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Women constitute only approximately 3‐5 per cent of Australian senior managers. One possible explanation of their failure to enter senior management in greater numbers is that women in management may have differing perceptions of the necessary prerequisites for promotion to senior roles. This study explored this possibility with 351 male and 156 female Australian middle managers, whose views were contrasted with senior managers’ perceptions. Gender differences in perception were found between middle managers and middle and senior managers in terms of the importance placed on personal qualities such as attractiveness, deference to superiors, likeability, personality, popularity and powerful allies (perceived charisma) as attributes considered necessary for achieving senior management promotion. In particular, female middle managers believed more strongly than their male counterparts, that senior managers would value the personal qualities encompassed in perceived charisma when considering middle managers for further promotion. However, senior managers did not consider this group of attributes to be important in promotion‐seeking behaviour.

Much of the literature identifies the positive nature of role models in career progression. The purpose of this paper is to take the contrary perspective and explore whether role-modelling behaviour of senior female managers can be unintentionally interpreted as negative, with an associated negative impact on career progression decisions of female managers.

To address this issue the authors took a grounded theory approach and 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with female middle-level managers in a wide range of Irish organisations.

The results of the interviews illustrate that role-modelling behaviour has the potential to negatively, rather than positively affect female career progression choices.

The unintended consequences of role-modelling behaviour of senior female managers highlights both the concept of negative role-modelling behaviour and identifies its impact on female managerial career progression.

This paper offers new insights into the construction of the global role model by introducing two new elements – the realistic role model and the departed role model.

The experience of women in international management – especially within a European context – has received little attention in the international human resource management literature. In particular, there is a dearth of empirical research which details the role and career moves of the senior female international manager. The particular focus of this paper is on the senior female international managerial career move in Europe. A total of 50 senior female expatriate managers were interviewed, representing a wide range of industry and service sectors. The article highlights a number of covert and overt barriers which the interviewees believed limit women’s international career opportunities. The findings indicate that it is timely for organisations to face and address the difficulties female managers encounter in their progression to senior managerial positions in order to ensure that future opportunities for progression to senior management is equal to that of their male counterparts.

The particular focus of this paper is female expatriates in Europe, which is a relatively under‐researched area. A total of 50 senior female expatriate managers were interviewed, representing a wide range of industry and service sectors. The aims of the paper are to highlight a number of critical factors which are necessary for successful female expatriate assignments. The results of the study show that female expatriates are disadvantaged in their careers because of the lack of organizational support which is readily available to their male counterparts. This lack of organizational support, together with the invisible barriers which constitute the glass ceiling, explain the relative scarcity of female expatriate managers.

The focus of this paper is on the senior female international managerial career move in Europe. The study assesses an exclusively senior sample of 50 female managers who have made at least one international career move. It has taken as its starting point the unique perspectives and experiences of these senior female international managers. From their different perspectives and experiences, different assumptions about women in international management and female life‐style choices are arrived at. This study of senior females in international management makes a theoretical contribution to the analysis of gender and international human resource management, and to wider debates within the contemporary women in management and career theory literatures. The aims of the study were to develop an understanding of the senior female international career move in a European context in order to more fully understand both the covert and overt barriers that may limit women’s international career opportunities.

In this paper, the authors examine how religious and political factors affect a firm's corporate governance diversity policies.

The authors develop five basic empirical models. Model 1 examines how religious beliefs and political affiliation determine whether a firm will establish diversity incentive in its senior executives' performance assessment. Model 2 investigates how the diversity goal, religious beliefs and political affiliation separately affect the level of actual diversity achieved. Model 3 examines how the diversity goal and environmental factors interact to affect the level of actual diversity achieved. Model 4 and Model 5 examine whether the diversity incentive in senior executives' compensation plan and the environmental factors (religious belief and political affiliation) help to reduce the compensation differentials between male and female executives.

The authors find that firms located in more liberal counties with more Mainline Protestants and less Republican voters in the United States are more likely to include workforce diversity as a criterion in evaluating their senior executives. The authors also provide evidence that firms with diversity goals have more female directors, more female senior executives and more minority directors. However, they find no evidence that the compensation differentials between male and female executives are smaller in these firms. Finally, they find that external environment affects the effectiveness of the implementation of the diversity goals.

In line withthis branch of research, the authors expand the literate on the link between corporate culture and corporate decision-making by investigating the non-financial performance measures. Besides the corporate decision-making in investment, financial reporting and social responsibilities as documented in prior studies, the authors argue that the religious beliefs and political affiliations could also affect the development and implementation of corporate non-financial performance goals in executive incentive contracts.

While the question regarding the low numbers of senior female managers has been posed for decades, it is of particular significance in the Irish context, as a result of the emergence of the Celtic Tiger and the associated rise in female labour force participation. This paper aims to investigate the impact of both individual and organisational barriers on female managerial career progression in Ireland, in an effort to increase understanding of why there are still so few senior female managers. The focus in this study is women in middle level management positions, as it is individuals at this organisational rank who are the natural successors to the executive suite.

In‐depth interviews were conducted with 30 female managers, from across a wide range of industry sectors in Ireland.

The results highlight that the collision of managerial career stage with family life demands is resulting in many female managers feeling pressurized into remaining at middle management level, rather than seeking promotion. One of the most interesting issues to emerge is the importance afforded by the respondents to “visibility” as a career strategy.

The research findings contribute to both the limited research on the Irish context, and to the wider extant literature on the glass ceiling, particularly on the experiences and perceptions of those at middle management level.

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the executives’ team and firm performance by investigating the relationships between executives’ compensation, management gender diversity and firm financial performance in growth enterprises market (GEM) listed firms in China.

Data are collected from 461 companies listed on GEM boards during the period from the year 2016 to 2018. Specifically, executives’ compensation and female executives are set as the independent variables, and the proxy selected of corporate performance is Tobin’s Q ratio.

The results show that the correlation between corporate performance and executive cash payment is not significant, while executives’ equity-based compensation shows a significant positive correlation with firm performance. In addition, the participation of female executives is negatively associated with firm performance.

The results have practical implications for governments, policymakers and regulatory authorities, by indicating the importance of women to corporate success. In particular, the findings of this paper emphasize the specific background of GEM in China and provide empirical support for the value of women’s participation in corporate governance. In addition, the finding on the relationship between executive compensation and corporate performance of GEM listed companies provides guidance for the establishment of a performance compensation system of GEM listed companies in China.

This paper provides new evidence for the current literature of executive team and corporate performance. This is the first paper to adopt triangulation in theories from different disciplines including optimal contractual approach, managerial power approach as new perspectives of agency theory, upper echelons theory, motivational-hygiene theory and women leadership style theory. The results will contribute to provide guidance for enterprises to formulate an efficient compensation system and build a reasonable senior management team structure.

Females now comprise just over half of the workforce in the UK financial services sector. This paper aims to report on the current position relating to factors that are facilitating and inhibiting women from moving into middle and senior levels of management within the financial services sector.

A comparative analysis of four case studies from a cross‐section of the financial services industry is presented, each compiled using interviews with male and female senior and middle managers, and gender‐defined focus groups usually of employees who are in the promotion pipeline.

Despite progress in the case study organisations, both men and women concur that females encounter more barriers to career progression in the industry than men and that these relate primarily to a long hours culture and networking. This leads some women to exclude themselves from working in certain parts of the industry, such as corporate banking. Further, this aspect of the industry culture tends to permeate into areas of the industry where these activities are less important for fostering client relationships.

The research implies that the industry needs to do more to make networking events and activities more gender neutral. Additionally, as more women move up the career pipeline, they should be encouraged to access networks that tap into their equivalent “female networks”.

The paper provides a current picture of managerial working life in the UK financial services industry and provides empirical evidence of the managerial work cultures within the sector.

This paper sets out to examine the experiences of female managers in order to enhance our understanding of why there is a relative scarcity of senior female managers in one of the newest sectors of the Irish economy, the high‐tech sector. Because this sector has effectively only emerged in Ireland in the last 15 years, it had been expected to provide a unique genderless environment in which female managers would emerge in equal numbers to their male counterparts.

This paper takes a qualitative approach. A series of interviews were carried out with 20 female junior and middle managers in this industry segment.

The results of the interviews illustrate that a combination of formal and informal organizational policies and procedures, together with a “self‐imposed” glass ceiling hamper women in junior and middle management positions from advancing to senior managerial roles in this important segment of the Irish economy.

One of the limitations of this study relates to the sample. Further research expanding on this initial sample into other industry sectors is required.

One issue that emerged from the interviews is the concept of a “self‐imposed glass ceiling”, where individual female managers are actively weighing up the costs and the benefits of moving to the next level of management. Based on their analysis of this information they are individually deciding whether or not to engage in the activities, which will assist their carrier progression. The role of individual choice may assist us in explaining the low numbers of women at senior management level.