The HR lady is on board: Untangling the link between HRM's feminine image and HRM's board representation

• Author: Astrid Reichel,Julia Brandl,Isabella Scheibmayr
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12263
• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Date: 01 November 2020

SPECIAL ISSUE

The HR lady is on board: Untangling the link

between HRM's feminine image and HRM's board

representation

Astrid Reichel

1

| Isabella Scheibmayr

1

| Julia Brandl

2

1

Department of Social Sciences and

Economics, HRM group, University of

Salzburg, Austria

2

School of Management, HRM Unit,

University of Innsbruck, Austria

Correspondence

Astrid Reichel, University of Salzburg,

Department of Social Sciences and

Economics, HRM group, Kapitelgasse 5,

5020 Salzburg, Austria.

Email: astrid.reichel@sbg.ac.at

Abstract

In this paper, we untangle the relationship between the

HRM occupation's feminine image and the representation

of the HRM function on executive boards. A Monte Carlo

simulation analysis of 172 executive boards in Austria,

Germany, France, Spain, and Sweden shows that women on

boards are disproportionately often responsible for HRM

and having a woman on the board corresponds to HRM

being represented on the board. Additional exploratory ana-

lyses of country contexts indicate that this relationship is

not universal. Considering several explanations for these

country differences, we propose that institutional pressures

promoting women's integration into boards is the main rea-

son for the differences. Organisations yield to this pressure

and reduce the anticipated performance risks by appointing

women with function-specific experience to board positions

responsible for HRM—a function perceived as matching

women's stereotypically assumed talents.

KEYWORDS

executive board recruitment, gender, human resource manager,

institutional pressure, women on boards

Received: 24 May 2018 Revised: 21 August 2019 Accepted: 2 September 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12263

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2019 The Authors. Human Resource Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Hum Resour Manag J. 2019;1–18. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 1

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2019 The Authors. Human Resource Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

586 Hum Resour Manag J. 2020;30:586–603.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj

1|INTRODUCTION

For decades, a seat on the board has been considered the Holy Grail for HR managers as it signals a successful transi-

tion from an administrative to a more professional, strategic HRM function (Caldwell, 2011; Guest & King, 2004),

higher status in work organisations, and potential power to influence strategic decisions (Brandl, Mayrhofer, &

Reichel, 2008; Kochan, 2007; Provan, 1980). HRM also has a strikingly large share of women working in the field

(Cohen, 2015; Kochan, 2007; Ulrich, Younger, Brockbank, & Ulrich, 2013). As the female presence has increased over

the last decades (Reichel, Brandl, & Mayrhofer, 2010, 2013), HRM is seen as a female stronghold in male dominated

management (Legge, 1987) and construed as women's work (Monks, 1993). Female-dominated gender demography

and feminine image have consistently been shown as detrimental to gaining influence and power in organisations

(Blau & Kahn, 2007; England, 2010; Pfeffer & Davis-Blake, 1987; Ridgeway, 2009). Thus, HRM's female domination

and image limit its ability to attain status as a legitimate field, gain the desired seat on the board, and be strategically

integrated as an organisational function (Pichler, Simpson, & Stroh, 2008; Reichel et al., 2013; Reichel, Brandl, & May-

rhofer, 2009).

Institutional pressure on organisations, however, can impact women's prospects for attaining powerful positions.

Particularly, the literature discussing women on boards (WOBs) reveals that institutional pressure to enhance gen-

der equality in top management confronts the exclusion of women from board positions and encourages organisa-

tions to appoint women to executive boards (Grosvold, Rayton, & Brammer, 2016; Iannotta, Gatti, & Huse, 2016;

Mölders, Brosi, Bekk, Spörrle, & Welpe, 2018; Ng & Sears, 2017; Sheridan, Ross-Smith, & Lord, 2014; Terjesen,

Aguilera, & Lorenz, 2015; Terjesen & Singh, 2008). Surprisingly, the WOB debate has largely neglected the potential

dynamics between pressure for gender equality and gender distribution in specific organisational functions on the

board. Nor does current WOB literature discuss how the gendered division of work among organisational functions

affects the board representation of these functions. However, initial empirical findings hint at a concentration of

WOB in the HRM function (Reichel et al., 2010), a pattern mirrored in media discourses addressing whether WOBs

are concentrated in the supposedly stress-free HRM function as opposed to more demanding board functions

(Handelsblatt, 2016).

For HRM, as a female-dominated function aiming at board representation, uncovering systematic links between

institutional pressures, WOB, and a HRM presence on the board is highly relevant. If institutional pressures truly

direct women into HRM positions on boards, this could challenge the widespread conviction of a generally negative

relationship between the feminine image of the HRM occupation and the status of its members (Legge, 1987; Pichler

et al., 2008; Roos & Manley, 1996; Scarborough, 2017). Against this background, we seek to untangle the link

between the HRM's feminine image and HRM's board representation and to explore if and how contextual factors

shape this relationship.

We examine a sample of 172 executive boards from five European countries (Austria, Germany, Spain, France,

and Sweden) to quantitatively explore potential links between WOB's and HRM's board representation in varying

contexts. Following an abductive research approach (Bamberger & Ang, 2016; Van de Ven, 2016), we first depict the

patterns of female representation in the HRM function and the HRM function itself on boards across countries. After

exploring possible explanations for these patterns, we argue that high gender-equality pressure can lead board selec-

tion committees to reduce perceived hiring risks by elevating HRM to a board function and assigning a woman into

this position.

Our analyses display a robust statistical linkage between WOB and HRM representation on boards in all countries

except Austria, where institutional pressure is comparatively low. Exploring country variations in board recruitment,

we discover that hiring mechanisms for WOB strikingly differ between countries with high and low institutional

pressures. Where institutional pressure is high, considerable numbers of WOB in HRM tend to have previous HRM

experience and are promoted from a lower management level within the organisation. Appreciating this pattern in

light of alternative explanations for board hiring, we develop the idea that institutional pressure compels

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