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472 A. Reichel, J. Brandl and W. Mayrhofer Table 3 Hierarchical linear regression Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Intercept 1.31 (.050)*** 1.10 (.067)*** 1.14 (.092)*** 1.38 (.720) Control variables and functional attributes Company size .000 (.000) .000 (.000) .000 (.000) Relative size of HR department .083 (.355) –.096 (.361) –.040 (.375) Proportion of women in workforce .000 (.001) .000 (.001) .000 (.001) Difference between proportion of women in HR department and in company –.002 (.001)** –.001 (.0005)+ –.001 (.001)+ Experience .009 (.002)*** .008 (.002)*** .009 (.002)*** Education .213 (.033)*** .208 (.033)*** .212 (.035)*** Gender composition Sex of HR director –.069 (.038)+ –.097 (.042)* Proportion of women in HR department –.001 (.001) –.001 (.001) Country effects Enabling social policies .354 (.089)** Proportion of female workforce in HRM –.007 (.012) Proportion of HR departments led by women –.001 (.006) Deviance 5559.473 3879.103 3854.915 3205.406 AIC 5565.473 3897.103 3876.915 3233.406 Difference in deviance 1680.370*** (df = 6) 24.188*** (df = 2) 649.509*** (df = 3) ICC .139 .147 .147 .044 Variability between companies .422 (.011) .396 (.013) .394 (.013) .400 (.014) Variability between countries .068 (.020) .068 (.020) .068 (.020) .018 (.009) Note: + p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.
Departmental status: the case of HRM 473 7 Summary and discussion Based on various streams of literature and basic perspectives on the role of gender as a core category when analysing organisations, this paper has basically taken the position that gender composition still plays an important role when looking at outcome variables at the organisational level; however, other factors such as functional attributes, e.g. experience, education, increasingly play a major role when looking at the organisational effects of gender composition. Beyond the level of the organisation, country-specific elements of the institutional environment, such as social policies supporting women in their efforts to handle work/non-work conflicts or the availability of role models and the existence of a general acceptance of women as an integral part of work life as expressed in the workforce participation rates of women, are important. The analyses support a number of core elements of these arguments. Gender of the most senior HR person has a significant influence on the status of the HR department. The composition of the workforce on the HR staff level, however, does not affect the status. Education and experience of the HR director have a highly significant impact on the organisational status of the HR department. These functional attributes in fact contribute to explaining the variability in status to a significantly higher extent than variables of gender composition. Expanding on previous research, this paper focuses on the status of the HR function as a crucial outcome variable and, thus, on the organisational level. The insight gained from the analyses of the influencing factors on HR status contributes to the debate within HR about the role of the HR function and, implicitly always encased in that, the importance of HR within the interplay of various organisational functions. The results of the paper indicate that looking at the role of HR without taking into account the sex of the top HR person as well as key functional characteristics such as experience and education is incomplete. Beyond the more strategic considerations about the basic assumptions on managing organisations, e.g. the type of products and services the organisation produces and the respective production processes or the age and qualification characteristics of the workforce employed as well as the labour market situation, that traditionally are used to explain the various roles of HR, the variables analysed in this paper add to this picture. In essence, attributes ascribed to the HR function via the HR director seem to play an important role when explaining the status of the HR department. Both the gender of the HR director as a more value laden category which still plays an important role as well as experience and education as functional attributes influence the status of the HR function. This leads to the conclusion that only through the interplay of manifest functional attributes and variables effective at the more latent level such as gender and the attributes linked with that does one get a more comprehensive picture. In turn, these point towards micro-political and maybe even unconscious processes that are at work here, strengthening a view of organisations that goes beyond the rational and more mechanistic perspective of organisations. In terms of the more fundamental views about the role and importance of gender as a core category for analysing organisational processes, the results of this paper support a bridging position between the rather one-dimensional views of seeing feminisation automatically leading to a downgrading of the respective profession or organisational unit on the one side and, on the other side, the view that gender loses explanatory power. The results underscore the importance of both taking into account the effects of gender
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