Utah State University Professors Examine the “Glass Cliff” Phenomenon

Christy Glass

Associate professors at Utah State University, Christy Glass and Alison Cook, have published a series of papers examining the conditions where women are likely to rise to the top levels of management in Fortune 500 companies. They found that women are more likely to be promoted to top positions in firms that are struggling than in firms with a solid record of success, a phenomenon they refer to as the “glass cliff.” Companies are more willing to set up women to fail and typically their tenure in top posts is short and often a man is brought in to replace them.

The authors’ data tended to show that corporations with more women on their boards of directors were more likely than other firms to hire women as top executives.

Alison Cook

The authors recommend that companies formalize the process for selecting leaders and make the decision-making process transparent. Alison Cook states, “I think companies have gone a fairly great distance to eliminate overt forms of bias and discrimination. What remains are a lot of these unconscious bias mechanisms that are actually harming companies or impeding companies efforts to increase diversity. I think if you can create those conditions, you’re not going to eliminate bias, but you’re going to minimize decisions that are driven by bias.”

The article, “Glass Cliffs and Organizational Saviors: Barriers to Minority Leadership in Work Organizations?” was published in the journal Social Problems and may be accessed here. The article, “Above the Glass Ceiling: When Are Women and Racial/Ethnic Minorities Promoted to CEO?” was published on the website of the Strategic Management Journal and may be accessed here.