Search results

How diversity in management boards affects employer attractiveness has yet to be fully clarified. This paper aims to contrast the two main theoretical rationales – similarity attraction and diversity attraction – and examines whether potential employees are more attracted to an organization with a homogenous board (in terms of gender and ethnicity) or to an organization with a diverse board.

Participants (N = 629) were simultaneously presented with two pictures of management boards, whereby the gender and ethnic composition of the boards were manipulated. Moreover, to examine whether social desirability influences the ratings of an organization’s attractiveness, survey anonymity was varied using an indirect questioning technique.

The findings supported the diversity attraction rationale: organizations with gender-balanced, multicultural boards were seen as more attractive than organizations with monolithic boards. However, this effect seemed to be influenced – at least partially – by social desirability.

Additional research is needed to examine the extents to which people care about the degree of similarity between themselves and a management board.

The findings illustrate board composition as an employer branding strategy. Specifically, the results indicate that an organization can benefit from a diverse management board when this information is communicated to applicants.

People’s attitudes toward organizations with diverse boards seem – in part – to be rooted in their motivation to comply with social norms.

Theoretical accounts (similarity attraction theory vs diversity attraction) lead to somewhat contradicting predictions, and the available empirical evidence was rather indirect and correlational. This study provides a controlled empirical investigation contrasting the two contradicting predictions.

This study aims to explore sexist codes in the creative departments of Chilean advertising agencies, where women represent only 4.7% of all creatives.

This study provides new insights into the experiences of women in advertising through 18 in-depth interviews with Chilean creative women.

The results show that gender discrimination begins in universities, where male professors are often the same people who hire creative talent into the advertising agencies and prefer men, which continues throughout women’s careers.

While there are numerous studies of advertising creative women in North American and European agencies, there are few on creative women in South American and virtually none on creative women in Chilean agencies.