Gender solidarity in hierarchical organizations

Previous research has suggested that promotion decisions in hierarchical organizations may vary as a function of the decision maker's sex. In particular, it has been argued that women may be more likely to support a same-sex other than men due to higher levels of identification with their gender in-group. This paper reports findings from two experiments which examine gender identification and candidate promotion strategies amongst university students (N =116) and public servants (N = 136) in hypothetical organizations which manipulated the participants' personal status and that of their gender in-group. In the university sample women did identify more strongly with their sex than men. This was not generally the case in the public service sample, although here women with high personal status tended to show greater identification than men in a similar position. However, in both studies there was little evidence that gender identification was associated with preferential treatment of in-group candidates in promotion-related decisions. These decisions were generally influenced by norms of fairness qualified by the participants' personal status. Implications for the self-categorization process are discussed