Tiantian Yang, Management, The Wharton School
Abstract: Our groundbreaking research explores the evolving landscape of leadership diversity in top management. Despite the pressure on organizations to improve diversity, empirical evidence remains mixed. Our study uniquely examines the disparities in promotion outcomes for women and racial minorities, leveraging a vast dataset of approximately 100 million online job profiles from 7,000 large U.S. firms (2014-2023). We propose a new theory combining institutional and categorical inequality perspectives to explain why gender diversity has progressed more than racial diversity in top management. This research provides critical insights into the conditions that foster effective diversity initiatives in senior corporate roles.