People are strange when you're a stranger: senior executives select similar successors

Abstract

Despite Sweden being considered one of the most equality-minded countries, the uppermost organizational levels are so male dominated that mandatory board of director gender quotas are considered. Homogeneity may only be decreased with difficulty, as it arises through basic social mechanisms such as homosocial reproduction, that is, people prefer and, therefore, recruit people who are similar to themselves. Present structure is perpetuated. Previous research suggests that such reproduction occurs on an organizational, top management and/or interpersonal level. In this paper, simultaneous analyses of these three levels regarding gender, nationality, age and tenure show that homogeneity arises between superior and subordinate. As for top management team composition, there is in general one woman per company, whereas non-Swedes are twice the number of women, cluster together and have line responsibility. Owing to need for critical mass, present composition and position responsibility, we may, therefore, expect gender homogeneity and some nationality heterogeneity to remain.