PERFORMING ON THE GLASS STAGE: EXAMINING ROLE CONGRUITY’S EFFECT ON FIRM PERFORMANCE

Women represent a fraction of top positions within organizations, and continue to face challenges to their leadership. While research has begun to look at the causes of women’s challenges within an organization, fewer studies have examined how this pattern impacts firm performance. We examine this question through the lens of Eagly and Karau’s role congruity theory, which posits that women are assumed to lack leadership traits, while men are assumed to have them, thus stakeholders perceive incongruence in women’s leadership. Using the approach of examining leads in Broadway plays, we examine whether the alignment between audience expectations and traits influences performance of plays across metrics. We examine trait incongruence among age groups, as well as moderating factors. Our findings indicate that gender role congruity does not impact firm performance alone, but when paired with consistency, plays with an incongruent leader performed better amongst audiences, while incongruity was harmful for older adults. We explain this as a product of subcultural factors which introduce an additional contextual element into the understanding of gender expectations.<p></p>