Women's perceptions of organizational culture, work attitudes, and role-modeling behaviors

Surveys of executives cite various reasons for the career advancement inequity between men and women, including stereotypes about women's motivations, a lack of role models, a lack of mentoring, and an inhospitable corporate culture. These factors appear to create a condition we call the opportunity gap: the phenomenon that bars women from advancing in their careers at the same rate as men. The purpose of our study is to examine how perceptions of organizational culture relate to women's organizational commitment, career satisfaction, and role-modeling behaviors (mentoring and organizational citizenship behaviors) using survey data from 200 women professionals. The results revealed that perceptions of masculine organizational cultural values indirectly and negatively related to women's career mentoring behaviors through their career satisfaction, but also directly and positively related to women's career mentoring behaviors. At the same time, perceptions of collective organizational culture values indirectly and positively related to mentoring behaviors through their career satisfaction. In addition, perceptions of collectivistic cultural values indirectly and positively related to women's organizational citizenship behaviors through their organizational commitment.