Gender Roles, Workforce Composition, and Management Style: Female Commanders and Policy Decisions in Police Organizations Jill Nicholson-Crotty Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs University of Missouri 119 Middlebush Columbia, MO 65211 573-882-2320 [email protected]Abstract Scholars have long debated whether men and women manage organizations, both public and private, differently. This work has arrived at varied conclusions regarding the differences that exist and the factors that may condition such differences. One strain of this research suggests that women may manage more like men in male-dominated organizations. Drawing on Social Role Theory, this study develops the opposite expectation that female managers may actually adopt a more feminine management style when they manage primarily men. More specifically, it argues that female managers simultaneously occupy both gender and organizational roles when leading and that they may be penalized for violating the former when they adopt an aggressive masculine style. It hypothesizes that women will seek to minimize this gender role conflict by adopting a more participatory and inclusive style than male counterparts when managing male-dominated organizations. It offers the expectation that the differences between female and male managers will diminish as the proportion of female employees increases. I test these expectations in analyses of a sample of 273 police organizations drawn from across the United States in the year 2000.
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Gender Roles, Workforce Composition, and Management Style: Female Commanders and Policy Decisions in Police Organizations
Jill Nicholson-Crotty Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs
As these equations indicate, the models of female officers and female commanders control for some
additional factors, including the maximum pay available to officers and chiefs respectively, and the
organization’s generalized commitment to diversity—measured as the percent of black officers.
Additionally, the model of female commanders (Equation 2) includes the percent female officers
within the organization and the percent of supervisory roles (lieutenants, sergeants, etc…) occupied
by women. Of course, Equation 3 is of primary interest and will occupy the bulk of the discussion,
but results from all three equations are presented in the Tables. Equation 3 is the last presented in
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each table. Coefficients for the impacts of female commanders, female officers, and the interaction
of the two on the policy being analyzed are in bold typeface in order to make them easier to identify.
Findings and Discussion
Standard Operating Procedures. The findings from the 3sls model of standard operating
procedures per officer are presented in Table 1. The models predicting the endogenous variables,
percent female officers and percent female top commanders, are also shown and we can review
those results quickly before turning to the model of interest. The model explaining the density of
women employees (Equation 1) performed relatively well, explaining .23 of the variance in that
variable. The measure of standard operating procedures per officer is negatively associated with the
percent of female officers, which suggests that organizations which grant officers more discretion
are more likely to hire women as line personnel. Sheriffs’ offices and municipal departments are
significantly more likely to hire women than are state police organizations. Departmental resources
(budget per officer), size (sworn officers), pay (minimum salary officer), and racial diversity (percent
black male officers), were all unrelated to female hiring.
(APPROXIMATE POSITION OF TABLE 1)
Turning to the model of women in leadership positions (Equation 2), the use of problem
solving projects and groups is positively related to the percent of top commanders who are female,
suggesting that organizations which adopt this more participatory style of policing are also more
likely to promote women to the rank of captain or above. Not surprisingly, the percent of women
officers is also positively related to percent female commanders, presumably because organization
with more female officers have a larger pool of candidates that may aspire to higher ranks. What is
unexpected, however, is that the percent of female supervisors (sergeants and lieutenants) is
negatively related to the percent of women occupying the next rank tier, which is a result that
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requires further research. Budget per officer is positively related to female top commanders, as racial
diversity. Interestingly, though they are likely to hire more women, sheriffs’ offices and municipal
departments appear less likely to promote them. Both types of organizations have fewer women in
top positions than do state police organizations.
Findings from the model of standard operating procedures per sworn officer (Equation 3)
are presented in the final panel of Table 1. Generally speaking, the model performs well, explaining
38% of the variation in the dependent variable. The controls suggest that Sheriff’s offices and
municipal departments maintain more SOPs than do state police organizations. Similarly, it appears
that organizations with fewer resources, in terms of officers per population, and those with greater
task complexity, measured as the number of functions that the organization is asked to perform,
promulgate fewer SOPs.
Of course, the real findings of interest relate to the gender makeup of the workforce and the
management team and the interaction of the two. It is important to reiterate that these results
represent the impact of female top commanders and officers on SOPs after the potential impact of
that and other more participatory policies, as well as a host of other factors, on those variables has
been accounted for in the other equations in this system. The negative and significant coefficient on
the measure of women in top command positions suggests that organizations led by a greater
number of women are likely to adopt fewer SOPs relative to the number of employees. The
interaction term is positive and significant, however, suggesting that the likelihood that female
commanders will promulgate fewer rules decreases as the number of female officers increases.
Calculating the marginal effects with other variables held at their means suggests that move from 1-
standard deviation below to 1-standard deviation above the mean percentage of female commanders
produces a decrease of .011 SOPs per officers when the organization employs only 4 percent, or 1-
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sd below the mean level, of female officers. This represents a substantively large impact of .61-sd. In
an organization that employs 14 percent female officers (+1-sd), however, the same increase in
female commanders produces no significant decrease in SOPs.
This result is consistent with the expectation offered above. In order to reduce role conflict,
female managers adopt more feminine styles and policies, in this case increasing employee discretion
by reducing the number rules governing behavior, when leading male-dominated organizations. As
the proportion of the work force that is female increases, and the need to minimize gender role
conflict decreases, women managers gravitate toward organizational roles and their managerial styles
become indistinguishable from men occupying the same role.
Problem Solving Techniques. The model of problem solving techniques is presented in
Table 2. Again, the equation predicting percent female officers (Equation 1) performed well, with
SOPs and agency type negatively signed as they were in the first analysis. Interestingly, in this model
the wealth of the organization is also negatively associated with the hiring of female officers. Before
moving on, it is important to note that it is not unusual that the predictors of other endogenous
factors would change when a new dependent variable is introduced into the system of structural
equations. The errors across all three models are allowed to be interdependent in the 3-stage-least-
squares estimator, meaning that the findings from any single equation are dependent in part on the
findings from the other equations in the system.
(APPROXIMATE POSITION OF TABLE 2)
The model predicting the percent of top command positions occupied by women (Equation
2) changes quite substantially in this set of equations. This estimation suggests that standard
operating procedures per sworn officer are negatively related to the number of women in leadership
positions, while the use of problem solving techniques and networking activity are both positively
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related to percent female commanders. Taken together these results suggest that agencies with more
participatory and inclusive policies are more likely to promote women into command positions. The
percentage of officers that are female is again positively correlated with women, while the density of
women in supervisory positions is once again surprisingly negative. Finally, the results indicate that
organizations that pay more to top managers, based on the maximum salary for the Chief, promote
fewer women.
Turning to the model with problem solving techniques as the dependent variable (Equation
3), the coefficient for top female commanders is positive and significant, suggesting that
organizations with more women leaders are more likely to institutionalize collaborative problem
solving as a policing technique. As expected, the interaction term is negative and significant,
however, indicating that the positive relationship between these variables diminishes as the percent
of female officers increases. Calculating marginal effects with other variables held at their means or
modes suggests that in agencies with 1-sd fewer than the mean level of female officers an increase in
female commanders produces an increase of .28, which is equivalent to .35-sd. Alternatively, in
organizations with 1-sd more than the average percentage of female officers, the same change in
women commanders produces no significant increase in the use of problem solving techniques.
The findings regarding the relationship between female commanders and collaborative
problem solving and the moderating impact of female officers on that relationship provide evidence
for the hypothesis offered above. They suggest that female executives attempt to minimize role
conflict in male dominated organizations by adopting more inclusive and participatory policies than
do their male counterparts. As the organization they lead becomes more feminine, decreasing the
likelihood of perceived gender role violations in the eyes of subordinates, female commanders adopt
leadership styles that are indistinguishable from their male counterparts.
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Collective Bargaining. The model of collective bargaining, along with accompanying
equations predicting percent female officers and commanders, are presented in Table 3. In this case,
the model of women line personnel (Equation 1) performs poorly, with no significant predictors of
female officers emerging. The analysis of female commanders (Equation 2) is more consistent with
previous models, though the 4 policies do not significantly predict the dependent variable in this
specification. Organizations with more female offices do have more women in leadership positions,
as was the case in both other analyses and, again, female supervisors are negatively related to the
percent of women in top command positions. Also similar to previous models, it appears that
Sheriff’s offices and municipal departments promote fewer women relative to state police
organizations.
(APPROXIMATE POSITION OF TABLE 3)
Turning to the model of interest in the third panel, it does not appear that female police
managers are more likely to implement collective bargaining for employees (Equation 3). The
coefficient on the measure of top commanders is not statistically distinct from 0. The interaction
term is also insignificant, indicating that female commanders are not related to collective bargaining
regardless of the level of female officers. This is obviously contrary to the expectation offered above.
The finding may arise because this is simply a policy area, like many others noted in the literature,
where male and female mangers do not differ in significant ways, regardless of the gender context of
the organization. Alternatively, the null result may arise because whether or not collective bargaining
is permitted for municipal, county, or state employees is a decision that is made above the police
organization level in some jurisdictions (e.g. by the city council, county commissioners, or state
legislature). Thus, women managers might manipulate that policy in order to minimize gender role
conflict where they are able, but the organizations in which they do not have discretion over the
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policy confound the results. The fact that both the main effect and interaction terms are in the
expected direction suggests that this is plausible, but obviously more research is needed to identify
the true underlying explanation.
Networking. The final set of equations models the propensity of police organizations to
network with stakeholder and community groups. As in previous models, SOPs and agency type
influence the hiring of female officers (Equation 1), while the use of problem solving techniques, the
density of women at other levels of the organization, and agency type predict the promotion of
women into top command positions (Equation 2).
(APPROXIMATE POSITION OF TABLE 4)
Looking at the final model in the table, the findings also suggest that, even after modeling
the influence of these factors on presence of female leadership, that variable is still positively and
significantly related to networking activity (Equation 3). The interaction term is negative and
significant, however, suggesting that the female commanders network less as the percent of female
officers within the organization increases. The marginal effects suggest that, in organizations with 1-
sd fewer than the mean level of female officers (4%), an increase from 1-sd below to 1-sd above the
mean in female commanders causes an increase of 2.5 in the number of groups with which the
organization meets regularly. In organizations with 1-sd more than the average concentration of
women officers, the increase in networking activity associated with more female commanders drops
to 1.2 additional groups. When the percent of female officers reaches 24%, more the relationship
between women in top command positions and networking activity actually becomes negative,
though it is not statistically discernable from 0. These results are, once again, consistent with
predictions offered above regarding the behavior of female leaders in different gender contexts.
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Conclusion
A large body of research has explored the organizational factors that might condition
gender differences among male and female managers. Scholars have suggested that the gender of the
workforce might be one such factor and have typically assumed that differences are more likely to
disappear when women manage male-dominated organizations. Alternatively, this work draws on
Social Role Theory and notions of role incongruity between organizational and gender roles to
develop the contrary expectation that differences are most likely to be most evident when women
manage primarily male employees. More specifically, it suggests that women minimize gender role
conflict arising from male employee stereotypes by adopting more feminine management styles and
policies. As the proportion of workers evaluating them becomes more heavily female, women
managers face less gender role conflict and adopt policies and styles more similar to their male
counterparts.
Even after explicitly modeling the obvious endogeneity between organizational
characteristics and the hiring and promotion of women, the results suggest that female commanders
of police organizations adopt different policies than their male counterparts when leading
predominately male organizations. They also suggest, however, that those differences diminish or
disappear as the percent of female officers increases. This result obviously requires confirmation in
other organizational settings, but it provides some evidence that women managers may focus on
minimizing gender, rather than organizational, role conflict when leading male-dominated
organizations. This leads them to adopt more feminine, rather than more masculine, styles in these
settings.
When Kanter (1977) initially suggested that women managers behave differently depending
on gender context, she described workgroups with less than 15% women as male- dominated. Below
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that threshold, she argued that women would experience the increased scrutiny, isolation, and
stereotyping that might influence their perceptions and behavior. Interestingly, in this study it is at
approximately 14% female officers that an increase in female commanders ceases to have an impact
on the density of standard operating procedures. Under that threshold, in what Kanter and others
(see Gardiner and Tiggemann 1999) identify as male-dominated organizations, women leaders
institute fewer of these policies relative to male counterparts, but above it, the two groups become
indistinguishable. The threshold is essentially the same for the relationship between female
commanders and the use of collaborative problem solving. This suggests that some of the earliest
work on gender and management continues to offer accurate predictions about the levels of women
in the workforce at which we should expect to observe differences in the behavior of male and
female managers.
The findings regarding networking behavior also invite comparisons with previous research.
In an organizational setting where women constitute approximately 80% of employees, Meier et al.
(2006) find that women managers network less aggressively than their male counterparts. Across a
range of agencies where the mean percentage of women is 22%, Jacobsen et al. (2009) find that
women network less than or similarly to male managers, depending on the measure. Consistent with
that work, this study finds that women manage less substantively, or the same statistically, compared
with male counterparts when leading organizations with approximately 24% female employees. In
organizations that employ less than 16% women, however, it finds that women network more with
stakeholder groups than do men. Thus, the findings herein suggest that sample characteristics may
explain the finding in previous work that women ―manage outward‖ (Moore 1995) to a lesser degree
than do men.
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