The Role of Organizational Structure in Women’s Leadership

<p>Problem Organizational structure may create and reinforce barriers for women’s leadership journeys. Ambiguity about organizational structure shrouds how those barriers manifest. For organizations seeking to be equitable, that ambiguity presents a hurdle in understanding systemic barriers. Solution This paper offers new insights by providing a user-friendly, evidence-based definition of organizational structure and classification of its systems. Drawing from existing research, organizational structure is defined as the relatively stable characteristics and manifestations of an organization’s systems, constructed by members and their interactions. Structure is classified into seven systems: (1) positions, tasks, and status; (2) selection, promotion, and turnover; (3) authority and decision making; (4) rules and procedures; (5) development and training; (6) performance monitoring and evaluation; (7) reward systems. Women’s leadership-related barriers are then mapped on, creating a framework for assessing systems-level impacts. Stakeholders This user-friendly framework is meant to benefit organizations and their members and human resources practitioners, and scholars.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Psychology, PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Restricted to Claremont Colleges Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Social Science, Politics, and Evaluation

Year dc:date.available

2025

Author dc:creator

• Trainor, Leslie L.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Michelle C. Bligh
• Stephen W. Gilliland
• Susan E. Murphy

• Organizational structure
• Structural systems
• Women in leadership

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/1026

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cgu_etd-2048