The Pipeline to the Top: Women and Men in the Top Executive Ranks of U.S. Corporations

Executive Overview People often ask about the pipeline of women in line for the top position in major U.S. corporations. Despite persistent interest in this issue, we do not yet have good answers to the question of how long it will take until more than a token number of women hold the CEO position. This study provides numerical estimates that help to answer this question, and also provides new information regarding the job responsibilities and positions in the executive hierarchy of women and men below the rank of CEO. This article presents the results of an extensive data collection effort that has yielded a comprehensive census of top executives in U.S. Fortune 1000 firms as of the year 2000. With regard to the pipeline to the CEO position, our data suggest that we should expect to see a slow increase in the percentage of CEOs that are women in the next five to ten years. Nevertheless, the percentage of CEOs that are women is likely to remain relatively low. As a result, our estimates suggest that if current trends continue, perhaps 6 percent of CEOs in the Fortune 1000 will be women by 2016. We also document the little known fact that almost 50 percent of the firms in the Fortune 1000 had no women as top executives as recently as the year 2000. Moreover, even firms with women executives generally had only 1 or 2 per firm.

[1]  D. Hambrick,et al.  Upper Echelons: The Organization as a Reflection of Its Top Managers , 1984 .

[2]  J. Dutton,et al.  THE CREATION OF MOMENTUM FOR CHANGE THROUGH THE PROCESS OF STRATEGIC ISSUE DIAGNOSIS , 1987 .

[3]  Ann M. Morrison,et al.  Women and minorities in management. , 1990 .

[4]  Warren E. Watson,et al.  Cultural diversity''s impact on interaction process and performance: Comparing homogeneous and diver , 1993 .

[5]  L. Donaldson.  Strategic Leadership: Top Executives and Their Effects on Organizations , 1997 .

[6]  Constance E. Helfat,et al.  Specificity of CEO human capital and compensation , 1997 .

[7]  William H. Glick,et al.  Cognitive diversity among upper‐echelon executives: implications for strategic decision processes , 1998 .

[8]  Constance E. Helfat,et al.  CEO duality, succession, capabilities and agency theory: Commentary and research agenda , 1998 .

[9]  G. Powell.  Reflections on the glass ceiling: Recent trends and future prospects. , 1999 .

[10]  Dan R. Dalton,et al.  A decade of corporate women: some progress in the boardroom, none in the executive suite , 1999 .

[11]  Kevin F. Hallock,et al.  The Gender Gap in Top Corporate Jobs , 2000 .

[12]  Phyllis Tharenou,et al.  Women’s Career Advancement , 2001 .

[13]  Terry C. Blum,et al.  Cracks in the Glass Ceiling , 2003 .

[14]  Pamela S. Tolbert,et al.  Gender, family and career in the era of boundarylessness: determinants and effects of intra- and inter-organizational mobility , 2003 .

[15]  Constance E. Helfat,et al.  External management succession, human capital, and firm performance: an integrative analysis , 2003 .

[16]  Mathew L. A. Hayward,et al.  Believing one's own press: the causes and consequences of CEO celebrity , 2004 .

[17]  Donald C. Hambrick,et al.  CEOs who have COOs: contingency analysis of an unexplored structural form , 2004 .

[18]  Constance E. Helfat,et al.  External succession and disruptive change: heirs-apparent, forced turnover and firm performance , 2005 .

[19]  Kathleen A. Farrell,et al.  Additions to corporate boards: the effect of gender , 2005 .