Trickle‐down and bottom‐up effects of women's representation in the context of industry gender composition: A panel data investigation

Abstract

Abstract Little is known about how changing organizational gender composition can enhance women's representation at lower levels (trickle‐down effects) and higher levels (bottom‐up effects), and which contextual elements strengthen or weaken these effects. We built a large panel dataset from archives spanning 2010–2019 to test our theorized trickle‐down and bottom‐up effects across three levels: non‐management, lower through middle management (LTMM), and top management team (TMT), including our theorized moderating effects of industry gender composition (male‐tilted vs. female tilted vs. balanced). Our panel analyses show that bottom‐up effects are strongest in female‐tilted industries, consistent with the gender‐role congruence explanation that women appear to be more fitting to leadership positions when followers are predominantly women. Trickle‐down effects are strongest in male‐tilted industries at the lower levels (LTMM to non‐management), but strongest in female‐tilted industries at the higher levels (TMT to LTMM). Together, these findings suggest that increasing the number of female supervisors and middle managers is effective for bringing more female employees into male‐tilted industries. However, the fact that male‐tilted industries showed no significant trickle‐down effects from TMT to LTMM suggests that senior women in these contexts refrain from acting to support other women's careers in order to avoid highlighting their gender identity.

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