Balancing Professional Prototypes Increases the Valuation of Women in Male-Dominated Professions

Felix Danbold () and Corinne Bendersky ()
Additional contact information
Felix Danbold: Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10003;
Corinne Bendersky: Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095

Organization Science, 2020, vol. 31, issue 1, 119–140

Abstract: We tackle the persistent problem of people from specific demographic groups (e.g., women) being undervalued in professional contexts in which traits associated with their group do not align with the traits perceived to be essential for success (the professional prototype). We introduce the concept of balancing professional prototypes such that group membership becomes irrelevant to determining an individual’s prototypicality. Using a novel technique called prototype inversion , we emphasize the importance of professional traits typically associated with an underrepresented group, without dismissing those associated with the currently prototypical group. By balancing the prototype in this way, it becomes easier to recognize the professional potential of members of underrepresented groups, without incurring backlash from the currently prototypical group. We conducted a full-cycle research project to demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy in the extreme context of women in firefighting using qualitative and quantitative methods and participants from both the laboratory and the field.

Keywords: diversity in organizations; group processes and performance; psychological processes; professional prototypes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2019.1288 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:31:y:2020:i:1:p:119-140

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Organization Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().