In 1989 and 1990 the Center for Creative Leadership conducted a study of the dynamics of promotion decisions in three American Fortune 500 manufacturing companies (Ruderman & Ohlott, 1994). One of the companies asked for an analysis of the differences in promotion dynamics for men and women managers. This particular company had invested considerable resources in a diversity initiative and wanted to understand the impact of the initiative on the promotion decision process. We were also interested in promotion as a diversity practice and saw this as an opportunity to look at similarities and differences in the characteristics of promotions for men and women.
The Company
The management practices of the company have been cited for their exceptional quality in numerous business publications. The company engages in many of the diversity practices discussed in Morrison’s (1992) study of organizations recognized for model diversity programs and has often been cited by the press for its commitment to diversity. It has a CEO committed to developing diversity throughout the organization, gender and racial-awareness programs, supervisor-training programs, deliberate development and tracking of white women and men and women of color, mentoring programs, and company-sponsored associations for women and people of color.
Sample and Methodology
We studied the promotions of 13 white women (average age was 37) and 16 white men (average age was 38) to middle and upper management. Men averaged 12 years with the company, and women averaged 8.5 years. Promotion was defined as a change in job level along with a commensurate increase in responsibility and pay.
The promotions, all identified by a senior human-resources executive, took place between 1987 and 1989. The interviews were conducted within two years of the promotion in question. Almost all of the women promoted to these levels of management during this time are in the sample. The men came from divisions and functions similar to the women and received promotions that the senior human-resources representative considered to be typical.
For each promotion decision, we interviewed the person promoted, the promoting boss, the promoting boss’s boss, and a knowledgeable human-resources representative. All but one of the promoting bosses and their bosses were white males. The interviews were semistructured and covered the events leading up to the promotion, the candidate’s career history, and his or her on-the-job relationships (see Appendix). We also reviewed relevant succession-planning documents. From the differing perspectives we developed a summary of the events leading up to each promotion. We then looked across the summaries from this company (as well as those from the two other companies in the original study) for similarities and differences. Through this examination we developed a categorization scheme consisting of thirty-six reasons for promotion which are grouped into five broad categories: preparation, attitudes, people skills, personal attributes, and context (see Table 1). Each promotion case was coded to see how many of the thirty-six reasons applied. A reason was considered relevant to a particular case if mentioned by any one of the following: the promoting boss, the boss of the promoting boss, and the human resources representative. Each case was characterized by multiple reasons. Two researchers jointly coded the data. There was 88% interrater agreement between the codings of the two researchers and a third independent coder.