Women and Leadership in Corporate Australia : Questions of Preference and "Adaptive Preference"

We are told that the second generation of women leaders will reap the benefits of the breakthroughs made by their predecessors. Yet will they? Research shows that women's numbers in executive positions are still appreciably less than are men's, and progress toward equality has slowed. This article seeks to explain the persistence of gender inequalities in organizations. In particular, it describes the phenomenon of "adaptive preferences," whereby many women confronting a dominant male organizational culture reduce their expectations. They resile from leadership ambitions both because they adapt their preferences to prevailing possibilities and because they make a conscious decision not to play by the existing rules of the game. In this way, gender inequalities can be self-reinforcing. Overcoming gender inequality therefore demands much more radical organizational change than has occurred to date. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]