Gender Affirmative Action and Management: A Systematic Literature Review on How Diversity and Inclusion Management Affect Gender Equity in Organizations.

Julia V Furtado,António C Moreira,Jorge Mota

doi:10.3390/bs11020021

Julia V Furtado, António C Moreira + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/bs11020021

Copy DOI

Abstract

Gender affirmative action (AA) in management remains a controversial topic among scholars, practitioners, and employees. While some individuals may support the use of AA policies as a means of increasing representation of women, others are not supportive at all, further understanding gender AA as an unacceptable violation of merit—even when targeted by it. With the aim of analyzing how scholars have approached the subject, we systematically reviewed 76 published articles (SCOPUS database), covering the extant literature on gender AA and management. Findings indicate a consensus regarding the common antecedents of attitudes towards gender AA with prior experiences with AA and diversity management (DM) (as well as general perceptions of AA). Performance and satisfaction appear as the predominant outcomes. In addition, while investigating the differences among AA, equal employment opportunity (EEO) and diversity management (DM), scholars are mainly focused on the effectiveness of AA as a means of increasing the inclusion of minorities in general. We conclude that despite marginal studies on employees’ attitudes toward gender AA, there is a gap in the literature, particularly an absence of research on the bivalent position of meritocracy (or merit violation) as both an antecedent and outcome of attitudes towards AA, which deserves further scrutiny.

Highlights

Gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls is one of the 17 goals of the United Nations General Assembly (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which comprises 169 targets in a universal plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity [1]
Some are strongly supportive, recognizing the value of gender affirmative action (AA) as a means to increase women’s descriptive representation and to correct biased selection and promotion programs; others are not supportive at all, arguing that such initiatives represent an unacceptable violation of merit
This systematic literature review explored the existing literature on management and gender affirmative action initiatives in organizations, in order to analyze what is available on the topic, the way scholars discussed the antecedents of attitudes towards affirmative action for gender parity in organizations, as well as the most common outcomes of such initiatives among employees

Summary

Introduction

Gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls is one of the 17 goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which comprises 169 targets in a universal plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity [1]. The goal of gender parity, defined as the equal participation of women and men in positions of power and decision-making [3], has gained increased attention globally over the past decades. Starting in 1975, with the United Nations General Assembly (UN) proclaiming 1976–1985 as the UN Decade for Women, several UN resolutions targeted an increase in the proportion of women in leadership positions [4,5]. The spread of a myriad of affirmative action (AA) and equal employment opportunity (EEO) initiatives was promoted with the aim of reducing the underrepresentation of women (and minorities in general) both in politics and leadership positions.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion