The Hidden Cost of Flat Hierarchies on Applicant Pool Diversity : Evidence from Experiments

This paper investigates how an organization’s formal hierarchy affects the gender diversity in its applicant pool. One perspective based on theories of gendered organizations suggests that, because women may perceive “flat” organizational structures with few hierarchical levels as egalitarian alternatives to traditional tall hierarchies that reinforce male dominance, these flat structures may disproportionately attract female applicants and thus ameliorate gender inequality and segregation in the workplace. However, we argue that flat hierarchies may reduce the gender diversity in the applicant pool because, compared to men, women will perceive flat hierarchies to offer them fewer career advancement opportunities, to be more difficult for them to fit into, and to saddle them with more work. Using a field experiment with 8,400 job candidates, we show that job postings featuring a flat hierarchy reduce the proportion of interested female candidates by 18% and decrease the share of female applicants by 25%. Our follow-up survey experiment with 9,000 subjects suggests that this decrease in female attraction corresponds with cross-gender differences in perceived career advancement opportunities, fit, and workload. These results imply that the growing trend of flat hierarchies could inadvertently exacerbate workplace inequality and gender segregation