Abstract

The extent to which men and women sort into different jobs and organizations—namely, gender differences in supply-side labor market processes—is a key determinant ofworkplace gender composition. This study draws on theories of congruence to uncover aunique organization-level driver of gender differences in job seekers’behavior. Wefirstargue and show that congruence between leadership gender and organizational claimsis a key mechanism that drives job seekers’interest. Specifically, many organizationalclaims are gender-typed, such that social claims activate the female stereotype, whereasbusiness claims activate the male stereotype. Thus, whereas female-led organizationsmaking social claims are gender-congruent, male-ledfirms making the same claims aregender-incongruent. Beyond demonstrating a general preference among job seekers forcongruence, we alsofind that female job seekers are most interested in working for or-ganizations that are simultaneously congruent and provide credible signals that they arefair and equitable employers. The congruence of leadership gender and organizationalclaims thus affects the gender composition of applicant pools for otherwise identical jobs

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Citation

Mabel Abraham, and Vanessa Burbano. "Congruence Between Leadership Gender and OrganizationalClaims Affects the Gender Composition of the Applicant Pool:Field Experimental Evidence." Organization Science 33, no. 1 (February 2022): 393-413.

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