OUT ON A CLIMB - THE ROLE OF CONTEXT AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT IN SELLING GENDER-EQUITY ISSUES

Under what conditions will women raise and promote gender-equity issue s in their work organizations! We used structural equation modeling to analyze responses from a sample of over a thousand female managers to address this question. The results suggest that the perceived favorab ility of the organizational context fosters a willingness to sell gend er-equity issues in organizations. The contextual factors that influen ced willingness to sell were perceptions of a high degree of organizat ional support and of a warm and trusting relationship with critical de cision makers, which enhanced the perceived probability of selling suc cess and diminished the perceived image risk in selling. Organizationa l norms for issue selling also increased willingness to sell gender-eq uity issues by deflating perceived image risk, Individual differences did not predict willingness to sell gender-equity issues. We address t he theoretical and practical implications of these findings.