Metaphors Describing the Gendered Organization in the Career Advancement of Women: An Integrative Review

Abstract

Worldwide, gender equality remains a barrier for women seeking career advancement in corporations. Despite the globalization of corporate social responsibility programs, women have not achieved positional parity with men within the managerial hierarchy. The purpose of this integrative review was to investigate the breadth of the gendered organization literature, summarize the evidence, and inform future research about the career advancement of women in privately owned and publicly traded corporations. Twelve databases were searched between January 1990 and December 2023 for published evidence. Of the 1914 documents screened, 55 articles were included in this review. The gendered organization literature is slowly evolving as a critical area for management research even though fully developed substantive and formal theories are lacking. However, gendered organizations can be conceptualized for theoretical development as a constellation of metaphors embedded in the corporate culture. These metaphors include firewalls, glass ceilings, glass cliffs, glass escalators, labyrinths, queen bees and beehives, and sticky floors. Notably, few intervention studies were reported in the literature. Corporate social responsibility programs had a surprisingly limited impact on eliminating deep-seated structural attributes contributing to gendered organizations. Therefore, management scholars need to engage in theoretical development and research to advance a comprehensive theory of the gendered organization, and studies should investigate why the identified metaphors continue to adversely impact the career advancement of women despite the presence of corporate social responsibility programs. Finally, existing evidence needs to be translated into intervention recommendations for policymakers and corporate leaders.

Full text

Citation: Huaman-Morillo, Sara
Rocio, Kara Lynette Vander Linden,
and Patrick Albert Palmieri. 2024.
Metaphors Describing the Gendered
Organization in the Career
Advancement of Women: An
Integrative Review. Administrative
Sciences 14: 196. https://doi.org/
10.3390/admsci14090196
Received: 11 June 2024
Revised: 15 July 2024
Accepted: 16 July 2024
Published: 28 August 2024
Copyright: © 2024 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
administrative
sciences
Article
Metaphors Describing the Gendered Organization in the Career
Advancement of Women: An Integrative Review
Sara Rocio Huaman-Morillo 1,2 , Kara Lynette Vander Linden 2,3,4 and Patrick Albert Palmieri 2,5,6,7,8,*
1CENTRUM Católica Graduate Business School, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima 15088, Peru;
sara.huaman@jbisa.org
2EBHC South America: A JBI Affiliated Group, Lima 15023, Peru; kvanderlinden@mentoringresearchers.org
3Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies, Poway, CA 92064, USA
4Department of Research, Saybrook University, Pasadena, CA 91103, USA
5South American Centre for Qualitative Research, Universidad Norbert Wiener, Lima 15046, Peru
6College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Excelsior University, Albany, NY 12203, USA
7College of Graduate Health Studies, A.T. Still University, Kirksville, MO 63501, USA
8Center for Global Nursing and Healthcare, Texas Woman’s University, Houston, TX 76204, USA
*Correspondence: patrick.palmieri@jbisa.org
Abstract: Worldwide, gender equality remains a barrier for women seeking career advancement in
corporations. Despite the globalization of corporate social responsibility programs, women have not
achieved positional parity with men within the managerial hierarchy. The purpose of this integrative
review was to investigate the breadth of the gendered organization literature, summarize the evidence,
and inform future research about the career advancement of women in privately owned and publicly
traded corporations. Twelve databases were searched between January 1990 and December 2023
for published evidence. Of the 1914 documents screened, 55 articles were included in this review.
The gendered organization literature is slowly evolving as a critical area for management research
even though fully developed substantive and formal theories are lacking. However, gendered
organizations can be conceptualized for theoretical development as a constellation of metaphors
embedded in the corporate culture. These metaphors include firewalls, glass ceilings, glass cliffs, glass
escalators, labyrinths, queen bees and beehives, and sticky floors. Notably, few intervention studies
were reported in the literature. Corporate social responsibility programs had a surprisingly limited
impact on eliminating deep-seated structural attributes contributing to gendered organizations.
Therefore, management scholars need to engage in theoretical development and research to advance
a comprehensive theory of the gendered organization, and studies should investigate why the
identified metaphors continue to adversely impact the career advancement of women despite the
presence of corporate social responsibility programs. Finally, existing evidence needs to be translated
into intervention recommendations for policymakers and corporate leaders.
Keywords: women; leaders; gender; gendered organization; firewall; glass ceiling; glass cliff; glass
escalator; labyrinth; queen bee; sticky floor; corporate social responsibility; integrative review
1. Introduction
The gendered organization (Acker 1990) describes a constellation of invisible hier-
archical barriers and organizational factors that prevent women from advancing into
corporate management positions (Morrison et al. 1987). According to Acker (1990), these
organizations perpetuate social injustice through a gendered lens where “advantage and
disadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emotion, meaning and identity are
patterned through and in terms of a distinction between male and female, masculine and
feminine” (p. 146). Thus, in terms of an advancing theory of gendered organizations (Brit-
ton 2000;Britton and Logan 2008), gender is relevant as organizations “carry characteristic
images of the kinds of people that should occupy them [management roles]” (Kanter 1977,
Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14090196 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/admsci

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 2 of 21
p. 250). For this reason, researchers often investigate gender equality within the context of
corporate social responsibility (Nkomo and Rodriguez 2019;Tran 2016).
Management scholars need to define the epistemology of the gendered organization
(Britton 2000). According to Pullen et al. (2017), the “gendered organization operates
beyond and beneath the level of ideas and debates, infiltrating everyday experience as we
are moved by mundane gendered encounters that generate affective experiences in our
[female] bodies” (p. 106). There is ample evidence of systemic gender inequality in the
workforce that contributes to an earning gap and limits the career advancement of women
in corporations (Acker 2006;Amore and Garofalo 2021;Biswas et al. 2021;Blau and Kahn
2007;Cook and Glass 2014;Fitzsimmons and Callan 2016;Gasparini et al. 2015;Smith 2002).
As a result, privately owned and publicly traded corporations (Gioffréet al. 2021;Jung and
Mun 2016;Rincón et al. 2017) are addressing gender equality (Mun and Jung 2018) through
corporate social responsibility programs (Biswas et al. 2021;Riyadh et al. 2019;Vogel 2005)
in order to actualize social justice for women.
Although these corporate social responsibility initiatives are increasing the pressure
for gender equality in corporations (Riyadh et al. 2019), greater gender diversity in gover-
nance may not result in more women advancing in the managerial hierarchy of gendered
organizations (Dworkin and Schipani 2018). As such, the relationship between gender
equality and the career advancement of women needs to be further investigated in the
context of corporations in the new economy (Williams et al. 2012). The purpose of this
integrative review was to investigate the breadth of the gendered organization literature,
summarize the evidence, and inform future research about the career advancement of
women in privately owned and publicly traded corporations. The empirical and theoretical
evidence about gendered organizations was identified, organized, analyzed, and integrated
into a heuristic model to inform theory development, guide scoping and systematic reviews,
and provide recommendations for new research.
2. Review Methods
Because evidence synthesis (Rousseau et al. 2008,Sheldon 2005,Tanskanen et al. 2017)
is advancing as an integral component of evidence-based management (Briner and Denyer
2012;Pfeffer and Sutton 2006;Roshanghalb et al. 2018;Rousseau 2006), integrative reviews
complement scoping and systematic reviews as a rigorous and transparent approach
(Toronto and Remington 2020) to develop a comprehensive understanding of complex
phenomena (Dhollande et al. 2021). Although a scoping review is useful to determine
the coverage of the extant literature on a topic (Munn et al. 2018), an integrative review
provides a more flexible approach to summarize multiple types of literature (Whittemore
and Knafl 2005), including theoretical and empirical evidence. Thus, the key output of
an integrative review is findings that contribute to building knowledge and informing
research (Broome 1993).
2.1. Integrative Review Method
To identify and describe the concepts related to gendered organizations, this integra-
tive review was systematic and comprehensive rather than extensive and exhaustive. Fur-
ther, as a pre-investigation review, it was broad in scope in a substantiative area (Nathaniel
2022) to identify the extant literature for a grounded theory study (Creswell and Creswell
2018). Similar to a scoping review (Arksey and O’Malley 2005), this integrative review
followed five steps: (1) problem identification for research question development, (2) a
structured database search to identify the relevant documents, (3) document evaluation to
select the relevant articles for inclusion, (4) charting the data to integrate the evidence into
results, and (5) summarizing the results and presenting the findings.
2.1.1. Step 1. Problem Identification for Research Question Development
The problem of interest was the career advancement of women in relation to the
gendered organization. As such, the research question guiding this integrative review was

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 3 of 21
the following: “What is known about the phenomenon called the gendered organization
in the extant literature regarding the career advancement of women in corporations?”
Given this research focus, the review was intended to identify the concepts associated with
gendered organizations as a complex phenomenon.
2.1.2. Step 2. Structured Database Search to Identify the Relevant Documents
Because a search of the management literature (Hiebl 2021) requires a sample selection
that is structured (Rousseau et al. 2008), comprehensive (Cronin et al. 2008), and transparent
(Torraco 2005,2016), the literature included in this review was determined by a search of
the appropriate databases for the topic using an evidence-based search strategy described
in the next sections.
Database Search. For this review, twelve databases were searched for articles published
between January 1990 and December 2023. The twelve databases included Academic
Source Complete, Business Source Premier, and JSTOR (for humanities and social sciences
literature); ABI/Inform Collection, ProQuest, and the Web of Science (for management
literature (Hiebl 2021)); PsycINFO (for organizational behavior literature (Atewologun et al.
2017)); Scopus (for Latin American management literature (Aguinis et al. 2020)); CINAHL
and PubMed through MedlinePlus (for health sciences literature, including organizations);
and Emerald Insight, ScienceDirect, and Wiley Online Library (for publisher databases
with major collections of business and management journals). In addition, Google Scholar
was searched to identify relevant grey literature, including non-indexed research literature
(Gusenbauer 2019). Finally, techniques such as “pearl growing” (subject terms or citations
from a study used to find other studies) and “citation chasing” (retracing research of authors
or groups of authors) (Booth 2008) were used to identify potentially missed articles.
Search Strategy. The search strategy determined the overall outcome, validity, and
explanatory power of this review (Gusenbauer and Haddaway 2020). For all databases,
primary search terms and keywords were defined and combined with Boolean opera-
tors. A broad primary-level search strategy was used across the databases: (gender OR
gendered) AND (business OR firm OR company OR corporation OR organization OR
workplace) AND (women OR woman OR female OR feminine). Then, search terms were
used for a second-level search strategy that narrowed the retrieved articles to focus on
career (career OR job OR position) and advancement (advancement OR progression OR
promotion). Finally, search terms for a third-level search strategy were used to further
narrow the articles retrieved to publicly traded corporations (corporation OR company)
in the context of outcomes related to gendered organizations (inequality OR inequity OR
discrimination OR prejudice). Delimitators were used in the search strategy to eliminate a
considerable number of documents in areas unrelated to this review, such as documents
focused on gender in entrepreneurship, family businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and
government agencies.
Document Screening. The citations for the documents identified during the database
searches were downloaded directly into EndNote (version 21) as groups sets. Then, the
citations from each group set were consolidated into a new consolidated group set after
duplicate citations were removed. A title review was completed in EndNote as abstracts
were missing for many downloaded citations. Next, incomplete citations were updated to
continue with the abstract review. Finally, the EndNote file was uploaded into JBI SUMARI
(System for the Unified Management of the Assessment and Review of Information) (Munn
et al. 2019) for abstract screening by two reviewers.
2.1.3. Step 3. Document Evaluation to Select the Relevant Articles for Inclusion
The documents included in this integrative review were selected according to the
following inclusion criteria: (1) empirical or theoretical evidence; (2) focused on gendered
organizations; (3) privately and publicly traded corporations; and (4) addressed women,
or men and women, in supervisory roles, such as managers, leaders, or board members.
Articles were excluded if they (1) were published before 1990; (2) did not report empirical

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 4 of 21
or theoretical evidence (e.g., commentary, editorial, reviews); (3) were not focused on
gendered organizations; or (4) were not published in a peer-reviewed source.
2.1.4. Step 4. Chart the Data to Integrate the Evidence into Results
A standardized format was used to extract the information from the articles for
charting in Microsoft Excel. The extracted information included the country and region
of origin, publication year, journal, research aims or objectives, study design, sample size,
demographic data, setting, definitions, theoretical frameworks, primary and secondary
variables, measurement instruments, main findings, and results. Content analysis was
used by the researchers to identify categories in the literature and to integrate the diverse
evidence into a summary of the results.
2.1.5. Step 5. Summarize the Results and Present the Findings
The results of this integrative review were summarized to describe the gendered
organization and to present a heuristic model. The findings were discussed in the context
of the extant literature. The literature was critiqued, and recommendations were presented
for theory development, policy interventions, and future research.
3. Results
The database searches yielded 4491 documents. Of those, 2577 duplicate documents
were removed, and 1914 documents were reviewed. After reviewing titles, an additional
944 documents were excluded, leaving 970 documents for abstract review. Most excluded
articles at this point were outside the topic area (e.g., military, police, prostitution, sports,
and universities or headlines from magazines and newspapers). After reviewing the
abstracts, 94 documents were included in the full-text review. Once inclusion and exclusion
criteria were applied to those remaining documents, 55 articles were included in the review
for analysis. The selection process is detailed in Figure 1, where a PRISMA flow diagram
(Tricco et al. 2018) was adapted for an integrative review.
Of the 55 articles included in this review, 42 were empirical and 13 were theoretical
articles. Most research articles (n = 29) were reported from 12 developed countries, in-
cluding 11 articles from the United States, 4 articles from the United Kingdom, 2 articles
each from Belgum, Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands, and 1 article each from Australia,
France, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. There were three international research
articles with data from multiple developed countries. There were also 10 articles from
seven developing countries, including Bangladesh (n = 4), Brazil (n = 1), India (n = 1),
Ghana (n = 1), Peru (n = 1), Saudi Arabia (n = 1), and South Africa (n = 1).
The empirical articles included 30 quantitative, 11 qualitative, and 1 mixed-methods
study designs. Of the 10 research articles from developing countries, nearly half had
qualitative designs, but few were quantitative. Finally, the 13 theoretical articles were
primarily conceptual, and no articles reported a formal literature review. Most of the
theoretical articles (n = 10) were from the United Kingdom (n = 5) and the United States
(
n=5
), and the remaining were from other developed countries, including Austria (
n=1
),
the Netherlands (n = 1), and Turkey (n = 1). There were no theoretical articles from
developing countries. Supplemental Table S1 provides a complete listing of the articles
included in the results by country, and evidence type.

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 5 of 21
Figure 1. PRISMA Flow Diagram Adapted for an Integrative Review.
3.1. Metaphors for the Gendered Organization
The principal finding of this integrative review indicated that the gendered organi-
zation is a phenomenon experienced by women that limits their career advancement in
corporations and manifests through coexisting structures, processes, practices, and behav-
iors that prevent them from becoming leaders. The gendered organization was conceptually
described by seven metaphors with mechanisms of action that prevent the career advance-
ment of women: firewalls (Andersson et al. 2022;Bendl and Schmidt 2010), glass ceilings
(Afza and Newaz 2008;Ahmed et al. 2010;Amakye et al. 2022;Avolio et al. 2023;Babic
and Hansez 2021;Barnet-Verzat and Wolff 2008;Bendl and Schmidt 2010;Biagetti and
Scicchitano 2011;Carbajal 2018;Christofides et al. 2013;Davies-Netzley 1998;Carli and
Eagly 2016;Elacqua et al. 2009;Erskine et al. 2021;Faruk 2021;Hoobler et al. 2009;Ibarra
et al. 2013;Kee 2006;Kisi 2019;Lewellyn and Muller-Kahle 2020;Maume 1999;Nazmul
et al. 2016;Ng and Sears 2017;Purcell et al. 2010;Ragins et al. 1998;Scicchitano 2014;
Sharma and Kaur 2019;Van Vianen and Fischer 2002;Wiswall and Zafar 2017;Wrigley
2002), glass cliffs (Bruckmüller and Branscombe 2010;Haslam and Ryan 2008;Kisi 2019;
Mashele and Alagidede 2022;Ryan and Haslam 2005;Ryan et al. 2007,2008;Ryan and
Haslam 2007), glass escalators (Mason 1997;Maume 1999;Ng and Wiesner 2007;Ryan et al.

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 6 of 21
2007;Williams 1992), labyrinths (Eagly and Carli 2007;Carli and Eagly 2016;Hoyt 2010),
queen bees and beehives (Abalkhail 2020;Arvate et al. 2018;Baykal et al. 2020;Corwin
et al. 2022;Derks et al. 2011,2016;Faniko et al. 2016;Mavin 2006,2008), and sticky floors
(Baert et al. 2016;Biagetti and Scicchitano 2011,2014;Booth et al. 2003;Christofides et al.
2013;Faruk 2021;Kee 2006;Scicchitano 2014). The articles from developing countries were
primarily focused on glass ceilings (Afza and Newaz 2008;Ahmed et al. 2010;Amakye
et al. 2022;Avolio et al. 2023;Faruk 2021;Nazmul et al. 2016;Sharma and Kaur 2019), but
some focused on glass cliffs (Mashele and Alagidede 2022), queen bees (Abalkhail 2020;
Arvate et al. 2018), and sticky floors (Faruk 2021). The metaphorical elements defining the
gendered organization are presented as a heuristic model in Figure 2and summarized in
the following sections organized by metaphor.
Adm. Sci. 2024, 14, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 22
glass escalators (Mason 1997; Maume 1999; Ng and Wiesner 2007; Ryan et al. 2007; Wil-
liams 1992), labyrinths (Eagly and Carli 2007; Eagly 2008; Hoyt 2010), queen bees and bee-
hives (Abalkhail 2020; Arvate et al. 2018; Baykal et al. 2020; Corwin et al. 2022; Derks et al.
2011, 2016; Faniko et al. 2016; Mavin 2006, 2008), and sticky floors (Baert et al. 2016; Biagei
and Scicchitano 2011, 2014; Booth et al. 2003; Christofides et al. 2013; Faruk 2021; Kee 2006;
Scicchitano 2014). The articles from developing countries were primarily focused on glass
ceilings (Afza and Newaz 2008; Ahmed et al. 2010; Amakye et al. 2022; Avolio et al. 2023;
Faruk 2021; Nazmul et al. 2016; Sharma and Kaur 2019), but some focused on glass cliffs
(Mashele and Alagidede 2022), queen bees (Abalkhail 2020; Arvate et al. 2018), and sticky
floors (Faruk 2021). The metaphorical elements defining the gendered organization are
presented as a heuristic model in Figure 2 and summarized in the following sections or-
ganized by metaphor.
Figure 2. Heuristic Model of the Metaphorical Elements Defining the Gendered Organization.
3.1.1. Firewall
Organizational barriers and cultural constraints surround women because discrimi-
nation is an ongoing process (Bendl and Schmidt 2010) with “everyday doings” of gen-
dered norms and power relations (Andersson et al. 2022). In a case study at a Swedish
truck company, Andersson et al. (2022) observed that organization normative ideals ex-
isted as informal layers of a firewall. For example, an engineer was “identified as someone
with a longstanding passion for technology, often identified as a heterosexual man with a
wife, two kids, living in a house in a specific middle-class area of the city” (p. 149). Thus,
the typical perspective of an engineer resulted in “doing discrimination” (Bendl and
Schmidt 2010) because it guided the decision-making toward discrimination for selecting
Figure 2. Heuristic Model of the Metaphorical Elements Defining the Gendered Organization.
3.1.1. Firewall
Organizational barriers and cultural constraints surround women because discrimina-
tion is an ongoing process (Bendl and Schmidt 2010) with “everyday doings” of gendered
norms and power relations (Andersson et al. 2022). In a case study at a Swedish truck
company, Andersson et al. (2022) observed that organization normative ideals existed
as informal layers of a firewall. For example, an engineer was “identified as someone
with a longstanding passion for technology, often identified as a heterosexual man with
a wife, two kids, living in a house in a specific middle-class area of the city” (p. 149).
Thus, the typical perspective of an engineer resulted in “doing discrimination” (Bendl and
Schmidt 2010) because it guided the decision-making toward discrimination for selecting
and promoting engineers. Since the research about firewalls was limited to a Swedish
setting, its applicability to other countries and cultures remains unknown.

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 7 of 21
3.1.2. Glass Ceiling
For decades, the glass ceiling has been reported in the occupational and work lit-
eratures (Hoyt 2010;Maume 1999). The glass ceiling is considered the status quo for
gender discrimination because it describes the invisible barriers in organizations (Bendl
and Schmidt 2010) “through which women can see elite positions but cannot reach them”
(Davies-Netzley 1998, p. 340). According to Babic and Hansez (2021), the “glass ceiling
refers to the fact that a qualified person wishing to advance within the hierarchy of his/her
organization is stopped at a lower level due to a discrimination most often based on sexism
or racism” (p. 2). Although the glass ceiling is only one factor related to the gendered
organization, it was the metaphor most widely reported in the literature (Kisi 2019), and
more studies than expected were from developing countries. Similarly, wage distribution
studies focused on gender were reported in the literature. Wider gender gaps at the top
wages were attributed to the glass ceiling effect (Biagetti and Scicchitano 2011;Christofides
et al. 2013;Kee 2006;Scicchitano 2014;Wiswall and Zafar 2017), but that gap was narrower
in some sectors (Barnet-Verzat and Wolff 2008).
Multiple factors were reported that support the glass ceiling and were grouped as
interpersonal (Elacqua et al. 2009), personal (Afza and Newaz 2008), situational (Elacqua
et al. 2009), social (Ahmed et al. 2010), and organizational (Babic and Hansez 2021). Re-
searchers in India (Sharma and Kaur 2019), for example, reported that women managers
(
n = 553
) perceived that the glass ceiling effect resulted from organizational (disparate treat-
ment, negative work environment, gender discrimination, and biased corporate practices)
and societal (family priorities and responsibilities and work–family imbalance) factors
rather than personal (lack of self-esteem and challenge aversion) factors. In Ghana, women
leaders reported that prejudices and stereotypes placed excessive pressure on them to
perform better than their male colleagues (Amakye et al. 2022). However, older women
leaders benefited from motherhood, which is a respected role within ubuntu (Amakye
et al. 2022) (defined as the universal truth of a society based on authentic relationships that
results in humanity through collectivism). However, younger subordinates reported being
disadvantaged by their age more than gender (Amakye et al. 2022), which may be tied to
age discrimination in the context of masculine leadership styles (Carbajal 2018).
The lifestyle preferences of women may partially explain the glass ceiling effect
(Wiswall and Zafar 2017). Lifestyle preferences were linked to indirect discrimination,
or second generation bias, since women were given positions above the glass ceiling that
men would most likely decline or perceive as very difficult to succeed at (Ibarra et al. 2013).
In a related Belgian study of women managers (n = 320) (Babic and Hansez 2021), work–
family conflict mediated the effects of the glass ceiling on job strain and job engagement
and partially mediated the effects of the glass ceiling on job satisfaction and intention to
quit. When women reported less work–family conflict than men, managers still believed
that women had more conflict, and they viewed women as having a poorer promotability
profile (Hoobler et al. 2009). The glass ceiling effect perceptions of Indian women were
associated with lower work engagement, particularly for married women, who had the
lowest work engagement (Sharma and Kaur 2019). Regarding promotion in an organiza-
tion, age was positively significant for Black and White women but not men, and years of
service negatively influenced women but not men (Maume 1999). These findings suggest
that the contemporary literature is beginning to recognize that the career advancement of
women is more related to their intersectionality than just their gender (Erskine et al. 2021).
In a large national study of women executives in Fortune 100 companies, women
believed that the best strategies for breaking through the glass ceiling were to consistently
exceed performance expectations, develop a style that made men comfortable, seek difficult
or high-visibility assignments, have a respected mentor, and network with influential
colleagues (Ragins et al. 1998). In another study, men preferred competition, effort, and
work pressure more than women at lower levels of the organization, but this gender
difference disappeared for managers (Van Vianen and Fischer 2002). In a study investigating
women leaders, five major factors contributing to the glass ceiling were denial, gender role

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 8 of 21
socialization, historical precedence, women turning against other women, and corporate
culture (Wrigley 2002). Further, a psychological process called negotiated resignation was
suggested to help women “continue in their current jobs and accept the discrimination at
least enough to fit in and carry on” (p. 52). A perceived glass ceiling had little impact on
the job satisfaction of Bangladeshi women, but it significantly influenced their decision
to change employment unless they were married or believed they had a good network
(Nazmul et al. 2016).
The glass ceiling effect was reported to be influenced by macro-level factors, such as
chief executive officer gender, recruitment strategies targeting women, internationalization,
and foreign ownership. Ng and Sears (2017) noted that although corporations “exercise
discretion with respect to hiring and advancing women in the workplace, they may also be
constrained by the external environment” (p. 144). However, women with economic or
political power similar to men were reported to overcome gender barriers to achieve board
positions (Lewellyn and Muller-Kahle 2020). This outcome was partially attributed to the
“shared values, beliefs, and attitudes that constitute the culture within a given national
context interact with empowerment forces in ways that affect gender diversity on corporate
boards” (p. 342). Given that gender inequities are often built into the culture, this finding
may explain the pervasiveness of the glass ceiling in developing countries. For example,
when evaluating the perspective of women board members, Avolio et al. (2023) “confirmed
the presence of the glass ceiling” (p. 95) in corporations listed on the Lima Stock Exchange.
Despite recommendations for more research focused on the effectiveness of workplace
policies and human resource interventions for gender equality (Purcell et al. 2010), there
was little evidence in the literature of such studies.
3.1.3. Glass Cliff
The glass cliff extends the metaphors of the glass ceiling and the glass escalator
(discussed in the next section) by describing the precarious promotion of women leaders
during periods of crisis in the gendered organization (Kisi 2019). Ryan and Haslam
(2007) described this situation as institutionalized discrimination in the “form of ingroup
favoritism such that more attractive positions are reserved for fellow ingroup members
(i.e., in the form of ‘jobs for the boys’) while outgroup members are left to occupy those
positions the ingroup does not want” (p. 559). The cliff effect results from a male rather
than a female history of leadership when a new leader is selected at an organization under
crisis conditions (Bruckmüller and Branscombe 2010). Female leaders may be willing to
accept greater risk to access an executive role.
In their archival analysis of large corporations, Ryan and Haslam (2005) concluded
that “women are particularly likely to be placed in positions of leadership [on the glass cliff]
in circumstances of general financial downturn and downturn in company performance”
(p. 87). Women were also more likely to be appointed to the boards of companies with
consistently poor performance in the previous five months. Yet women were less likely
to receive resources because they were expected to use their superior people skills and
distinctive leadership style (Ryan and Haslam 2005,2007;Ryan et al. 2007). Similarly,
women were thought to have better skills to manage the stress of crisis situations (Haslam
and Ryan 2008). Women leaders “inspire followers to look beyond considerations of narrow
self-interest and to work together for the interest of all” (Mashele and Alagidede 2022,
p. 505). These findings suggested that promotions into leadership can be dangerous for
women during organizational instability because they may lead to performance criticism
and a high risk of failure (Bruckmüller and Branscombe 2010;Haslam and Ryan 2008;Ryan
et al. 2007,2008).
3.1.4. Glass Escalator
The glass escalator describes the invisible process where men ascend the career path
more rapidly than female colleagues in heavily female-dominated professions (Maume 1999;
Williams 1992). In an analytical study, Mason (1997) reported the preferential promotion of

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 9 of 21
men in heavily female-dominated professions but suggested this may be an “unintended
consequence” of equity programs (p. 172). The glass escalator was also noted to provide a
hidden advantage for men in female-dominated professions (Williams 1992) in the context
of the gendered organization. For example, Ng and Wiesner (2007) reported discrimination
against women in female-dominated occupations and more rapid promotions for men,
who benefited from a structural advantage. Men were also reported to have access to a
glass escalator in other circumstances (Ryan et al. 2007). Finally, women were described
as “crowded into sex-typical occupations, in which their work efforts are devalued and
ignored, causing their careers to lag behind White men” (Maume 1999, p. 502). This area
of the literature was closely related to the metaphor of the labyrinth since men have an
express route for advancement while women encounter obstacles.
3.1.5. Labyrinth
The labyrinth describes the gendered career pathways required for men and women to
climb the organizational hierarchy (Eagly and Carli 2007). While the climb for men is often
homogeneous, including pleasant weather and straight paths, women often encounter ad-
verse weather conditions and complex turns, including dead ends. The tailored experience
for women resulted in a lack of anticipation about which path to take and what obstacles
they might encounter (Carli and Eagly 2016). According to Hoyt (2010), the obstacles hidden
in the labyrinth included the other metaphors, such as the glass ceiling. The key point about
the labyrinth metaphor is that the career advancement route is neither direct nor simple for
women in gendered organizations (Eagly and Carli 2007;Carli and Eagly 2016).
3.1.6. Queen Bee and Beehive
The queen bee metaphor describes how “women who have been successful in male-
dominated organizations sometimes behave in ways that impede rather than help the
advancement of other women” (Faniko et al. 2016, p. 903). This metaphor is often applied
as a derogatory label to senior women leaders who have succeeded in male-dominated
work environments despite being devalued and negatively stereotyped (Derks et al. 2011).
As such, the metaphor advances the “blame the woman” perspective (Mavin 2006,2008)
that ignores the gendered inequities embedded in the organization (Derks et al. 2016) and
negatively impacts women. The metaphor also explains how women leaders improvise
and adopt strategies to navigate their advancement in gendered organizations. The key
point is that the woman may be conditioned by the environment.
Women leaders were more likely to form sisterly relationships with solidarity behav-
iors that facilitate the professional development and career advancement of subordinate
women (Mavin 2006,2008). However, the relationships can become conditional, discon-
nected, and fragile in the context of discrimination in male-dominated work environments
(Abalkhail 2020). In a gendered organization, senior women leaders may be unwilling to
mentor female subordinates (Derks et al. 2016) and oppose policies that promote gender
equality for women earlier in their careers (Faniko et al. 2016). Yet, later in their careers,
senior women leaders were more likely to support subordinate women perceived to be
worthy of their support (Faniko et al. 2016). In one study, the presence of a female chief ex-
ecutive officer suggested a negative relationship with the number of female senior leaders,
despite a favorable trickle-down effect from the board (Corwin et al. 2022). As such, the
researchers suggested that there was a beehive effect since the trickle-down was influenced
by executive power, board vigilance, and environmental munificence.
According to Derks et al. (2011), “women who show evidence of the queen bee
phenomenon do not do so because of their inherent predisposition to compete with other
women, but because they see this as a way to pursue their ambitions in sexist organizational
cultures” (p. 530). For example, women leaders may self-group at a distance as a strategy to
protect their status by assimilating to the masculine norms of the gendered organization. At
this point, the woman leader has “come to see their gender as a liability to career success”
(Derks et al. 2016, p. 458). Queen bees also promoted men who fit the leader stereotype

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 10 of 21
of the organization rather than selecting and promoting more qualified women (Corwin
et al. 2022). This finding may explain the queen bee effect that results in a higher turnover
intention of subordinate women (Baykal et al. 2020). When the queen bee experiences
a social identify threat (Baykal et al. 2020) in the hierarchical complexity of a gendered
organization, they will sting when threatened by other women (Mavin 2006).
Queen bees are negatively judged because their behavior differs from other women,
characterized as gender-identifying and self-modest, who are at lower levels of the or-
ganization (Faniko et al. 2016). The presence of the queen bee provides “evidence of
female misogyny by women in management
. . .
where women either threaten to or actually
succeed in, de-stabilizing the established gendered order by either displaying ambition
toward senior management or by actually succeeding in a move into senior management”
(Mavin 2006, p. 72). However, a study from Brazil comparing public municipalities and
private organizations concluded that when favorable conditions afford female leaders with
power and managerial discretion, “female leaders are ‘benevolent’ and create opportunities
and a pro-female condition for other women” (Arvate et al. 2018, p. 547). Given these
findings, the queen bee phenomenon requires more theoretical development to identify
queen bee characteristics, describe the climate supporting the beehive, and empirically
measure associated outcomes.
3.1.7. Sticky Floor
The sticky floor metaphor describes women stuck in low-paying positions without
upward mobility. Despite career ladders and professional development opportunities in
organizations, women seem to be held back in low-paying jobs at the lowest levels (Kee
2006). Frequently, the sticky floor is investigated in the context of wage distributions, where
the wider gender gap at the bottom is the sticky floor (Biagetti and Scicchitano 2011,2014;
Booth et al. 2003;Christofides et al. 2013;Kee 2006;Scicchitano 2014) in the same way that
the wider gender gap at the top is the glass ceiling. In a study from Bangladesh (Faruk
2021), the sticky floor effect was reported to be stronger and much wider at the bottom,
and discriminatory rewards were a ‘dominant feature’ of the wage gap. Importantly, even
though women are promoted similarly to men in many organizations, the women were
observed to be stuck at the bottom of the wage scale for a new position (Booth et al. 2003).
The sticky floor has also been attributed to women not being interviewed as often as men
when they apply for jobs (Baert et al. 2016). The sticky floor is a small but emerging area of
the literature investigating the wage gap as it relates to profiles, positions, and promotions.
3.1.8. Other Metaphors
In the reviewed literature, additional metaphors were used with limited frequency and
included the concrete ceiling (Erskine et al. 2021;Hall et al. 2012;Holder et al. 2015), glass
door (Cohen et al. 1998), glass floor (Barnet-Verzat and Wolff 2008), glass slippers (Ashcraft
2013), leaky pipeline (Bilimoria et al. 2008), and velvet ghettos (Guillaume and Pochic 2009).
These less common but emerging metaphors are briefly summarized in relation to the
previously discussed metaphors.
The concrete (or black) ceiling extended the glass ceiling effect to the experience of
Black women by recognizing that their intersectionality resulted in greater exclusion from
promotion than other groups of women (Erskine et al. 2021;Hall et al. 2012). Researchers
reported that Black women were minimized in predominantly White institutional cultures
because embedded discrimination led managers to perceive Black women as unprofessional,
incompetent, and hostile (Hall et al. 2012;Holder et al. 2015). The essential point for
differentiating the ceiling type, glass or concrete, was the added complexity of considering
the intersectionality of women.
The glass door describes the initial hiring barriers that prevent women from entering
an organization (Cohen et al. 1998). However, the metaphor seems quite similar to the
sticky floor effect. In a Belgian study, women received fewer invitations to interview
than men when applying for jobs, and they received fewer callbacks when invited to

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 11 of 21
interview (Baert et al. 2016). The glass floor also describes gender inequality at the lowest
organizational levels since women with less educational qualifications have the least
likelihood for advancement (Barnet-Verzat and Wolff 2008). For some metaphors, there
seem to be overlapping characteristics associated with ill-defined concepts or inadequately
developed research. Therefore, clear and concise definitions are needed to understand
the major tenets of a metaphor, to identify the discrete differences, and to explain the
mechanisms of action.
The glass slipper was proposed in a conceptual paper as “the alignment of occupational
identity with embodied social identities as it yields systematic forms of advantage and
disadvantage” (Ashcraft 2013, p. 13). The associative view of the work–practitioner
relationship is consolidated through the glass slipper metaphor to describe the “fit” between
the social identities of people, such as gender and race, with the collective occupational
identity of organizations and management. As such, Ashcraft (2013) justified uniting work
and diversity research agendas such that “occupations come to appear ‘naturally’ possessed
of features that fit certain people yet are improbable for others” (p. 6).
Similar to the glass ceiling, in one study, French women were forced into traditional
“velvet ghettos” that narrowed their careers to specialized fields, such as communication,
finance, and human resources, and were provided limited opportunities to access top
management positions (Guillaume and Pochic 2009). Further, women continue to be forced
into gendered corporate career paths because of a work–life reconciliation influenced by
their geographic mobility, time availability, and dual-career relationship. According to
Guillaume and Pochic (2009), the contemporary “flexible availability” inherent in family-
oriented young women managers with children was “interpreted by their line managers
as a self-limitation and their explicit withdrawal from the competition for power” (p. 33).
In the context of availability and being family-oriented, the leaky pipe metaphor further
described women who choose to exit their careers at different stages (Bilimoria et al. 2008)
to accommodate external conditions, such as having children, relocating for the career of a
spouse, or caring for elderly parents.
3.2. Research Areas Intersecting with the Metaphors
When reviewing the literature, multiple research areas were frequently identified in
relation to the metaphors of the gendered organization. These areas—wages, recruitment,
leadership styles, and corporate social responsibility—were applicable across multiple
metaphors. The areas are briefly summarized in the next sections.
3.2.1. Wages
In a study investigating promotion, pay, and gender, women were as likely as men
to be promoted, but they received lower wages (Booth et al. 2003). More recently, the
U-shaped pattern of wage distribution observed for Italian (Biagetti and Scicchitano 2011)
and Spanish (Scicchitano 2014) women represented discernable sticky floor and glass
ceiling effects that may be explained by differences in rewards. In a study of the wage gap
across 26 countries of the European Union, differences across countries were observed,
but the wider and smaller gaps at the tops and bottoms of countries were not explained
by the available variables in the data (Christofides et al. 2013). The researchers posited
that country-specific policies related to work and family life and gender equity may be
responsible for the between-country variations. In another study, at least 25% of the gender
wage gap was explained by early career college-educated women being more willing to
trade work flexibility and job stability for lower earnings growth (Wiswall and Zafar 2017).
3.2.2. Recruitment
In a survey of 278 corporations, the presence of a female chief executive officer was
associated with an increased recruitment of women (Ng and Sears 2017). The gender of
the chief executive officer was also positively associated with the percentage of women in
management (ß = 0.29, p< 0.01), and recruitment practices targeting women for manage-

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 12 of 21
ment was positively associated with the percentage of women in management (
ß = 0.12
,
p< 0.05
). Corporations with international operations were negatively associated with the
percentage of women in management (ß =
−
0.15, p< 0.01), and there was a negative rela-
tionship between foreign corporate ownership and female representation in management
(ß =
−
0.26, p< 0.01). However, the researchers reported no interactions between foreign
ownership and internationalization and other predictor variables that could explain women
manager representation.
3.2.3. Leadership Styles
Some studies reported that the relationship between women leaders and their lead-
ership style influenced their career advancement. Specifically, the behaviors of women
executives were closely aligned with transformational leadership characteristics (Bilal et al.
2021;Saint-Michel 2018;Stempel et al. 2015;Suranga Silva and Mendis 2017) and influenced
by sociocultural factors (Abolade 2014;Lincoln 2012). For example, female chief execu-
tive officers were reported to have masculine leadership styles despite different preferred
styles (Carbajal 2018). Female leaders have been associated with such characteristics as
caring, supporting, and nurturing that align with transformational leadership. In contrast,
men have been reported to be aggressive, decisive, and assertive (Koenig et al. 2011). In
a case study about the glass cliff, transformational women leaders were reported to be
highly effective in crisis situations, and transaction leaders were less effective (Mashele
and Alagidede 2022). Finally, in a meta-analysis of leadership styles, evidence strongly
suggested that women leaders are more transformational (Eagly et al. 2003) than their
male counterparts.
3.2.4. Corporate Social Responsibility
Internationally, public policy strategies and corporate social responsibility programs
have tried to address the gender equality gap for women in the workplace. Despite ranking
third in opportunities for women according to the World Economic Forum (Hausmann et al.
2011), the Norwegian government approved a law requiring the boards of public limited-
liability corporations to be at least 40% women (Ahern and Dittmar 2012). Ideally, the long-
term impact of the law would result in more women in top corporate positions, narrowing
of the gender gap in earnings, and more women board members with better qualifications
(Bertrand et al. 2018). However, there has not been a trickle-down effect as anticipated. The
number of women middle managers has not increased since the implementation of the
law (Strom 2019). Furthermore, an increased intention of women to enter business careers
has not been realized as anticipated. Similarly, researchers in Australia (Gould et al. 2018a,
2018b) reported a small nonlinear trickle-down effect between women board members
and women senior-level executives in a longitudinal study (between 2003 and 2012) of
publicly traded organizations (n = 1387). No impact was reported for women at other
levels of the management hierarchy. This finding may be the result of senior executives
distancing themselves from other women in the organization (2022). Unfortunately, the
current literature suggests that corporate social responsibility programs have had a limited
impact in minimizing the deep-seated structures and masculinized cultures that contribute
to contemporary gendered organizations.
4. Discussion
The gendered organization has been described by management scholars as the central
influence grounding the inequality (Britton 2000;Martin 1992;Martin and Collinson 2002;
Mumby and Ashcraft 2006), discrimination (Acker 2006;Biswas et al. 2021;Burgess and
Borgida 1999;Cook and Glass 2014;Fitzsimmons and Callan 2016;Kiser 2015;Vasconcelos
2023;Webber and Giuffre 2019), and oppression (Britton and Logan 2008;Fletcher 2004;
Pullen et al. 2017;Steinfield et al. 2019) of women in corporate cultures that are weaponized
by gender-biased structures, processes, and practices (Acar and Sümer 2018;Ellemers
2014;Hoyt 2012;Kalaitzi et al. 2017;Purcell et al. 2010;Stephenson et al. 2022). Yet,

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 13 of 21
women are considered to be gender equality agents since their access to corporate power
deconstructs the gendered organization for the benefit of all women (Stainback et al.
2016). For this reason, corporate social responsibility programs are believed to be an
important intervention to eliminate barriers and create the conditions essential for the
career advancement of women into higher levels of the organizational hierarchy. The
results of this integrative review indicated that the current literature provided sparse
evidence to support this perspective.
According to Chugh and Sahgal (2007), employees across an organization typically
believe that “male is equal to manager” because gender stereotypes and sex role orientations
are cemented into the management power structure as a masculine construct. Even when
women are promoted into senior management positions, they are often described as she-
males because they “usually resemble the men in power” (Grant 1988, p. 57). Once women
are promoted, however, their ability to progress is sharply reduced, limiting them to lower
rather than higher leadership positions (Burgess and Fallon 2003). In recent studies, women
promoted to senior management positions experienced a U-shaped gender wage gap
despite having the same characteristics as their male counterparts (Biagetti and Scicchitano
2014;Scicchitano 2014). The gender wage gap was suggested to result from sticky floor and
glass ceiling effects.
Because women are associated with being caring, supportive, and nurturing and men
are associated with being aggressive, decisive, and assertive (Koenig et al. 2011), there is a
disproportionate number of men holding senior executive positions in organizations. This
reinforces the male culture and contributes to gender bias networking. As such, people
remain surprised to see a woman in charge (Kruse 2022;White and Burkinshaw 2019). In
addition, cultured gender norms cause women to encounter firewalls that protect power
by requiring women to move through layers of screening to access networks essential
for professional advancement (Andersson et al. 2022). In a study of Belgium organiza-
tions, Babic and Hansez (2021) reported that an organization’s gender culture resulted
in work-to-family conflicts that mediated the effects of the glass ceiling on job strain and
engagement. Indirect discrimination is also problematic for women since they are given
positions that men will most likely decline or perceive as very difficult to achieve success
(Ibarra et al. 2013).
The gender gap for women advancing in management may be partially explained by
lifestyle preferences. According to Wiswall and Zafar (2017), early career college-educated
women are willing to trade work flexibility and job stability for lower earnings growth.
In another study, women considering their initial corporate employment were more con-
cerned about family and health while their male counterparts were more concerned about
position and salary (Sheppard 2018). Further, men tended to focus on achieving higher
earnings growth at the expense of work flexibility and job stability. These findings high-
light the lifestyle difference where men focus more on promotion and wages and women
focus on flexibility and stability. Finally, lifestyle preferences were also related to indirect
discrimination, as women are offered positions that men do not want (Ibarra et al. 2013).
Ample evidence has shown that systemic gender inequality in the workforce con-
tributes to an earning gap and the limited career advancement of women in corporations
(Acker 2006;Amore and Garofalo 2021;Biswas et al. 2021;Blau and Kahn 2007;Cook
and Glass 2014;Fitzsimmons and Callan 2016;Gasparini et al. 2015;Smith 2002). Despite
attempts by governments to legislate solutions, advance reporting transparency through
corporate social responsibility guidelines, and implementing corporate strategies that pro-
mote gender diversity, the literature suggested that favorable results most often materialize
at the governance level or, somewhat less, in the senior executive levels of organizations
(Bertrand et al. 2018;Min 2022;Mun and Jung 2018;Scicchitano 2014;Storvik and Schone
2008). As such, gender equality remains a problem for most women seeking advancement
into corporate management positions.
Published data from high-income countries with strong regulatory reforms and mod-
ern corporate social responsibility programs indicate minimal advancement in the number

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 14 of 21
of corporate management positions filled by women. Despite better representation of
women in corporate governance and more women emerging as senior executives in de-
veloped countries, there has not been the anticipated “trickle-down” effect (Gould et al.
2018b;Perilleux and Szafarz 2022) for the career advancement of other women. Instead,
trickle-down effects, when observed, were strongest in male-dominated industries at lower
organizational levels and female-dominated industries at higher organizational levels
(Ali et al. 2021). As such, the career advancement of women remains difficult at most
organizational levels.
Critique of the Literature
For all countries included in this integrative review, the primary focus of research
investigating the gendered organization was the glass ceiling effect in relation to corporate
governance and the executive leadership levels of organizations. The literature also ad-
dressed the relationship between the glass ceiling effect and corporate social responsibility.
Most of this research focused on board members and executive, or “C-suite”, leaders in the
context of organizations operating in developed countries. There were surprisingly few
studies focused on reporting public policy initiatives and human resource management
interventions, and even fewer evaluation studies. With a couple of exceptions, the literature
lacked evidence from developing regions of the world. In those studies, articles focused
almost exclusively on executive leaders and rarely addressed middle and lower levels
of management. For example, the only study identified from Latin America focused on
women in governance. When comparing the type of research designs from developing
and developed countries, there was an appreciably greater focus on qualitative research in
developing countries than in developed countries.
Despite some exuberance about corporate social responsibility positively impacting
the career advancement of women, the theory of gendered organizations (Acker 1990),
as proposed in 1990, has slowly evolved within the management literature such that it
remains theoretically and empirically underdeveloped (Britton 2000). This situation may be
explained by the masculine culture of business schools, which contributes to the problem
instead of solving it. In business schools, women experience overt discrimination in “chilly
climates” (Krishna and Orhun 2022;Lanier et al. 2009;Reilly et al. 2016) because traditional
masculine structures are maintained by cultures “shaped by societal factors and steered
by those [men] who hold power” (Gooty et al. 2023, para. 8). According to Fotaki (2011),
business schools are “complicit in perpetuating the failure of ‘diversity management’ as
they undermine the very practices they ostensibly teach” (p. 50). Because gendered
organizations “tend to move back towards an equilibrium when confronted with change”
(Bleijenbergh 2018, p. 132), business schools are unlikely to create an environment that
supports women management scholars interested in developing research related to the
metaphors or advancing the theory of gendered organizations. Recently, there have been
calls for business schools to shift the conversation from a “fix the women” mentality to a
“fix the system” approach to tangibly embrace gender equality (Gooty et al. 2023). When
business school leaders choose to “reform their own institutions by actively combating
the deeply ingrained sexism that prevails” (Yarrow and Davies 2022, p. 16), the research
agendas and theory development in gendered organizations can be safely advanced by
women management scholars.
5. Conclusions
As suggested by the results of this integrative review, the literature regarding gen-
dered organizations in relation to the career advancement of women in corporations is
slowly evolving as a critical area for future management research. In the literature, the
gendered organization was defined by metaphors, a constellation of concepts embedded in
organizational cultures, that included firewalls, glass ceilings, glass cliffs, glass escalators,
labyrinths, queen bees and beehives, and sticky floors. Surprisingly, there were no fully
developed substantive and formal theories to inform a comprehensive theory of gendered

Adm. Sci. 2024,14, 196 15 of 21
organizations. These theories are essential to deconstruct the metaphors that persist in
organizations and cause gender inequalities and inequities. For this reason, theoretical
development is needed to better understand the metaphors and guide new research areas
to understand the complexities of the contemporary gendered organization. This work
should focus on describing the mechanisms of action for the metaphors, individually and
collectively, that adversely impact women. Importantly, such research should also include
studies that investigate national nuances and their relationships to the context and culture
of corporations operating in the developing world.
Because this integrative review found little evidence about effective interventions to
achieve gender equality for the career advancement of women, researchers also need to
identify the deeply embedded structures and processes that maintain the metaphors and
describe the gendered organization. Although corporate social responsibility initiatives
resulted in more women serving as board directors and senior leaders of corporations, there
were no appreciable improvements in the career advancement of women at other levels of
the managerial hierarchy. For this reason, corporations should disclose the outcome data
of their corporate social responsibility program initiatives for gender equality and career
advancement in their annual reports to shareholders. Furthermore, regulatory agencies
and investment organizations should require increased transparency in gender equality
data reporting for corporate social responsibility programs.
Supplementary Materials: The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https:
//www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/admsci14090196/s1, Table S1: Review Articles by Country and
Evidence Type.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, S.R.H.-M.; methodology, S.R.H.-M. and P.A.P.; validation,
K.L.V.L.; formal analysis, S.R.H.-M. and P.A.P.; investigation, S.R.H.-M., K.L.V.L. and P.A.P.; resources,
S.R.H.-M., K.L.V.L. and P.A.P.; data curation, S.R.H.-M., K.L.V.L. and P.A.P.; writing—original draft
preparation, S.R.H.-M.; writing—review and editing, S.R.H.-M., K.L.V.L. and P.A.P.; supervision,
K.L.V.L. and P.A.P.; project administration, S.R.H.-M.; funding acquisition, K.L.V.L. and P.A.P. All
authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research was partially funded by the Doctoral Research Fellow Program at the Glaser
Center for Grounded Theory, Institute for Research and Theory Methodologies (GCGT-DFRP-2023-
001). The APC for this research was partially funded by a research dissemination grant from the EBHC
South America: A JBI Affiliated Group (TRES-001-02-2023-RDG) and the Dirección de Desarrollo
de la Investigación, Universidad Norbert Wiener (VRI-D-2023-03-001-RDG) to promote the open
availability of scientific knowledge for researchers in low- and middle-income countries.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Ethical review and approval were waived for this study as
the data collection was for an evidence synthesis using publicly available records. The study did not
involve human subjects or animals.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable for an evidence synthesis study not involving hu-
man subjects.
Data Availability Statement: The data are contained and presented within the article.
Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge Daniel Guevara Sanchez, Departamento Académico
de Posgrado en Negocios at Centrum PUCP, for his guidance at different phases of this work. The
authors also appreciate Deborah Goggin, Department of Research Support at A.T. Still University, for
her editorial review of this manuscript.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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