HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-Athena-factor-Reversing-the-brain-drain-in-science,-engineering,-and-technology

The Athena Factor: Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology
HBR Research Report
34 For purposes of Genzyme’s benchmarking study, “senior managers” were defined as the top
20% of the grades within each of the job families.
35 See, for example, Paul R. Sackett, Cathy L.Z. DuBois, and Ann Wiggins Noe, “Tokenism in
Performance Evaluation: The Effects of Work Group Representation on Male-Female and
White-Black Differences in Performance Ratings,” Journal of Applied Psychology vol. 76 no. 3
(1991): 263–267. They show that women are rated less favorably than men when they comprise
less than 20% of the workgroup but that this effect is reversed when more than half of the
workgroup is female.
36 This is featured as a case study in Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping
Talented Women on the Road to Success (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2007):
181–191.
37 Other research in the field confirms our finding that women in SET experience
more restricted opportunities for advancement than do men (see Magid Igbaria and
Jack J. Baroudi, “The Impact of Job Performance Evaluations on Career Advancement
Prospects: An Examination of Gender Differences in the IS Workplace,” MIS Quarterly 19,
no. 1 [1995]: 107–123). According to Ahuja, lack of clarity in career paths is one factor
contributing to the finding that men and women follow different paths to power, which
results in the presence of fewer women as they move higher in the hierarchy (see Ahuja,
“Women in the Information Technology Profession,” 22).
38 Although Caucasians make up the majority of women earning master’s degrees in SET (52%),
Asian women earn far more SET degrees (12%) than do African-American and Hispanic
women (5%). More Asian women earn master’s degrees in SET (12%) than in other fields
(4.5%). National Science Foundation Education Statistics.
39 A review of social risk taking by Elizabeth Arch (see “Risk Taking: A Motivational Basis for
Sex Differences,” Psychological Reports 72, no. 3 [1993]: 6–11) found that women are more
risk averse than men. Males are more likely to see a risky situation as a challenge that calls
for participation while females tend to respond to these situations as threats that encourage
avoidance.
40 According to Judy B. Rosener (see “Ways Women Lead,” Harvard Business Review,
[November–December 1990]: 119–125), “as women entered the business world, they tended to
find themselves in positions consistent with the roles they played at home: in staff positions
rather than line positions [and roles] supporting the work of others.”
41 Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, “Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?” Harvard Business
Review, January 2001, 77.
42 For more information, see Sylvia Ann Hewlett et al., “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of
the 70-Hour Workweek,” Harvard Business Review, December 2006, 49–59.
43 The comparison data for “other sectors” was derived from the Center for Work-Life Policy’s
Extreme Jobs survey. This survey was designed to measure the specific points of job
extremities for full time employees in the top 6% income bracket. See Hewlett et al., “Extreme
Jobs”; and Sylvia Ann Hewlett et al., Seduction and Risk: The Emergence of Extreme Jobs (New
York: Center for Work-Life Policy, 2007).
44 The Athena Factor company surveys were conducted within three large multinational
corporations, each company representing one of the three SET climates. See Methodology in
the Appendix.
45 For a description of the two-body problem in academia, see Mary Ann Mason and Eve Mason
Ekman, Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007): 13–14.
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