Welcome to the girls' club - A qualitative study on the true motivations for organizational investment in Women Leadership Development Programs

Abstract: For most organizations the reality is that women still remain underrepresented at senior levels. In combination with strategic challenges, initiatives that aim to reduce gender imbalances at the higher levels of organizations is both an ethically and strategically correct move to make. Therefore, companies devote much resources to the improvement of gender diversity and one commonly utilized strategy is to invest in Women Leadership Development Programs (WLDPs). Even though the aim of such initiatives is to increase the amount of women in senior leadership positions, there is little evidence showing that those kinds of programs actually reach this goal. Despite this, companies continue to invest in WLDPs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to combine the organizational and member perspectives, thereby gaining a greater understanding of the true motivations behind organizational investment in WLDPs that goes beyond the obvious reason of an increased proportion of women at senior levels. The study adopts a qualitative approach and is based on thirteen interviews with women that have participated in a WLDP as well as people who are responsible for the design of or the investment in such programs. Empirical findings show that the main reason for organizational investment in WLDPs is to give women an opportunity to meet and interact with other female leaders, rather than increasing the amount of women in senior leadership positions. In addition, such investments signal commitment to the gender diversity issue and enables companies to avoid doing something about the real challenge of changing the corporate culture. Thus, the study contributes theoretically by explaining why companies choose to invest in WLDPs despite the fact that they do not fulfil their initial purpose, and empirically by suggesting that companies need to carefully consider whether the use of WLDPs is preferable in relation to company-specific circumstances.