Attitudes towards women as managers: do extent of exposure and satisfaction with exposure make a difference

Abstract

For changing the discriminatory attitudes of male managers towards women as managers, two approaches are possible. The first one, suggesting organizational responsibility, assumes a positive relationship between the extent of exposure to women managers and attitudes towards women as managers. The second approach, emphasizing the responsibility of women managers for change, assumes a positive relationship between the extent of satisfaction perceived in task-related exposures to women and attitudes towards them. Both these assumptions are examined in this study. In the first phase, data were collected from 101 male bank managers who had interacted with women managers. The second phase was carried out to examine, additionally, if exposure to women clerks was associated with attitudes towards women as managers. Results showed that (a) the extent of exposure to women managers and clerks did not significantly correlate with attitudes and (b) satisfaction with exposure to women officers and (to a much lesser extent) clerks, correlated positively with attitudes. Interviews with ten male managers led the authors to believe that satisfaction tends to occur when women are perceived to satisfy the task-related expectations of women. These expectations pertain to what should be accomplished in the exposures and how it should be accomplished. Implications for research and practice are discussed.