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Female Executives and Perceived Employer Attractiveness: On the Potentially Adverse Signal of Having a Female CHRO Rather Than a Female CFO

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Abstract

We investigate whether female executives influence perceived employer attractiveness for female job seekers. Drawing on signaling theory, we argue that female members in top management may signal organizational justice and organizational support and may therefore enhance perceived employer attractiveness. Findings from a scenario experiment with 357 participants indicate that female job seekers are more attracted to an organization with a female executive holding a non-stereotypical office [such as Chief Financial Officer (CFO)] as compared to an organization with an all-male top management. Results of a structural equation model show that perceived organizational justice mediates the positive effect of a female holding a non-stereotypical office (CFO) on perceived employer attractiveness, but perceived organizational support does not. Our results challenge the widely held view that women in top management will generally help attract female job seekers; rather, they suggest that a single female executive holding a stereotypical female office (such as Chief Human Resources Officer) even reduces perceived employer attractiveness.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Resource Management, Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe, Liebigstr. 87, 32657, Lemgo, Germany

    Anja Iseke

  2. Human Resource Management and Organization, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Nauklerstr. 47, 72074, Tübingen, Germany

    Kerstin Pull

Authors
  1. Anja Iseke
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  2. Kerstin Pull
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Correspondence to Anja Iseke.

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Ethical Approval

This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Human and Animal rights

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Stimulus Material (Translated from German)

figure a
figure b

Appendix 2

See Tables 6 and 7.

Table 6 Bootstrapped SEM indirect effects estimates for female subsamples
Full size table
Table 7 SEM effects estimates for perceived employer attractiveness
Full size table

Appendix 3: Interview Guidelines and Relevant Questions (Translated from German)

The interviewer provides the printed job advertisement and one out of five constellations of the top management team (i.e., all-male, female CHRO, female CFO, two (33%) female executives or three (50%) female executives.).

Question: “Here is a job advertisement and a screenshot of the employer’s web page. Please look at both of them carefully. What do you think of the employer? How do you imagine working in this company would be like?”

The interviewer shows the other four top management team constellations.

Question: “The top management team could also look like these. Would you evaluate the company differently if the executive team was composed differently? If so, what would you expect to be different?”

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Iseke, A., Pull, K. Female Executives and Perceived Employer Attractiveness: On the Potentially Adverse Signal of Having a Female CHRO Rather Than a Female CFO. J Bus Ethics 156, 1113–1133 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3640-1

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