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Gender and Organizational Rule Abidance
Author(s) -
Portillo Shan,
DeHartDavis Leisha
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.01978.x
Subject(s) - assertion , hierarchy , scholarship , power (physics) , empirical research , social psychology , psychology , sociology , political science , computer science , epistemology , law , quantum mechanics , philosophy , physics , programming language
A long‐standing contention in the public and private management literatures is that women use rule abidance as a way to compensate for their relative lack of organizational power. Many of the studies making this assertion rely on anecdotal evidence rather than theory‐guided empirical studies. In this paper, the authors use survey data collected from four cities in a midwestern state to empirically test gender dimensions of rule abidance. The findings support long‐asserted gender differences in rule abidance. Contrary to recent scholarship, however, the findings suggest that rule abidance among women is inversely related to organizational status, with higher‐level women abiding by rules more so than women lower in the hierarchy.