Measuring the invisible: Development and multi‐industry validation of the Gender Bias Scale for Women Leaders

• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Leanne M. Dzubinski,David C. Wang,Amber L. Stephenson,Amy B. Diehl
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21389
• Date: 01 September 2020

QUANTITATIVE STUDY

Measuring the invisible: Development and

multi-industry validation of the Gender Bias Scale

for Women Leaders

Amy B. Diehl

1

| Amber L. Stephenson

2

| Leanne M. Dzubinski

3

|

David C. Wang

4

1

Office of Educational Intelligence &

Technology, Shippensburg University of

Pennsylvania, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania

2

Reh School of Business, Clarkson University,

Potsdam, New York

3

Cook School of Intercultural Studies, Biola

University, La Mirada, California

4

Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola

University, La Mirada, California

Correspondence

Amy B. Diehl, Office of Educational

Intelligence and Technology, Shippensburg

University of Pennsylvania, 1871 Old Main

Drive Shippensburg, PA 17257.

Email: abd@ship.edu

Abstract

Gender bias is a pervasive problem with significant negative

outcomes for women leaders and organizations. Bias mani-

fests in a multiplicity of forms, ranging from subtle to overt.

To date, no instrument exists to measure women leaders'

perceptions of gender bias. This study presents a compre-

hensive measure of how women leaders perceive and expe-

rience gender bias. Drawing from a national sample of

female higher education executives (n= 488), faith-based

organization leaders (n= 298), physicians (n= 293), and

attorneys (n= 527), the present research developed and val-

idated the Gender Bias Scale for Women Leaders. Building

upon a previously established and expansive cross-level

conceptual framework to develop the initial item pool,

results from both exploratory and confirmatory factor anal-

ysis supported a factor structure consisting of six higher-

order and 15 lower-order factors. Our results show that

several factors of the Gender Bias Scale correlated with

workplace outcomes of turnover intention and satisfaction.

Human resource development (HRD) professionals may use

the Gender Bias Scale to identify the specific types of bias

prevalent for women leaders in their organizations and

apply interventions accordingly. Implications for women

leaders and HRD professionals and recommendations for

future research are discussed.

DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21389

© 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Human Resource Development Quarterly. 2020;31:249–280. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrdq 249

KEYWORDS

gender barriers, subtle gender bias, unconscious bias, measuring

bias, women leaders

1|INTRODUCTION

Fifty to 75 years ago, it was common for businesses to set strict requirements for female employees, extending to

such intimate details as marital status, motherhood, height, weight, and even hairstyles (Sanders, 1943; Social Secu-

rity Administration, 1965). With the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s, overtly gendered workplace

requirements began to be challenged, and since that time many organizations have adopted policies prohibiting overt

forms of sex discrimination and harassment. Even so, discrimination continues, as evidenced by the momentum of

the recent #MeToo and Time's Up movements in which women have spoken up to reveal the continued extent of

sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace (Reardon, 2018). However, not all bias is flagrant, and subtle bias may

make it challenging for women to ascend organizational hierarchies even in the absence of overt discrimination. Crit-

ical human resource development (HRD) theories seek to expose hidden aspects of workplace inequities such as sub-

tle sexism; the supposed neutrality of organizations assumes that men are the standard, rendering biases based on

gender invisible (Bierema & Callahan, 2014; Diehl & Dzubinski, 2016; Fenwick, 2014). Subtle bias is multilayered,

involving barriers which arise “from cultural beliefs about gender, as well as workplace structures, practices, and pat-

terns of interaction that inadvertently favor men”(Ely, Ibarra, & Kolb, 2011, p. 475). Bias, from subtle to overt, is con-

sidered by many to be the primary challenge hindering women's opportunities in organizational leadership today (Ely

et al., 2011; Jones, Peddie, Gilrane, King, & Gray, 2016).

Whereas overt discrimination is likely to be conscious and unlawful, subtle bias manifests through “negative or

ambivalent demeanor and/or treatment enacted toward social minorities on the basis of their minority status mem-

bership that are not necessarily conscious and likely convey ambiguous intent”(Jones et al., 2016, p. 1591). Because

subtle bias is typically unconscious (Jones et al., 2016), stemming from cultural assumptions, it can be difficult to pin-

point and particularly pernicious. Challenging people's underlying assumptions is both difficult and threatening

(Mezirow, 1997); further, it may not be apparent how organizational structures and practices have grown out of gen-

dered cultural assumptions. Women themselves may struggle to understand whether acts of bias are overt or subtle;

at times, women experiencing bias may not realize that what they were subjected to was discrimination and may

blame themselves instead. Thus, a robust understanding of women's perceptions of bias includes experiences with

subtle and overt forms of discrimination.

Understanding bias is important because an increasing body of research is demonstrating that gender biases are

both real (Brands & Fernandez-Mateo, 2017; Glass & Cook, 2016; Joshi, Son, & Roh, 2015) and costly to organiza-

tions as well as to women leaders. For example, firms may be missing out on enhanced profitability (Noland &

Moran, 2016; Noland, Moran, & Kotschwar, 2016), and bias may negatively impact women's psychological health

and cognitive performance (Jones et al., 2016). In addition, even benevolent sexism may limit women's involvement

in challenging developmental experiences and their advancement; by extension, women are being denied the oppor-

tunity to offer their full skill sets to organizations (King et al., 2012). However, to date, researchers have not been

able to determine just how harmful or costly these biases are due to difficulties in comprehensively measuring this

phenomenon.

The few tools which exist offer partial measures of gender bias, at best. Some scales have attempted to measure

experiences of specific, mostly overt, gender barriers (see Sojo, Wood, & Genat, 2016), such as sexual harassment

(Fitzgerald, Gelfand, & Drasgow, 1995) and workplace harassment (Rospenda & Richman, 2004). The Women Work-

place Culture Questionnaire identified four broad factors: perceived burdens on women, personally experienced bur-

dens, sexual harassment, and inadequate organizational support (Bergman, 2003). The Implicit Association Test

250 DIEHL ET AL.

(Project Implicit, 2011), measures the respondent's own gender bias, while the Contemporary Gender Discrimination

Scale (Ceynar Rosell & Hartman, 2001) measures the respondent's beliefs about the existence of gender discrimina-

tion in society. However, no existing instrument offers a comprehensive perspective of women leaders' experiences

with or perceptions of organizational- and individual-level gender barriers in the workplace.

Noting this gap, Kossek, Su, and Wu (2017) challenged scholars “to develop improved cross-level gender inclu-

sion and career equality measures”(p. 245). Similarly, Schnake and Dumler (2003) suggested that researchers should

explicitly address the levels of analysis for constructs they are investigating and recognize when their constructs are

multi-level. We believe that this cross-level approach is particularly relevant to the study of gender bias because bar-

riers to women's advancement in the workplace occur at different levels (e.g., societal, organizational, individual),

cross these levels, and operate independently as well as in combination (Diehl & Dzubinski, 2016; Fitzsimmons &

Callan, 2016). In fact, Kunovich (2013) encouraged the examination of multiple levels of analysis because variables

may interact with the construct of interest most saliently or appropriately at different levels. Thus, in this study, we

contribute to the literature by producing a validated scale that measures how women leaders experience and per-

ceive a wide array of specific barriers contributing to gender bias. Though our scale measures heterogeneous aspects

of bias, the data used to capture the bias phenomenon matched the level of origin, specifically, the individual

(Klein & Kozlowski, 2000). For the same rationale, and in congruence with the purpose of our study, our scale

includes both subtle and overt gender bias factors.

While much of the extant literature examines specific aspects of bias, this study is the first to provide a compre-

hensive model showing how different aspects of bias manifest together. Consequently, the present research extends

knowledge of gender bias in several ways. First, in Phase 1, by using a multi-level, empirically based conceptual

model, we created the Gender Bias Scale for Women Leaders. Second, in Phase 2, we tested the Gender Bias Scale's

factor structure across three separate industries (higher education, healthcare, and faith-based nonprofits), empiri-

cally examining how items converge to measure distinct dimensions of gender bias. In Phase 3, a fourth industry

sample (law) was used to confirm the factor structure that emerged in Phase 2 and to validate the instrument in the

context of law. Then, going beyond the development of a novel tool that captures women leaders' experiences and

perceptions of gender bias, in Phase 4 we further demonstrate the Gender Bias Scale's predictive ability over salient

organizational variables (turnover intention and satisfaction).

2|GENDER BIAS: A PERVASIVE PHENOMENON

To establish a measurement tool, the individual components of gender bias must first be identified.

2.1 |Understanding gender bias

The study of barriers to women's leadership has only truly developed over the last 50 years. In this section we briefly

trace the historical development of understanding workplace gender bias and present examples of the wide range of

barriers that have been described to date. Early studies in the 1970s examined the problem of stereotypes and gen-

der roles in the workplace. For example, one of the earliest and most significant works was Schein's (1973) “think

manager-think male”framework. In 1986, Hymowitz and Schellhardt coined the term “glass ceiling”to describe the

invisible barrier that blocks women from top jobs (Hymowitz & Schellhardt, 1986). However, as there was not just

one barrier blocking women's advancement, research in the 1980s and 1990s identified various forms of obstruction,

especially those which concerned how women were perceived, evaluated, and rewarded in comparison to men

(Joshi, Neely, Emrich, Griffiths, & George, 2015). From the 1980s to the 2000s, Eagly and others

(e.g., Eagly, 1987, 2007; Eagly & Karau, 2002; Vinkenburg, van Engen, Eagly, & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2011) built on

Schein's research to develop role congruity theory, which explained that while men's social roles align with leader

DIEHL ET AL.251