Via The Conglomerate:
The American Sociological Review published a paper last August entitled “Interorganizational Determinants of Promotion: Client Leadership and the Attainment of Women Attorneys,” (link is to a draft, since the ASR version is pay-per-view) by Christine Beckman and Damon Phillips, that analyzed the determinants of the gender composition of partners in U.S. law firms. Here is the abstract:
Explanations of gender inequality typically emphasize individual characteristics, the structure of internal labor markets, or pressures from the institutional environment. Extending the structuralist and institutional perspectives, we argue that the demographic composition of an organization’s exchange partners can influence the demographic composition of the focal organization when the focal organization is dependent upon its partners. Specifically, we posit that law firms with women-led corporate clients increase the number of women partners. Using data on elite law firms and their publicly-traded clients, we find support for a bargaining power hypothesis whereby law firms promote women when their corporate clients have women in key three leadership positions: general (legal) counsel, chief executive officer, and board director. These effects are strengthened when the law firm has few clients, reinforcing the hypothesis that interorganizational influence is stronger when a focal organization is dependent its exchange partner. Our results also support a related, homophily-based explanation. We rule out several alternative explanations, concluding that our results do capture a relationship between women-led clients and the attainment of women that work within law firms.
