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Gender diversity advantage at middle management: Implications for high performance work system improvement and organizational performance

Min‐Kyu Joo¹; Jeong-Yeon Lee²; Dejun Tony Kong³; Phillip M. Jolly⁴

¹ Discipline of Organisational Studies University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney Sydney Australia · ² Department of Management School of Business, Seoul National University Seoul South Korea · ³ Division of Organizational Leadership and Information Analytics Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder Colorado USA · ⁴ Hospitality Management College of Health and Human Development Pennsylvania State University University Park Pennsylvania USA

AbstractResearch on women in leadership positions has largely focused on the board or top management team (TMT) leadership level, showing that increased female representation at these levels can benefit organizational performance. However, the strategic implications of female representation at middle management have been largely neglected. The current study addresses this issue in relation to High Performance Work System (HPWS) improvement and organizational performance (profitability). By analyzing the multi‐wave (2009, 2011, and 2013) Workplace Panel Survey (WPS) data collected from 1101 organizations in South Korea, we found a gender diversity advantage at middle management; that is, a higher level of gender diversity of middle management translated into a higher level of organizational performance due to HPWS improvement. However, this advantage appeared only in the presence of a high level of subordinates' gender diversity. Our findings have important implications for gender diversity and strategic human resource management.

DOI

10.1002/hrm.22159

Volume

62 (5)

Pages

765-785

Language

en

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BibTeX

Sources

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