A new study has found a general bias, from both genders, against successful women, writes Michael Hutak.
Janne Chung, when senior lecturer at Edith Cowan University, Perth, conducted a study to discover whether the evaluation of a manager's performance is affected by the gender of the person doing the evaluating, and/or the gender of the person being evaluated. Her findings were published in the latest Australian Journal of Management (vol 26, no 2).
Thirty-three men and 24 women were asked to rate the performance of two managers - one male, one female - who had responded to two scenarios. Both managers had handled one scenario successfully, the other unsuccessfully.
When rating the female's successful scenario, both men and women were harsher than they were with the male's successful scenario. However, in the unsuccessful scenario, there was no such difference: both the female and the male manager were rated equally. This suggests a general bias against successful women.
Chung says the bias is enough to influence human resource decisions - such as hiring, remuneration or promotion - where competition is stiff. It may also cause frustration and lead to the premature exit of successful women, to the detriment of the organisation.
Chung, now an associate professor in accounting at Canada's top business school, the Schulich School of Business in Toronto, says a possible explanation for the lack of feminist solidarity among the women in the study is the "queen bee syndrome".
"Many senior women who have struggled to get to the top find they don't like competition from younger women," she says.
Boss Magazine, Australian Financial Review
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