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 issues 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 favorability of the organizational context fosters a willingness to sell gender-equity issues in organizations. The contextual factors that influenced willingness to sell were perceptions of a high degree of organizational support and of a warm and trusting relationship with critical decision makers, which enhanced the perceived probability of selling success and diminished the perceived image risk in selling. Organizational norms for issue selling also increased willingness to sell gender-equity issues by deflating perceived image risk, Individual differences did not predict willingness to sell gender-equity issues. We address the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.