Abstract
Despite emerging success stories of female leaders worldwide, women are still highly underrepresented in leadership roles across many organisations. The progress is slow, and according to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 report, it could take over 131 years to close the gender gap if the current pace continues. This disheartening statistic underscores the urgency of efforts to advance women into leadership positions. Motivated by the imperative to better understand this underrepresentation, this research explores the influence of human resource (HR) policies on individuals’ leadership aspirations through a gendered lens. Drawing on a comprehensive literature review, the following gap and associated research question were identified: “How might HR policies facilitate or hinder the leadership aspirations of women compared to men?”
While scholarly research has identified numerous factors contributing to the limited representation of women in leadership roles, many studies have focused on the importance of women’s aspirations. However, findings in this area remain inconclusive, likely due to the diversity of contexts involved, meaning that understanding women’s leadership aspirations in comparison to men’s remains elusive. While prior research has examined the effects of single HR policies, the role of collective HR policies on leadership aspirations from a gender perspective has received limited attention.
This research utilised an exploratory qualitative case research approach. The sampled cases were selected from the financial and insurance services industry in New Zealand. In total, the research analysed 27 HR policies from two case studies and conducted in-depth interviews with two General Managers of Human Resource Management (GMHRM) as well as 15 female and male managers. Comparison across these three stages enabled similarities and differences across the cases and stages to be identified. Both policy documents and interviews underwent inductive thematic analyses, facilitated by the use of qualitative data analysis software NVivo.
This research advances the theoretical understanding of signaling theory and its application to HR policies while also offering practical recommendations for organisations. The theoretical contributions of the research stem from the conceptual framework that is informed by, and developed from, the findings of analysis of the HR policies and analysis of the interviews with the GMHRMs and managers. The novel contributions of this research are twofold: first, in its application of signaling theory to HR policy, and second, in its development of a comprehensive framework that explains the relationship between HR policy and leadership aspirations through a gender lens. The conceptual framework identifies and proposes relationships among factors that influence individuals’ leadership aspirations, encompassing societal, organisational, and individual-level factors. It highlights the potential of HR policies in addressing gender disparities and fostering leadership aspirations within organisations.