Leadership and Management: Diversity, Quotas, and Employee Preferences

This report examines the challenges and complexities of implementing gender diversity initiatives in leadership and management, drawing on academic articles to analyze the paradox between organizational needs and employee preferences. The analysis explores the underrepresentation of women in upper management and the reluctance of organizations to implement identity-conscious initiatives due to potential negative employee perceptions. The report investigates the effects of gender diversity initiatives, considering the moderating influence of government-mandated gender quotas and individual characteristics. It further evaluates government quotas in the EU versus shareholder resolutions in the US, discussing the perspectives of third-wave feminism. The report concludes that achieving social inclusivity and diversity requires considerate measures rather than rigid policy recommendations, such as gender quotas, to overcome barriers and paradoxes in management structures. The report also emphasizes the importance of addressing sexism, discrimination, and self-interest when analyzing reactions to initiatives related to identity consciousness.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Leadership and Management
Name of the Student:
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Author Note

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Introduction
It is important to attract and procure effective workforce in the contemporary corporate
world. The factors which pose great challenge in order to ensure proper representation and
equality in employment are competition in international labor, proposed initiatives for female
representation, political pressure to ensure gender diversity. A workforce which is diverse in
nature and has proper representation of all genders, attract better customer base and add value to
the workforce. It also helps the organization to have the best and talented employees doing their
job to enhance performance.
The Paradox of Diversity Initiatives: When Organizational Needs Differ from Employee
Preferences
The representation of women in the higher order of hierarchy in organizations, in most of
the countries across the globe is low. In this article, it has been charted out about the ways in
which the organizations were reluctant and indifferent towards the needs to ensure and
implement measures to promote fair representation of women employees. The consciousness
exist in the organizations to retain the best potential employees and increase the proportion of
women employees in an organization. Many organization choose to ignore the effectiveness of
such an initiative so that other employees, who do not perceive it in the same way, get affected
negatively or offensively. Identity consciousness have been an issue in the last few decades and
therefore, it has been intended to increase awareness and acknowledgement of the same in
organizations. The experiment which have been conducted to examine the effects of indifference
and identity blind effecting organization and people’s intention have been calculated with a
design of N= 693. Counterfactual thinking was used in the article, which has been derived from
the fairness theory for investigating the effect of upcoming gender quota mandate which has

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been proposed by the government. Gender equality in organization, especially in the higher
hierarchical is very essential in business perspectives and morally. Organizations are often
cautious about executing initiatives which have inclusive approach and intend towards
promoting fair representation of women. Identity consciousness act as a limiting factor. The
experiment approximately had 9000 people participating in it through an online link, based on
which the study has been conducted.
The initiative to bring change in the organizational framework and top management
positions, majorly comprised of external measures such as legislations. These can only be the
vehicles for such changes rather than actually being the drivers for bringing change in the
perceptions of people. When there will be enough women in the top management positions, it
will no longer be an issue people putting up pretense with. It will however, lead to equal and
diverse perceptions of the stakeholders which will help in overcoming the barriers and paradoxes
in management structure.
Toward Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards: Evaluating Government Quotas (EU)
Versus Shareholder Resolutions (Us) from the Perspective of Third Wave Feminism
The article argues about the different agendas which the EU and US governments took in
order to ascertain gender diversity in the top positions of corporate boards. These measures were
taken in order to bring rapid change in the society and perception. However it resulted in some
damaging effect. The aim was to promote gender diversity and acceptance of positive change
within the organizations, with fair and equal representation of all gender. This was indicated in
the statistical measures of the board. The quotes of representation was a drastic change which
was not as successful for its rigid regime. The US government has taken an initiative which is
endogenous in nature to deal with the situation of unequal representation of women which

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introduced shareholders proposals. Whereas, on the other hand, EU has formulated a more pro-
active step towards eradicating the difference.
The EU quota regime is stiff in nature which might alienate co-workers. It should be done
with a more Diversity resolutions are easily negated as they fail to gather popular interest and
support. An inspection of the situation shows that this failure of the initiatives actually result in
simultaneous success as endogenous proposals which address such issue bring in more positivity
and gender diversity than the exogenous mechanism. The article states that, Endogenous
mechanism can be substantiated with the third wave feminism, which is more effective and
applicable in corporate boards. The government mandated quotas create indifference in people
because of its regulatory barriers.
According to Windscheid et al., it is very essential to pay attention to factors such as
sexism, discrimination, self interest while investigating through reactions of people towards
initiatives related to identity consciousness. The article shows that the organizations are under
increasing pressure in order to ensure gender diversity, especially, in the top positions of
management. These are being brought into practice by prescriptive or preferential initiatives.
These tend to effect the workforce negatively. The initiatives which are taken in order to achieve
a diverse workforce, is not always perceived as attributes within an organization which is
attractive to the people associated. Therefore, the authors suggest that the paradox which they
tried to investigate within the organization do exist. However, on the other hand, according to
Dobson, Hensley and Rastad, gender quotas in the European context have raised a lot of
concerns. These concerns are addressed with an alternative measure which has been effective in
the US. The regulatory steps to ensure gender diversification in the top positions of management
have similarities with Second Wave Feminism. Whereas, the same issue has been addressed in a

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different manner in the US, with a shareholder resolution. This approach has a more business led
voluntary route with is more liberal, consistent with that of the third wave feminism.
In both the essays we see that the issue which has been addressed is same. However, it is
notable that the ways of evaluation is different. The first one is quantitative in manner which has
taken into consideration, opinions and perceptions of people which affect the organizational
structure and culture. On the other hand, the second one explains and evaluates the strategic
measures which have been taken in US and EU in a qualitative manner. The traits have been
substantiated and linked with movements and traits which intended to bring equality and
diversity within the society and especially workplace.
Conclusion
The intention of both the article is to highlight that the glass ceiling still remains and to
break it, it will require a change in perception of people. Social inclusivity and diversity can only
be brought by endogenous steps and measures rather than rigid measures. Imposing rigid
decisions like gender quotas only alienate people. This has not proven to be attractive to the
employees and shareholders. Therefore, inclusivity can only be brought through various
considerate measures rather than rigid policy recommendations.

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References
Windscheid, L., Bowes-Sperry, L., Mazei, J. and Morner, M., 2017. The paradox of diversity
initiatives: When organizational needs differ from employee preferences. Journal of Business
Ethics, 145(1), pp.33-48.
Dobson, J., Hensley, D. and Rastad, M., 2018. Toward gender diversity on corporate boards:
Evaluating government quotas (EU) versus shareholder resolutions (US) from the perspective of
third wave feminism. Philosophy of Management, 17(3), pp.333-351.