Inflating and down playing strengths and weaknesses—Practicing gender in the evaluation of potential managers and partners

Highlights

• Evaluation of potential for management and partner positions is examined.

• Gender and age entangled in evaluation of potential.

• Men’s strengths are inflated and weaknesses are down played.

• Women’s strengths are down played and weaknesses are inflated.

• Evaluation process complex and ambiguous.

Abstract

In this paper we contribute to the debate on gender in evaluation decisions and the male norm in management by examining how the skills and experience of women and men are described and interpreted in the evaluation of candidates’ potential for future positions in a Swedish bank and a Dutch professional services firm. By drawing on Martin’s concept of practicing gender, we show how strengths and weaknesses are discursively constructed in real time and space. We identify four different and subtle patterns of practicing gender in the evaluation of men and women in which men’s strengths are inflated and their weaknesses downplayed, while women’s strengths are downplayed and weaknesses inflated. Although women are included in the process and seen as competent, their potential is – in general – limited to lower managerial levels. Moreover, we examine the entanglement of gender and age. We discuss how these patterns of practicing gender can help us understand how gender and other inequalities are reproduced in seemingly gender egalitarian contexts where women and men are considered for higher positions.

Introduction

Literature within the field of gender in organizations emphasizes that concepts used to evaluate candidates for positions or grants – such as competence, leadership and potential – are gendered social constructions (Acker, 2006, Holgersson, 2013, Lamont, 2009, Sinclair, 2005, Van den Brink and Benschop, 2012). Questions about what is competence, and, conversely, who is competent involve judgment and gender affects assumptions about skills and experiences (Martin, 2001, Rees and Garnsey, 2003; Tienari, Quack, & Theobald, 2002; Wahl, 2014). Scholars have argued that interpretations of competence are made against a specific male norm and that in relation to this specific male norm, women are defined as deficient and lacking essential traits, skills and experience (Ely and Meyerson, 2010, Martin, 1996). This is one of the factors causing persistent gender inequalities in organizations today (Acker, 2006, Ely and Padavic, 2007).

The aim of this paper is to build and add to this literature by focusing on how gender is practiced in the actual construction of competence when evaluating candidates’ potential for higher positions in organizations. Hitherto, studies on gender in organizations have predominantly relied on interview data that provides a retrospective view on the process. In these interviews, evaluators talk about the process in hindsight, constructing gender in a more conscious and maybe even politically correct way (e.g. Lamont, 2009, Holgersson, 2013, Van den Brink and Benschop, 2012). These studies have not been able to capture the evaluation process in which gender is done in real time and space. It is in the heat of the moment where we can observe the subtle and often unreflexive accomplishments of gender (Berger, Benschop, & Van den Brink, 2015). We believe it is especially interesting to focus on gender during moments when the evaluation decisions take place, as people in powerful positions routinely practice gender without being reflexive about it (Martin, 2006). We therefore direct our attention to the practicing of gender in order to capture the way inequalities are created and changed in the workplace (Martin, 1996, Martin, 2003) by observing how competence is constructed in evaluation decisions. By making the moments of practicing gender more visible, clues about how to name, challenge and eliminate them can be gleaned (Martin, 2003, Martin, 2006).

The study contributes to knowledge on how gender is practiced in the evaluation decisions by exploring real-time situations in which male and female candidates for management and partner positions are evaluated. We draw on empirical material of evaluations associated with management potential in a Swedish bank and partner potential in a Dutch professional services firm. In the Swedish banking context, senior managers evaluate management candidates and in the Dutch professional services firm, committee meetings evaluate future partners. A critical analysis of how the competence and potential of candidates is interpreted in relation to the profile of an ideal candidate is required in order to understand how gender inequalities are produced, maintained and changed. We therefore examine how the skills and experience of men and women are described and interpreted in the different evaluation processes included in our empirical material. We analyze how management and partner competence and potential are assessed in order to understand how some candidates are included and others are excluded in the construction of the ideal candidate.

Our cases show how evaluation is done through interaction and our analysis highlights how gender interacts with various supposedly objective or neutral evaluation practices as well as with other social categories, in particular age. We identify four different patterns of practicing gender in which the strengths and weaknesses of female and male candidates are evaluated differently. We contribute to theory by showing how gender is done on the spot, how age is involved and how focusing not only on exclusion but inclusion can help understand how the male norm is applied and negotiated when interpreting the competence of women and men. Although women are indeed included as competent candidates, their potential is limited to lower managerial levels.