Introduction: Collection of articles at SMJ concerning promotion of women to senior management positions

• Date: 01 December 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2534
• Published date: 01 December 2016

Introduction: Collection of articles at SMJ concerning promotion of women to

senior management positions

Two decades of corporate women: Some progress in the boardroom, little change at the top

Will Mitchell, in collaboration with Richard Bettis, Alfonso Gambardella, and Constance Helfat

(co-editors of SMJ) and Aija Leiponen (SMS Media Innovations co-editor)

(March 6, 2014)

We are delighted to provide a brief introduction to a strong set of papers that have delved into

questions concerning promotion of women to senior management positions, in celebration of

International Women’s Day. We have selected five intriguing papers from SMJ, reaching back to

1999 and forward to papers currently in the Early View stage of publication. For a broader set of

readings, we encourage you to look through the compendium of thought-provoking research that

Wiley has posted in celebration of women’s accomplishments [www.wileyiwdresearch.com].

There is growing interest in opportunities for women to reach senior management positions, both

to provide greater diversity in ideas and strategy and in terms of basic equity. Current high

profile examples of women with senor leadership roles include Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw at

Biocon, Cher Wang at HTC, Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi at Pepsico, Stacey Mowbray at Second

Cup, Meg Whitman at Hewlett Packard (previously at eBay), Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, and

Mary Barra at General Motors. Earlier highly visible examples include Anne Mulcahy at Xerox

(2001-2009). However, such examples – while inspiring – continue to be exceptions. Although

some strides may be underway, a glass ceiling still appears to exist in many companies.

The five papers from SMJ have a consistently sobering message about barriers to promotion,

with some hints of potential changes.

Studying trends from the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, Daily, Certo, and Dalton (1999)

documented an increase of women’s representation as outside members of corporate boards

among Fortune 500 firms (1996 versus 1987) without, however, finding a parallel increase of

inside director or CEO positions.

During a similar time period (1990 to 2000), Lee and James (2007) find that rather than respond

positively to appointments of women CEOs to U.S. corporations, stock markets tend to react

negatively, particularly in the case of women appointed from outside the firm. Not surprisingly,

though, the results reflected a very small number of cases: 17 women among 529 CEO

appointments in the study.

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