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Sex, gender, and aspirations to top management: Who's opting out? Who's opting in? Gary N. Powell a, , D. Anthony Buttereld b,1 a University of Connecticut, Department of Management, 2100 Hillside Road, Unit 1041, Storrs, CT 06269-1041, USA b University of Massachusetts, Isenberg School of Management, Amherst, MA 01003, USA article info abstract Article history: Received 23 October 2012 Available online 29 November 2012 The opt-out revolutionhas become a much-discussed phenomenon over the last decade. According to media reports, highly educated women are increasingly opting out of careers that would place them on the fast track to top management levels. However, little attention has been devoted to whether the opt-out revolution may also apply to highly educated men. The present study examined individuals' aspirations to top management, which provide an indication of the extent to which they are opting in or opting out of careers that might lead to top management. Participants were drawn from two populations, undergraduate business students and part-time (evening) MBA students. Part-time MBA students were found to be significantly less likely to aspire to top management (i.e., more likely to opt outof careers aimed at the highest managerial level) than undergraduate business students, especially male part-time MBAs compared with male undergraduates; male part-time MBAs were least likely to aspire to top management of the four combinations of sex and population. However, contrary to prior research, women's and men's aspirations to top management did not significantly differ. Also, individuals with a gender identity of high masculinity were significantly more likely to aspire to top management (i.e., opt in) than individuals with a low-masculinity gender identity. These results suggest that further study of the opt-out revolution should incorporate gender-related constructs such as gender identity and devote attention to men's as well as women's aspirations to top management. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Aspirations to top management Sex Gender Opt-out revolution 1. Introduction The opt-out revolutionhas become a well-known phenomenon, at least in the popular media (e.g., Belkin, 2003; Story, 2005), over the last decade (Kuperberg & Stone, 2008; Still, 2006). According to media reports, highly educated women have been increasingly opting outof careers that put them on the fast track to top management because of parenthood or other personal reasons. Scholars have exhibited varying reactions to this alleged phenomenon. Some have denied its existence, citing evidence to the contrary, e.g., that a majority of women in the U.S. labor force are actively pursuing managerial and professional careers and express a desire to attain top management ranks (Hoobler, Lemmon, & Wayne, in press). Others have criticized it from a feminist perspective, suggesting that media depictions of the alleged phenomenon are promulgating a new feminine mystique(Kuperberg & Stone, 2008, p. 512) that follows in the footsteps of Friedan's (1963) classic critique of gender roles in U.S. society, The Feminine Mystique. Still others have offered theoretical explanations of the alleged phenomenon, e.g., the presence of glass ceilings(Barretto, Ryan, & Schmitt, 2009; Powell, 1999; Powell & Butterfield, 1994) and glass cliffs(Ryan & Haslam, 2005, 2007) that act as deterrents to women's aspirations to top management, evolutionary processes that render women as not genetically predisposedto top management (Hoobler, Lemmon, & Wayne, 2011, p. 152), and the lack of organizational development opportunities for women Journal of Vocational Behavior 82 (2013) 3036 The senior author gratefully acknowledges support for this research from a grant by the Patricia and Timothy Friar Endowment. Corresponding author. Fax: +1 860 486 6415. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G.N. Powell), [email protected] (D.A. Buttereld). 1 Fax: +1 413 545 3858. 0001-8791/$ see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2012.11.003 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Vocational Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb

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Page 1: Sex, gender, and aspirations to top management: Who's opting out? Who's opting in?

Journal of Vocational Behavior 82 (2013) 30–36

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Journal of Vocational Behavior

j ourna l homepage: www.e lsev ie r .com/ locate / jvb

Sex, gender, and aspirations to top management:Who's opting out? Who's opting in?☆

Gary N. Powell a,⁎, D. Anthony Butterfield b,1

a University of Connecticut, Department of Management, 2100 Hillside Road, Unit 1041, Storrs, CT 06269-1041, USAb University of Massachusetts, Isenberg School of Management, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

☆ The senior author gratefully acknowledges suppo⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +1 860 486 6415.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G1 Fax: +1 413 545 3858.

0001-8791/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. Ahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2012.11.003

a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 23 October 2012Available online 29 November 2012

The “opt-out revolution” has become a much-discussed phenomenon over the last decade.According to media reports, highly educated women are increasingly opting out of careers thatwould place them on the fast track to top management levels. However, little attention has beendevoted to whether the opt-out revolution may also apply to highly educated men. The presentstudy examined individuals' aspirations to top management, which provide an indication of theextent to which they are opting in or opting out of careers that might lead to top management.Participants were drawn from two populations, undergraduate business students and part-time(evening)MBA students. Part-timeMBA studentswere found to be significantly less likely to aspireto top management (i.e., more likely to “opt out” of careers aimed at the highest managerial level)than undergraduate business students, especially male part-time MBAs compared with maleundergraduates; male part-time MBAs were least likely to aspire to top management of the fourcombinations of sex and population. However, contrary to prior research, women's and men'saspirations to top management did not significantly differ. Also, individuals with a gender identityof high masculinity were significantly more likely to aspire to top management (i.e., “opt in”) thanindividuals with a low-masculinity gender identity. These results suggest that further study of theopt-out revolution should incorporate gender-related constructs such as gender identity anddevote attention to men's as well as women's aspirations to top management.

© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords:Aspirations to top managementSexGenderOpt-out revolution

1. Introduction

The “opt-out revolution” has become a well-known phenomenon, at least in the popular media (e.g., Belkin, 2003; Story, 2005),over the last decade (Kuperberg & Stone, 2008; Still, 2006). According to media reports, highly educated women have beenincreasingly “opting out” of careers that put them on the fast track to top management because of parenthood or other personalreasons. Scholars have exhibited varying reactions to this alleged phenomenon. Somehave denied its existence, citing evidence to thecontrary, e.g., that amajority of women in the U.S. labor force are actively pursuingmanagerial and professional careers and express adesire to attain top management ranks (Hoobler, Lemmon, & Wayne, in press). Others have criticized it from a feminist perspective,suggesting thatmedia depictions of the alleged phenomenon are “promulgating a new femininemystique” (Kuperberg & Stone, 2008,p. 512) that follows in the footsteps of Friedan's (1963) classic critique of gender roles in U.S. society, The Feminine Mystique. Stillothers have offered theoretical explanations of the alleged phenomenon, e.g., the presence of “glass ceilings” (Barretto, Ryan, &Schmitt, 2009; Powell, 1999; Powell & Butterfield, 1994) and “glass cliffs” (Ryan & Haslam, 2005, 2007) that act as deterrents towomen's aspirations to top management, evolutionary processes that render women as not “genetically predisposed” to topmanagement (Hoobler, Lemmon, & Wayne, 2011, p. 152), and the lack of organizational development opportunities for women

rt for this research from a grant by the Patricia and Timothy Friar Endowment.

.N. Powell), [email protected] (D.A. Butterfield).

ll rights reserved.

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31G.N. Powell, D.A. Butterfield / Journal of Vocational Behavior 82 (2013) 30–36

compared to men (Hoobler et al., in press). If women are aspiring less to top management positions as the notion of the opt-outrevolution suggests, they may be less likely to engage in career-enhancing behaviors that would facilitate their attaining suchpositions (Litzky & Greenhaus, 2007); further, employers would have a narrower talent pool to draw upon in filling topmanagementpositions.

What about highly educated men? To date, with few exceptions (e.g., Mainiero & Sullivan, 2006), the discussion and debateover the opt-out revolution – whether it exists and, if so, how it may be explained – has focused entirely on women's aspirationsto top management. An implicit assumption of this focus is that all or most men aspire to top management positions because,well, they are men. If men were not to hold such aspirations, they would be violating the traditional male gender role thatevaluates them on the basis of how well they perform as “breadwinners” (Eagly, 1987; Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000); topexecutives tend to perform exceptionally well according to this criterion. In addition, they would be violating the masculinegender stereotype that consists of traits traditionally associated with men (Kite, Deaux, & Haines, 2008) and emphasizes being incommand and control over others (Rosener, 1990).

Further, men as well as women have been increasingly expressing a desire for work-family balance, which comes from their beingeffective and satisfied in both theirwork and family roles (Greenhaus &Allen, 2011). As the proportion ofwomen in the labor force hasincreased worldwide (Powell, 2011), the traditional family structure of male “breadwinner” and female “homemaker” has given wayto dual-career partnerships, single parenthood, and other alternative family structures (Marks, 2006). Both men and women are lesslikely to endorse traditional gender roles, with the drop-off especially pronounced amongmen (Galinsky, Aumann, & Bond, 2009). Inaddition, the most recent entrants to the labor force are the least likely to endorse gender roles (Galinsky et al., 2009). Given theextreme performance pressures and demands placed on top executives, aspiring to be onemay not seem a feasible route for achievinga satisfactory level of work-family balance for members of either sex.

Thepurposeof this studywas to explore aspirations to topmanagement in the era of the opt-out revolution (Hoobler et al., in press;Kuperberg & Stone, 2008; Mainiero & Sullivan, 2006; Still, 2006). Similar to other scholars, we distinguished between the terms of sexand gender. The term sex is generally used to refer to the binary categories of male and female. The term gender is generally used torefer to the psychosocial implications of being male or female, such as beliefs about what kinds of traits one possesses or are moretypical of one sex than the other (Archer& Lloyd, 2002; Lippa, 2005;Wood&Eagly, 2010). The present study appliednotions of sex andgender to a cognitive phenomenon related to vocational behavior. Specifically, it examined the influence of sex, self-ascribedmasculinity, and population on aspirations to topmanagement for participants drawn from two different populations, undergraduatebusiness students and part-time (evening) MBA students. Further, the effect of the interaction between sex and population wasexamined to determine whether the pattern of men's vis-à-vis women's aspirations to top management differed across participantsfrom the two populations.

2. Hypotheses and research questions

Occupational aspirations represent individuals' preferences for the type of occupation in which they would like to work, includingmanagement. Sex differences in occupational aspirations have long been a subject of interest for scholars of issues of sex and gender invocational behavior. For example, in a study of sex differences in the occupational aspirations of adolescents (14- to 22-year olds),Marini and Greenberger (1978) found that males were more likely than females to prefer occupations numerically dominated bymembers of their own sex, a finding that they attributed to processes of gender socialization (Martin, 2000; Ruble &Martin, 1998). Earlystudies of sex differences in managerial aspirations (e.g., Barnett & Tagiuri, 1973; Fottler & Bain, 1980, 1981) found that males aspire tomanagerial careers to a significantly greater extent than females. In the same vein, Eagly, Karau, Miner, and Johnson's (1994, p. 136)meta-analysis of 51 studies of sex differences in the motivation to manage (Miner, 1977), defined as “the extent to which individualsdesire to satisfy the requirements of themanagerial role that has traditionally existed in a hierarchic organizational context, particularlywithin business firms,” found thatmaleswere significantly higher than females in thismotive. However, such studies typically have notexamined gender-related factors that might contribute to a sex difference in managerial aspirations.

Powell and Butterfield (1981, 2003) addressed this gap by examiningwhether gender identity (also known as “sex-role identity;”Bem, 1974)would explain differences in individuals' aspirations to topmanagement thatwould otherwise be attributed to sex. Genderidentity is defined as individuals' beliefs about the extent to which they possess psychological traits that are associated with genderstereotypes for each sex, “masculine” traits formen and “feminine” traits for women (Bem, 1974; Kite et al., 2008); self-descriptions ofmasculinity and femininity are regarded as independent dimensions of gender identity (Bem, 1974, 1981). Powell and Butterfield(1981) found that gender identity, especially themasculinity dimension, significantly predicted aspirations to topmanagement. Abouttwo decades later, Powell and Butterfield (2003) found that masculinity, but not femininity, significantly predicted aspirations to topmanagement. In both studies, individuals' with a gender identity of highermasculinity weremore likely to aspire to topmanagement.However, gender identity did not entirely explain the effect of sex in either study, asmale respondentsweremore likely to aspire to topmanagement than female respondents even when gender identity was included in the regression model. Thus, a gender-relatedconstruct (gender identity) partially, although not completely, explained sex differences in aspirations to top management. Overall,these results provided evidence for the influence of both sex and gender on aspirations to top management, thereby supporting acentral tenet of theories of the psychology of gender (Archer & Lloyd, 2002; Lippa, 2005; Wood & Eagly, 2010) that gender-relatedfactors may at least partially explain sex differences in cognitive phenomena.

Powell and Butterfield's (1981, 2003) studies were conducted with participants from two very different populations —

undergraduate business students, whowere on the verge of beginning their full-time careers, and part-time (evening)MBA students,virtually all of whom worked full-time and who were likely to have chosen to pursue a managerial career path as indicated by their

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32 G.N. Powell, D.A. Butterfield / Journal of Vocational Behavior 82 (2013) 30–36

choice of degree program. Although no effects of populationwere found in either of these prior studies,members of these populationscould differentially reflect the opt-out revolution through their aspirations to topmanagement (Kuperberg & Stone, 2008;Mainiero &Sullivan, 2006; Still, 2006). On the one hand, undergraduate business students may be more optimistic (or idealistic) about theirchances of attaining top management positions, whichmay in turn lead to heightened aspirations to “opt in” and seek this status; incontrast, part-time MBA students may be more pessimistic (or realistic) about the low likelihood that they would ever attain topmanagement positions, which are especially scarce in hierarchical organizations, thereby leading them to “opt out” from aspiring tosuch positions. Also, undergraduate business students may be more optimistic about their ability to achieve work-family balance intop management positions, whereas part-time MBA students may be more pessimistic about whether top executives can achieve asatisfactory level of work–family balance because of their greater proximity to such individuals. On the other hand, part-time MBAstudents, who may have already placed themselves on a career path that could lead to a top management position, may have higheraspirations to topmanagement than undergraduate business students, some of whommay choose not to pursue a managerial careerat all.

Further, the type of population (undergraduate business student vs. part-time MBA student) may interact with sex to influenceaspirations to top management. For example, because of their greater exposure to workplace realities, including the “glass ceiling”phenomenon (Barretto et al., 2009; Powell, 1999; Powell & Butterfield, 1994), female part-time MBA students may be less likely toaspire to topmanagement than their male counterparts whereas female andmale undergraduate business students may be similarlyoptimistic; if thiswere the case, therewould be a smaller sex difference in aspirations to topmanagement for undergraduate businessstudents than for part-time MBAs.

The present study was designed to explore the linkages among sex, gender, and aspirations to top management in the era of the“opt-out revolution” (Hoobler et al., in press; Kuperberg & Stone, 2008; Mainiero & Sullivan, 2006; Still, 2006) for members of thesetwo populations. First, consistent with past evidence of differences in aspirations to top management related to both sex and gender(Powell & Butterfield, 1981, 2003) and theories of the psychology of gender (Archer & Lloyd, 2002; Lippa, 2005;Wood& Eagly, 2010),we hypothesized that:

Hypothesis 1. Individuals with a gender identity of high masculinity are more likely to aspire to top management than individualswith a gender identity of low masculinity.

Hypothesis 2. Men are more likely to aspire to top management than women.

Second, based on the above speculations regarding themain and interactive effects of population on aspirations to topmanagement,we posed two research questions:

Research question 1. Do aspirations to top management for undergraduate business students and part-time MBA students differand, if so, which population displays a higher likelihood to aspire to top management?

Research question 2. Does the interaction between population and sex affect aspirations to top management and, if so, what isthe nature of this effect?

3. Method

3.1. Participants

Participantswere obtained from two different populations at a large public university in the eastern United States— undergraduateupper-level business students, most of whom expected to enter the labor market after graduation, and part-time (i.e., evening) MBAstudents, nearly all ofwhomheld full-time jobs. The participants consisted of 293 undergraduate business students, with amean age of20.6 years, 35% of whom were female; and 165 part-time MBA students with a mean age of 34.5 years, 34% of whom were female.Race/ethnicitywas 76%Caucasian, 10%Asians American, 5%Hispanic American, 3%AfricanAmerican, 1%Native American, and 5% otherfor the 293 undergraduate business students; and 79% Caucasian, 8% Asian American, 3% African American, 2% Hispanic American, and8% other for the 165 part-time MBA students.

3.2. Measures

Aspirations to top management were measured by the same item used by Powell and Butterfield (1981, 2003): “If you had tochoose, which of the following levels in an organization would you most like to work in?” Possible responses were topmanagement, middle management, lower management, and rank and file. A three-month test–retest reliability check of thismeasure yielded r=.51, pb .001 (Powell & Butterfield, 1981).

Gender identity was measured by the Short Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Short BSRI; Bem, 1981). The Short BSRI contains 10stereotypically masculine characteristics (e.g., dominant, independent, has leadership abilities), 10 stereotypically femininecharacteristics (e.g., warm, sympathetic, understanding), and 10 neutral characteristics (e.g., conceited, conscientious, tactful).Responses were self-ratings on these items using seven-point scales (1=never or almost never true, 7=always or almost alwaystrue). Masculinity and femininity gender identity scores were calculated as the average of scores on the masculine and feminine

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items. Campbell, Gillaspy, and Thompson (1997) provided evidence of the reliability of the Short BSRI. In the present study,coefficient alpha was .81 for the masculinity score and .88 for the femininity score.

4. Results

Only 3% of participants from the two populations chose the lower management or rank and file responses to the aspirations totop management measure, whereas 68% chose top management and 29% chose middle management. Due to their relatively smallnumbers, participants who chose lower management or rank and file were not included in further analysis. For purposes of thefinal analysis, the aspirations to top management measure was recoded as a dichotomous variable to indicate whether theremaining 444 participants aspired to top management (coded 1) or not (coded 0). Table 1 presents descriptive statistics andcorrelations among the unstandardized study variables for these 444 study participants.

Hierarchical logistic regression analysis was appropriate for predicting a dichotomous dependent variable. Accordingly, weperformed hierarchical logistic regression analysis to determine the influence of variables on the recoded dichotomous aspirations totopmanagementmeasure. In this analysis, the femininity dimension of gender identitywas included as a control variable. Aspirationsto topmanagementwere first regressed on the control variable of femininity. Next, we entered the predictor variables of masculinity,sex (1=male, 2=female), and population (1=undergraduate business student, 2=part-time MBA student) into the regressionequation. Finally, we entered the two-way interaction between population and sex into the regression equation. We calculated thechange in pseudo R2 as each variable or group of variables was entered into the regression model and pseudo R2 for the full modelusing the formula recommended by Aldrich and Nelson (1984). Variables were standardized for purposes of this analysis.

Table 2 presents the results of hierarchical logistic regression analysis. In this analysis, the control variable of femininity wasnot related to aspirations to top management. The predictor variables of masculinity, sex, and population collectively explained asignificant amount of incremental variance in aspirations to top management (Δ Pseudo R2=.12, pb .001). Hypothesis 1, whichstated that individuals with a gender identity of high masculinity would be more likely to aspire to top management thanindividuals with a gender identity of low masculinity, was supported (pb .001). However, contrary to Hypothesis 2, which statedthat men would be more likely to aspire to top management than women, the proportions of men (72%) and women (66%) whoaspired to top management did not significantly differ (ns). In response to the first research question about the main effect ofpopulation, undergraduate business students (75%) were significantly more likely to aspire to top management than part-timeMBA students (60%, pb .001).

In response to the second research question about the effect of the interaction between population and sex, the interaction termexplained a significant amount of incremental variance in aspirations to topmanagement (Δ Pseudo R2=.01, pb .05). This interactionis plotted in Fig. 1 to aid in its interpretation. As depicted in the figure, male and female undergraduate business students appeared todiffermore in the likelihood to aspire to topmanagement thanmale and female part-timeMBA students. Separate Chi-square tests ofaspirations to top management (top management vs. middle management) by sex were conducted for participants from eachpopulation to verify this interpretation. Among undergraduate business students, men (79%) were significantly more likely to aspireto top management than women (68%, χ2

1=4.56, pb .05). However, for part-time MBA students, the proportions of men (59%) andwomen (63%) who aspired to top management did not significantly differ (χ2

1=.28, ns). Overall, male undergraduate businessstudents weremost likely to aspire to topmanagement, whereasmale part-timeMBAswere least likely to aspire to topmanagement.

5. Discussion

The title of this article poses two questions about aspirations to top management in the era of the opt-out revolution (Hoobler etal., in press; Kuperberg & Stone, 2008; Mainiero & Sullivan, 2006; Still, 2006). The answer to the first question (“Who's opting out?”)suggested by the results of analysis of data collected from two populations is twofold. First, part-time (evening) MBA students weresignificantly less likely to aspire to top management (i.e., more likely to “opt out” of careers aimed at the highest managerial level)

Table 1Descriptive statistics and correlations.

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4

1. Aspirations to top management .70 .46

Control variable:2. Femininity 5.02 .89 .00 –

Predictor variables:3. Masculinity 4.99 .77 .31⁎ .16⁎ –

4. Sex 1.34 .48 − .06 .25⁎ − .07 –

5. Population 1.36 .48 − .16⁎ − .04 .00 − .00

Note. N=444. Variables were coded as follows: aspirations to top management: 0=no (i.e., middle management), 1=yes (i.e., top management); femininity andmasculinity: 7-point scale, 1=never or almost never true, 7=always or almost always true; sex: 1=male, 2=female; population: 1=undergraduate businessstudent, 2=part-time MBA student. Means and standard deviations are for the unstandardized variables.⁎ pb .001

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Table 2Hierarchical logistic regression analysis: Aspirations to top management.

Variable b s.e. Δ Pseudo R2

Step 1: Control variable .00Femininity .02 .09

Step 2: Predictor variables .12⁎⁎

Masculinity .80⁎⁎ .13Sex − .07 .12Population − .37⁎⁎ .10

Step 3s Interaction term .01⁎

Population×Sex .20⁎ .10Constant .84⁎⁎ .10Chi-square 62.25⁎⁎

df 5Pseudo R2 .13N 444

Note. The b and standard error values are for the step in which the variable was entered into the regression equation.⁎⁎ pb .001⁎ pb .05

34 G.N. Powell, D.A. Butterfield / Journal of Vocational Behavior 82 (2013) 30–36

thanundergraduate business students, particularlymale part-timeMBAs comparedwithmale undergraduates. Second,menwere notmore likely to aspire to topmanagement thanwomen; instead, the proportions of men andwomenwho aspired to topmanagementdid not significantly differ. The answer to the second question (“Who's opting in?”) suggested by the results is that individuals with agender identity of high masculinity were more likely to aspire to top management (i.e., “opt in”) than individuals with a genderidentity of low masculinity.

The finding that the masculinity dimension of gender identity was positively related to aspirations to top management wasnot surprising. It was consistent with past studies in which individuals who described themselves as possessing a higher level ofmasculine traits were more likely to aspire to top management (Powell & Butterfield, 1981, 2003). It was also consistent withtheories of the psychology of gender (Archer & Lloyd, 2002; Lippa, 2005; Wood & Eagly, 2010) that suggest that possessing agender identity of high masculinity is compatible with aspiring to a position that provides the opportunity to exercise commandand control over others (Rosener, 1990).

In contrast, the finding that that men and women were similarly likely to aspire to top management was surprising. It wascontrary to the results of past studies (Powell & Butterfield, 1981, 2003). Moreover, it was contrary to the emphasis of mediaaccounts of the opt-out revolution on educated women (Belkin, 2003; Kuperberg & Stone, 2008; Story, 2005). Instead, this findingsuggests that research and debate on the notion of the opt-out revolution has been constrained by focusing solely on women andnot addressing what might be comparable “opt-out” tendencies among educated men.

The results pertaining to the main and interactive effects of population offered a “yes” answer to both research questions. First,there was a significant main effect of population on aspirations to top management that favored undergraduate business studentsover part-time MBA students. As speculated earlier, undergraduates may simply be more optimistic (or idealistic) and part-timeMBAs more pessimistic (or realistic) about their ability to attain top management positions and to maintain a satisfactory level ofwork–family balance if they were to hold such positions, which would explain the population difference in aspirations to top

Fig. 1. Aspirations to top management by population and sex.

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management that was found in this study. However, given that such a population difference was not found in previous studies ofthe same phenomenon (Powell & Butterfield, 1981, 2003), further research on the merits of such speculations that examines thecognitive processes by which individuals formulate their aspirations (or lack of aspirations) to top management is recommended.

Second, there was a significant effect of the interaction between population and sex on aspirations to top management, such that asex difference in the likelihood to aspire to topmanagement favoringmenwas present for undergraduate business students but not forpart-time MBA students. The results for part-time MBA students, the more highly educated of participants from the two populations,were contrary to the evidence of the bulk of prior research onmanagerial aspirations (e.g., Eagly et al., 1994; Fottler & Bain, 1980, 1981)in which men displayed the higher aspirations. Perhaps highly educated men are becoming more jaded about the merits of being a topexecutive, or paying more attention to what they might have to give up to be one (i.e., a family life). Men were unlikely to adopt suchbeliefs in an era in which traditional gender roles prevailed and they were primarily judged on the basis of how well they fulfilled thebreadwinner role (Eagly, 1987; Eagly et al., 2000). However, in an era in which endorsement of gender roles has declined, especiallyamong men (Galinsky et al., 2009), men may feel freer to take life style considerations into account in determining their occupationalaspirations than in the past; if so, according to theories ofwomen's careers (e.g., Powell &Mainiero, 1992), theywould bemore similar towomen in this regard. Given the present results, additional examination ofwhether highly educatedmen are increasingly “opting out” ofcareers aimed at attaining top executive ranks and, if so, how such a trend may be explained, is warranted.

It should be noted that the present studywas subject to several limitations. First, although it used the samemeasure of aspirations totopmanagement as Powell and Butterfield (1981, 2003), the single-itemmeasuremay have been limited in its potential to fully capture acomplexphenomenon. Second, individualsmayhavediffered in their personal definitions of exactlywhat constitutes “topmanagement.”Third, although we speculate about the cognitive processes by which individuals may develop aspirations to top management(e.g., by taking into account their ability to attain such positions and achievework–family balance if theywere to hold such positions),we did not directly examine such processes.

In conclusion, analysis of data provided by participants from two populations that differed in educational level suggested thatpossessing a gender identity of highmasculinity increases the likelihood that an individual will aspire to a topmanagement position.However,menwhowere further along in their education and full-time careerswere less likely to aspire to topmanagement thanmenwho were on the verge of beginning their full-time careers. These results suggest that organizations may gain from reconsideringexactly what they expect from top executives at a time when new labor force entrants of both sexes are increasingly expressing adesire for work–family balance. The results also suggest that the focus of future research on whether an “opt-out revolution” existsand, if so, how it may be explained should be expanded to include men as well as women.

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