Beyond the glass ceiling: The glass cliff and its lessons for organizational policy

Social Issues and Policy Review

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 202-232

  Bruckmüller, Susanne ^a,b   Ryan, Michelle K ^b,c   Rink, Floor ^c   Haslam, S Alexander ^b,d  

^a University of Koblenz   (Germany)

^b UNIVERSITY OF EXETER   (United Kingdom)

^c UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN   (Netherlands)

^d UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84892471253     PISSN: 17512395     EISSN: 17512409     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/sipr.12006     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. Adams, S. M., Gupta, A., & Leeth, J. D. (2009). Are female executives over-represented in precarious leadership positions? British Journal of Management, 20, 1-12.
2. Ashby, J., Ryan, M. K., & Haslam, S. A. (2007). Legal work and the glass cliff: Evidence that women are preferentially selected to lead problematic cases. William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law, 13, 775-794.
3. Barreto, M., Ellemers, N., Cihangir, S., & Stroebe, K. (2008). The self-fulfilling effects of contemporary sexism: How it affects women's well-being and behavior. In: M. Barreto, M. Ryan, & M. Schmitt (Eds.), The glass ceiling in the 21st century: Understanding barriers to gender inequality (pp. 99-123). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
4. Barreto, M., Ryan, M. K., & Schmitt, M. T. (2009). The glass ceiling in the 21st century: Understanding barriers to gender equality. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
5. Bass, B. M., & Bass, R. (2008). The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications (4th ed.). New York: Free Press.
6. Brescoll, V. L., Dawson, E., & Uhlman, E. L. (2010). Hard won and easily lost: The fragile status of leaders in gender-stereotype-incongruent occupations. Psychological Science, 21, 1640-1642.
7. Brown, E. R., Diekman, A. B., & Schneider, M. C. (2011) A change will do us good: Threats diminish typical preferences for male leaders. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 930-941.
8. Bruckmüller, S., & Branscombe, N. R. (2010). The glass cliff: When and why women are selected as leaders in crisis contexts. British Journal of Social Psychology, 49, 433-451.
9. Bruckmüller, S., Hegarty, P., & Abele, A.E. (2012). Framing gender differences: Linguistic normativity affects perceptions of power and gender stereotypes. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 210-218.
10. Bruckmüller, S., Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., & Peters, K. (2013). Ceilings, cliffs, and labyrinths: Exploring metaphors for workplace gender discrimination. In M.K. Ryan & N. R. Branscombe (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Gender and Psychology (pp. 450-465). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
11. Carli, L. L. (1990). Gender, language, and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 941-995.
12. Catalyst (2012). Women in US management. (Downloaded November 28, 2012, from http://www.catalyst.org/publication/206/women-in-us-management).
13. Cross, C., & Armstrong, C. (2008). Understanding the role of networks in collective learning processes: The experiences of women. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 10, 600-613.
14. Dwyer, S., Richard, O. C., & Chadwick, K. (2003). Gender diversity in management and firm performance: The influence of growth orientation and organizational culture. Journal of Business Research, 56, 1009-1019.
15. Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. (2007). Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become leaders. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.
16. Eagly, A. H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., & van Engen, M. (2003). Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles: A meta-analysis comparing women and men. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 569-591.
17. Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109, 573-598.
18. Eagly, A. H., Makhijani, M. G., & Klonsky, B. G. (1992). Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 11-22.
19. Eagly, A. H., & Szcesny, S. (2009). Stereotypes about women, men, and leaders: Have times changed? In M. Barreto M. K. Ryan, & M. T.Schmitt (Eds.), The glass ceiling in the 21st century: Understanding barriers to gender equality (pp. 21-47). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
20. Ellemers, N., Rink, F., Derks, B., & Ryan, M. K. (2012). Women in high places: When and why promoting women into top positions can harm them individually or as a group (and how to prevent this). Research in Organizational Behavior, 32, 163-187.
21. Erhardt, N. L., Werbel, J. D., & Shrader, C. B. (2003). Board of director diversity and firm financial performance. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 11, 102-111.
22. European Commission. (2011). The European Commission's new gender equality strategy: Towards quotas for women in the boardroom? European Central Bank Diversity Forum, March 28, 2011, Frankfurt.
23. Fama, E. F., & Jensen, M. C. (1983). Separation of ownership and control. Journal of Law and Economics, 26, 301-325.
24. Ferris, S. P., Jagannathan, M., & Pritchard, A. C. (2003). Too busy to mind the business? Monitoring by directors with multiple board appointments. The Journal of Finance, 58, 1087-1112.
25. Gartzia, L., Ryan, M.K., Balluerka, N., & Aritzeta, A. (2012). Think crisis-think female: Further evidence. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 21, 603-628.
26. Haslam, S. A., & Ryan, M. K. (2008). The road to the glass cliff: Differences in the perceived suitability of men and women for leadership positions in succeeding and failing organizations. Leadership Quarterly, 19, 530-546.
27. Haslam, S. A., Ryan, M. K., Kulich, C., Trojanowski, G., & Atkins, C. (2010). Investing with prejudice: The relationship between women's presence on company boards and objective and subjective measures of company performance. British Journal of Management, 21, 484-497.
28. Hegarty, P. J., & Bruckmüller, S. (2013). Asymmetric explanations of group differences: Experimental evidence for Foucault's disciplinary power. Personality and Social Psychology Compass, 7, 176-186.
29. Heilman, M. E., Wallen, A. S., Fuchs, D., & Tamkins, M. M. (2004). Penalties for success: Reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 416-427.
30. Hersby, M. D., Ryan, M. K., & Jetten, J. (2009). Getting together to get ahead: The impact of social structure on women's networking. British Journal of Management, 20, 415-430.
31. Hunt, J. G., Boal, K. B., & Dodge, G. E. (1999). The effects of visionary and crisis-responsive charisma on followers: An experimental examination of two kinds of charismatic leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 10, 423-448.
32. Hunt-Early, K. (2012). Falling over a glass cliff: A study of the recruitment of women to leadership roles in troubled enterprises. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 31, 44-83.
33. Ibarra, H. W. (1993). Personal networks of women and minorities in management: A conceptual framework. Academy of Management Review, 18, 56-87.
34. Joshi, A., & Roh, H. (2009). The role of context in work team diversity research: A meta-analytic review. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 599-628.
35. Judge, E. (2003, November 11). "Women on board: Help or hindrance?" The Times, p. 21.
36. Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation (Vol. 5049). New York: Basic Books.
37. Kaplan, S. N., & Minton, B. A. (1994). Appointments of outsiders to Japanese boards: Determinants and implications for managers. Journal of Financial Economics, 36, 225-258.
38. Kawakami, K., Dovidio, J.F., & van Kamp, S. (2005). Kicking the habit: Effects of nonstereotypic association training on the application of stereotypes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 68-75.
39. Koenig, A., & Eagly, A.H. (2005). Stereotype threat in men on a test of social sensitivity. Sex Roles, 52, 489-495.
40. Koenig, A. M., Eagly, A. H., Mitchell, A. A., & Ristikari, T. (2011). Are leader stereotypes masculine? A meta-analysis of three research paradigms. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 616-642.
41. Krishnan, H. A., & Park, D. (2005). A few good women: On top management teams. Journal of Business Research, 58, 1712-1720.
42. Lee, P.M. & James, E. H. (2007). She'-e-os: Gender effects and investor reactions to the announcements of top executive appointments. Strategic Management Journal, 28, 227-241.
43. Lyness, K.S., & Thompson, D. E. (2000). Climbing the corporate ladder: Do female and male executives follow the same route? Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 96-101.
44. Mehra, A., Kilduff, M., & Brass, D. 1998. At the margins: A distinctiveness approach to the social identity and social networks of underrepresented groups. Academy of Management Journal, 41, 441-452.
45. Meindl, J. R. (1995). The romance of leadership as a follower-centric theory: A social constructionist approach. The Leadership Quarterly, 6, 329-341.
46. Meindl, J. R., Ehrlich, S. B., & Dukerich, J. M. (1985). The romance of leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 78-102.
47. Morgenroth, T. (2012). Signaling change: What companies hope to gain from appointing women to glass cliff positions. Unpublished diploma thesis, Technical University Dresden, Germany.
48. Morton, T., Haslam, S. A., Postmes, T., & Ryan, M. K. (2006). We value what values us: The appeal of identity-affirming science. Political Psychology, 27, 823-838.
49. Peters, K. O., Haslam, S. A., Ryan, M. K., & Fonseca, M. (2013). Working with subgroup identities to build organizational identification and support for organizational strategy: A test of the ASPIRe model. Group and Organization Management, 38, 128-144.
50. Peters, K., Ryan, M., Haslam, S. A., & Fernandes, H. (2012). To belong or not to belong: Evidence that women's occupational disidentification is promoted by lack of fit with masculine occupational prototypes. Journal of Personnel Psychology, 11, 148-158.
51. Phelan, J. E., Moss-Racusin, C. A., & Rudman, L. A. (2008). Competent yet out in the cold: Shifting criteria for hiring reflects backlash toward agentic women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 32, 406-413.
52. Pillai, R. (1996). Crisis and the emergence of charismatic leadership in groups: An experimental investigation. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26, 543-562.
53. Pless, N., & Maak, T. (2004). Building an inclusive diversity culture: Principles, processes and practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 54, 129-147.
54. Purdie-Vaughns, V., Steele, C. M., Davies, P. G., Ditlmann, R., & Crosby, J. R. (2008). Social identity contingencies: how diversity cues signal threat or safety for African Americans in mainstream institutions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 615-630.
55. Rink, F., & Ellemers, N. (2007). Diversity as a source of common identity: Towards a social identity framework for studying the effects of diversity in organizations. British Journal of Management, 18, 17-27.
56. Rink, F., & Ellemers, N. (2010). Benefiting from deep-level diversity: How congruence between knowledge and decision rules improves team decision making and team perceptions. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 13, 345-359.
57. Rink, F., Ryan, M. K., & Stoker, J. I. (2012). Influence in times of crisis: Exploring how social and financial resources affect men's and women's evaluations of glass cliff positions. Psychological Science, 23, 1306-1313.
58. Rink, F., Ryan, M. K., & Stoker, J. I. (2013). Clarifying the precariousness of the glass cliff: How social resources and gender stereotypes affect the evaluation of leaders in times of crisis. European Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 381-392.
59. Ryan, M. K., & Haslam, S.A. (2005). The glass cliff: Evidence that women are over-represented in precarious leadership positions. British Journal of Management, 16, 81-90.
60. Ryan, M. K. & Haslam, S. A. (2007). The glass cliff: Exploring the dynamics surrounding women's appointment to precarious leadership positions. Academy of Management Review, 32, 549-572.
61. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., & Bellenca, F. (2013). Responding to the glass cliff: How men and women explain the precariousness of women's leadership positions. Unpublished manuscript, University of Exeter.
62. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., Hersby, M. D., & Bongiorno, R. (2011). Think crisis-think female: Glass cliffs and contextual variation in the think manager-think male stereotype. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 470-484.
63. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., & Kulich, C. (2010). Politics and the glass cliff: Evidence that women are preferentially selected to contest hard-to-win seat. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 34, 56-64.
64. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., & Postmes, T. (2007). Reactions to the glass cliff: Gender differences in the explanations for the precariousness of women's leadership positions. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 20, 182-197.
65. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., Wilson-Kovacs, M. D., Hersby, M. D., & Kulich, C. (2007). Managing diversity and the glass cliff: Avoiding the dangers by knowing the issues. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
66. Schein, V. E. (1973). The relationship between sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 95-105.
67. Schein, V. E., Mueller, R., Lituchy, T., & Liu, J. (1996). Think manager-think male: A global phenomenon? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17, 33-41.
68. Sealy, R., & Vinnicombe, S. (2012). The female FTSE board report. (Downloaded April 5, 2012, from http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/ftse)
69. Sweigart, A. (2012). Women on Board for Change: The Norway model of boardroom quotas as a tool for progress in the United States and Canada. Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business, 32, 81A-105A.
70. Tharenou, P., Latimer, S., & Conroy, D. (1994). How do you make it to the top? An examination of influences on women's and men's managerial advancement. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 899-931.
71. Tobin, J. (1969). A general equilibrium approach to monetary theory. Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, 1, 15-29.
72. Van Knippenberg, D., Haslam, S. A., & Platow, M. J. (2007). Unity through diversity: Value-in-diversity beliefs, work group diversity, and group identification. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 11, 207-222.
73. Vinnicombe, S., Singh, V., & Kumra, S. (2004). Making good connections: Best practice for women's corporate networks. London: Cranfield University School of Management.
74. Welbourne, T. M., Cycyota, C. S., & Ferrante, C. J. (2007). Wall Street reaction to women in IPOs: An examination of gender diversity in top management teams. Group and Organization Management, 32, 524-547.
75. Wellington, S., Kropf, M.B., & Gerkovich, P. (June, 2003). What's holding women back? Harvard Business Review, 81, 18-19.
76. Williams, J. E., & Best, D. L. (1990). Measuring sex stereotypes: A multinational study (revised). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.