32 .37 .08 .12 .07 –.03 –.03 –.06 .44 .31 .28 --
11. Middle Management .41 .35 .14 .10 .05 .04 .20 –.07 .53 .37 .35 .51 --
12. Lower-Level Management .38 .35 .17 .17 .09 .06 .04 –.02 .63 .37 .42 .46 .70 --

Note: All correlations above 0.10 are significant at p < .05.

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 473
lidity and nomological net of our independ-
ent variables.
Before testing our substantive hypothe-
ses, we compared two nested measurement
models to further establish the construct and
discriminant validity of our measures. For a
summary of these results, see Table II. The
first confirmatory factor analysis modeled
two latent variables, employee involvement
and strategic human resource management,
on their respective indicators. This model
provided an adequate fit to the data. Our al-
ternative model was a single latent factor, HR
management. The fit of this model was
clearly less adequate than the proposed
measurement model, and the change in chi-
square between the two models was also sig-
nificant (∆χ2 = 174.12, ∆df = 1). As such, we
proceeded by testing our substantive hy-
potheses using our proposed independent
measures.
Results of the MANCOVA analysis can be
found in Table III. Inspection of the relation-
ship between employee involvement and
each of the dependent variables indicates
that this variable was positively related to
the percentage of women in lower-level
human resource management positions only
(F (1, 154) = 3.989, b = .061, p = .048). Con-
sistent with Hypothesis 1, women were more
likely to be represented in lower-level HR
management positions among organizations
having employee involvement programs.
The results also indicate that the relationship
between SHRM and the representation of
women in senior-level HR positions was not
significant (F (1, 154) = .522, b = –.034, p =
.471). Similarly, SHRM was not significantly
related to the representation of women in
lower- and middle-level HR positions. Con-
trary to Hypothesis 2, SHRM does not appear
to be related to women’s presence in HR.
TABLE II Results of Confirmatory Factor Analyses
Fit Indices
Proposed Measurement Model (Two-Factor) 1252.89
Single-Factor Measurement Model
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources 473
Results also indicate that the extent of
HR formalization was positively related to
the proportion of women in lower- and mid-
dle-level level management, and that the
representation of women in the organization
more broadly—that is, in lower-level non-
management positions—generally was also
positively related to the representation of
women in managerial positions. Interest-
ingly, only the extent of women in technical
HR positions and government regulation
were positively related to the representation
of women in top management positions.
Discussion
It has been 16 years since the U.S. Depart-
ment of Labor released its report on the glass
ceiling, formally defining the phenomenon
and investigating its potential causes, conse-
quences, and treatments (U.S. Department of
Labor, 1991). Since then, there has been a
consistent stream of research on the invisible
barriers that have prevented women from
reaching the upper echelons of manage-
ment. Despite this, women remain excluded
from senior-level management positions and
are not as highly paid as men are, even
though they are equally qualified. This is cer-
tainly the case in HR, where women are over-
represented in the field as a whole and in
lower- and middle-level management but are
still dramatically underrepresented in top
management.
Given that women are more likely to be
represented in lower-level HR managerial
jobs in organizations that emphasize em-
ployee involvement, our results further sup-
port existing theory and research that sug-
gest that women will be favored for jobs that
are sex-typed as feminine (Heilman, 1983),
as well as related arguments that employee
χ2 df RMSEA NNFI GFI IFI CFI
184 .079 .96 .90 .96 .96
1427.01 185 .085 .97 .87 .96 .96
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474 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2008

MANCOVA Results: The Effects of SHRM, Employee Involvement, and Control Variables on
TABLE III
Women’s Representation in Managerial Human Resource Management Positions

Variable Percent Women Percent Women Percent Women

in Lower-Level HR in Middle-Level HR in Senior-Level HR
F-Value b F-Value b F-Value b
SHRM 2.587 –.067 2.010 –.058 .522 –.034
EI 3.989* .061* 3.478 .056 .519 .025
HR Formalization 5.050* .038* 5.560* .040* .644 .015
Government Regulation .185 –.011 .551 –.020 4.509* –.064*
Market Competition 1.149 .029 3.010 .047 .002 .001
Sector 1.929 .067 1.299 .054 1.039 .056
Organization Size 1.123 .018 .153 .007 .808 .017
Organization Age .126 .001 .430 .001 .073 .001
Technical HR 15.999** .462** 12.530** .288** 31.905** .373**
Clerical HR 2.724 .118 1.276 .080 .036 .015
Nonmanagerial 11.139** .328** 9.344* .299* 1.512 .138

*p < .05

**p < .01

involvement requires stereotypically femi- tectable differences in terms of gender repre-

nine characteristics (Bass & Avolio, 1994;
Gooch, 1994).
A related theoretical contribution is the
use of the lack of fit model for understanding
gender discrimination at the organizational
level of analysis. Although Heilman and
Welle (Heilman, 2001; Welle & Heilman,
2005) have argued that gender discrimina-
tion should be most detectable at the organi-
zational level, as opposed to during interper-
sonal interactions, the lack of fit model has
been applied almost invariably to under-
standing organizational decision makers’ in-
dividual perceptions of gender in the work-
place, or to interpersonal discrimination.
That is, most of the existing research that has
used the lack of fit model to investigate gen-
der discrimination has found that gender in-
congruity between a particular job type (that
is, a managerial job) and a job applicant
(that is, a female applicant) results in de-
creased performance expectations and em-
ployment ratings (Heilman, 2001). Our re-
sults are consistent with the proposition that
gendered features of jobs can result in de-
sentation within a particular job type at the
organizational level of analysis (Welle &
Heilman, 2005).
The proportion of women in senior man-
agement in HR was not inversely related to
the extent to which strategic human re-
source management was emphasized, con-
trary to what other scholars have proposed
(Legge, 1987). Given the high reliability of
the SHRM measure, as well as comparable
variability between the representation of
women in lower- and top-level management,
these results indicate that women are not
being excluded from top management be-
cause of the strategic integration of HR with
organizational strategy. In other words, top
management jobs are sex-typed as masculine
regardless of the extent to which organiza-
tions use SHRM. Our data parallel existing re-
ports, however, that indicate that men are
twice as likely as women to hold top HR
management positions (see Table I). Scholars
must, therefore, continue to search for alter-
native explanations for the lack of women in
top management.

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 475
One explanation that is consistent with
both theory and our results is that women
who employ stereotypically feminine mana-
gerial abilities and behaviors progress up the
career ladder in HR. Those characteristics
may benefit women in lower levels of man-
agement but prevent them from reaching
top management jobs, since “with few ex-
ceptions, upper-level managerial positions
appear to be characterized in masculine
terms” (Heilman, 2001, p. 660). This propo-
sition is consistent with social closure mod-
els that argue that behavioral differentiation
based on gender excludes women from top
management, since the dominant group at-
tempts to illustrate that “superordinate and
subordinate groups differ in essential ways
and that such differences are natural and
even desirable” (Reskin, 1988, p. 63).
Our results tend to support this explana-
tion. Research has consistently indicated
that the proportion of women in an organi-
zation should positively relate to the propor-
tion of women in upper management. Put
simply, the more women there are in a labor
pool, the more they should be represented in
management. Our results indicate, however,
that the proportion of women in the non-
managerial labor pool is most strongly re-
lated to the proportion of women in lower-
level management in HR and least strongly
related to the proportion of women in top
management (see Table I). Consistent with
previous research (Gooch, 1994; Helfat et al.,
2007; Long, 1984), this would tend to sug-
gest that women are able to make it into
middle management in HR but are essen-
tially stuck at this level, perhaps because of
stereotyping.
Practical Implications
Our results suggest that HR practitioners
should be aware of the glass-ceiling prob-
lem and attempt to remedy its causes. Mey-
erson and Fletcher (2000) outline three ap-
proaches to the management of gender
diversity in organizations: (1) training
women to be successful in a male-domi-
nated world of management, (2) assimilat-
ing and accommodating women through
Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm
The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources 475
supportive policies and practices, and (3)
valuing gender diversity.
Providing women with the knowledge
and skills needed to make it into top man-
agement is one way to eliminate the glass
ceiling. In the HR function, so-called hard
business skills are increasingly important to
HR managers (Becker et al., 2001). To ad-
vance in their career, HR managers are ex-
pected to develop knowledge and skills in fi-
nance, operations management, and
strategy. Thus, organizations should attempt
to recruit women with related business train-
ing and line management experi-
ence into HR, especially manage-
rial roles. Our results further
suggest that it is important for Our results suggest
women to pursue technical skills
in their education and training that HR
and for organizations to further practitioners should
develop these skills.
Supporting women through be aware of the
organizational policies and prac-
tices targeted at facilitating their glass-ceiling
inclusion in the workplace is also
problem and
essential. Research suggests that
so-called women-friendly policies attempt to remedy
and practices, such as employer-
sponsored child care, are posi- its causes.
tively related to the inclusion of
women in the workplace, particu-
larly at the executive level (Dreher, 2003).
Adopting women-friendly policies also can
translate into a competitive advantage for or-
ganizations when there is a competitive mar-
ket for talent, especially when the skills
women bring to the workplace are valuable
and difficult to imitate (Wooten, 2001).
As Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) note,
valuing gender diversity often involves sen-
sitivity or diversity training. This type of
training could be used to explain to practi-
tioners the biases that are related to the dif-
ferential staffing of men and women into
gendered jobs. Although very little system-
atic research has been conducted to evaluate
the effectiveness of diversity training pro-
grams, the existing evidence suggests that
success is more likely when managerial re-
wards are linked to diversity goals (Rynes &
Rosen, 1995). Thus, diversity training pro-
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476 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2008

grams designed to reduce gender bias in or-
ganizations could focus on rewarding behav-
ior that limits stereotyped decision making
among managers, such as performance ap-
praisal systems that emphasize objective per-
formance standards (Heilman, 2001).
Although these three approaches to gen-
der diversity management can help support
the inclusion of women in the workplace, as
well as their advancement into senior man-
agement, even in combination they may not
be enough to remove the invisible barriers
that form the glass ceiling. As Meyerson and
Fletcher (2000) noted, the exclusion of
women from top management is related to
biases entrenched in institutionalized orga-
nizational systems, such as performance ap-
praisals; therefore, these systems, too, must
be changed. Removing gender bias from
such organizational systems as selection de-
cisions and performance evaluation is essen-
tial to increasing gender diversity in organi-
zations, especially at the highest levels of
management (Heilman, 2001).
Limitations and Directions for
Future Research
Now that empirical data support an associa-
tion between EI and women in management,
further research is needed as to why women
are preferred among lower-level manage-
ment in HR. This may be because women are
stereotypically perceived to lead in a partici-
patory way, but we were unable to evaluate
this using our current data. Since we did not
find that employee involvement helped
women to shatter the glass ceiling, as some
researchers speculated (i.e., Bass & Avolio,
1994), exploratory research could also inves-
tigate why this is so, and whether involve-
ment-based management is somehow re-
lated to women in HR being stuck in lower
levels of management.
Although we did not predict that the pro-
portion of women in technical HR jobs
would be related to the representation of
women in senior management, future re-
search is certainly needed to explain why this
is the case. Research indicates that occupa-
tions dominated by women require relatively
lower levels of technical skill, thus limiting
the extent to which these jobs are valued by
organizations (Cleveland, Vescio, & Barnes-
Farrell, 2005, p. 163). Thus, one explanation
could be that the more women there are to
recruit from technical HR jobs, the more
likely they are to reach senior management.
Finally, we found that women were more
likely to make it into top management in HR
when their organization was either regulated
by an outside accrediting agency or subject
to government regulation. This is consistent
with existing research (Konrad & Linnehan,
1995; Reskin & McBrier, 2000), as well as
with organizational theory on coercive insti-
tutional pressures. It would be worthwhile to
more thoroughly investigate how regulation
by accrediting and government agencies is
related to women’s ability to make it into
senior-level HR management positions.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Ellen Kossek,
Mark Roehling, Arup Varma, and the four
anonymous reviewers for their helpful and con-
structive comments. Special thanks go to Lynn
Wooten for her guidance and suggestions on an
earlier version of this article.

SHAUN PICHLER is a PhD candidate in the School of Labor & Industrial Relations at
Michigan State University. His research interests include workplace discrimination, work
and family, and performance management and appraisal. His research has been pub-
lished in Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, the International Jour-
nal of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management, the Journal of Oc-
cupational and Organizational Psychology, the Journal of Vocational Behavior, and the
Oxford Handbook of HRM, among others.

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

04HRM47_3pichler 8/11/08 11:10 AM Page 477

The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources 477

PATRICIA A. SIMPSON is an associate professor in the Institute of Human Resources and

Employment Relations, School of Business Administration, Loyola University Chicago.
She received her PhD in industrial relations from the University of Illinois, Champaign-
Urbana. Her research interests include organizational justice, social security privatiza-
tion, older workers, and gender and racial segregation in labor markets. She has pub-
lished in Industrial Relations Research Review, the Journal of Applied Psychology,
Human Resource Management Journal, the Journal of Vocational Behavior, Feminist
Economics, and Employee Rights and Responsibilities. She is also a member of the Na-
tional Council of the American Association of University Professors.

LINDA K. STROH is a Loyola University Faculty Scholar in the Graduate School of Busi-
ness, Loyola University Chicago. She received her PhD from Northwestern University. In
addition to teaching, Dr. Stroh has published over 100 articles and five books on topics
related to organizational and human behavior issues. Dr. Stroh’s work has been pub-
lished in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of
Management Journal, Organizational Behavior, and others. At the 2000 Academy of
Management Meeting, Dr. Stroh was presented with the Sage Publications Research
Scholar Award. In addition, Dr. Stroh was recently named Graduate Faculty Member of
the Year at Loyola University Chicago.

NOTE Blum, T., Fields, D., & Goodman, J. (1994). Organiza-

1. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for
this observation.
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