Why Not Ascription? Organizations' Employment of Male and Female Managers

Abstract

We examine the effects of organizations' employment practices on sex-based ascription managerial jobs. Given men's initial preponderance management, we argue that inertia, sex labels, and power dynamics predispose organizations to use sex-based ascription when staffing managerial jobs, but that personnel practices can invite or curtail ascription. Our results-based on data from a national probability sample of 516 work organizations-show that specific personnel practices affect the sexual division of managerial labor. Net of controls for the composition of the labor supply, open recruitment methods are associated with women holding a greater share of management jobs, while recruitment through informal networks increases men's share. Formalizing personnel practices reduces men's share of management jobs, especially large establishments, presumably because formalization checks ascription job assignments, evaluation, and factors that affect attrition. Thus, through their personnel practices, establishments license or limit ascription. B ARON and Bielby (1980) encouraged researchers interested labor market to bring the firm back in because firms link the 'macro' and 'micro' dimensions of work organization and inequality (p. 738). Researchers who have taken up the call have demonstrated the importance of organizational structures, such as their nonprofit or government status or their size, for sustaining or eroding sex-based ascription (Baron 1991; Baron and Newman 1990; Nelson and Bridges 1999; TomaskovicDevey 1993). Relatively little is known,