Op-ed by Yan "Anthea" Zhang and Yoon Jung "Jenny" Kwon

This op-ed first appeared in the Houston Chronicle as "Glass ceiling starts to crack amid the #MeToo movement"

Cynthia Marshall was hired as the new CEO of the Dallas Mavericks last February, with the mission to clean up the toxic culture of the franchise.

Marshall’s appointment at the time was not an anomaly. According to data recently compiled by the New York Times, the #MeToo movement has brought down 201 powerful men (and three powerful women). Among the 98 men whose positions have been filled, half of their replacements were women. However, the percentage of female replacements was lower in Republican states than in Democratic states, and it was lower in government, politics and businesses than in media, entertainment and education.

The uneven distribution of female replacements in our minds calls for actions to not only level the playing field for men and women, but also for women in different fields.

Replacing accused men with women amid the #MeToo movement offers important benefits to the institutions where the scandals were uncovered.

First and foremost, replacing an accused man with a woman immediately sends a signal to external and internal constituents that the institution is going to change its culture. Second, since most victims of the #MeToo movement are women, it is easier for a female replacement than a male to connect with the victims based upon their gender similarity.

In the case of the Mavs, minutes after accepting the job offer, Marshall joined the team’s owner Mark Cuban for a news conference, in which she told the media, “I want to do it for the sisterhood.” Such a commitment to the “sisterhood” is unlikely to be made by a male replacement. The connection between a female replacement and the victims can help the institution repair its stigmatized image and damaged relationships with constituents.

However, the #MeToo-led cracking of the glass ceiling is not happening everywhere. First, the domains of the institutions make a difference. Among the 34 replacements in government and politics, only 13, or 38 percent, were women. Similarly, among the eight replacements in businesses, only two, or 25 percent, were women. In comparison, among the 35 replacements in media and entertainment, 19, or 54 percent, were women. A high ratio of female replacements was also observed in arts three, or 60 percent, and education four, or 100 percent. Second, geography also matters. In the blue states, 58 percent of the replacements were women, whereas the ratio was 36 percent in the red states.

The #MeToo movement created an unprecedented opportunity for women to break the glass ceiling and replace men in powerful positions. Yet, the uneven distribution of female replacements highlights that women face more challenging career barriers in some domains and regions than in others. Relatively speaking, positions are more hierarchically structured in government, politics and business. For every step up the ladder, women face bigger barriers than their male counterparts do and accordingly, female representation decreases as seniority increases. Therefore, when vacancies in senior positions appear due to the #MeToo movement or other reasons, few female candidates are available in the talent pipelines. Moreover, in the red states that tend to be more conservative, gender equality is lower than in the blue states, which reduces both the availability of female candidates and social acceptance of female leadership in the red states.

Our own research finds that a positive organizational attitude toward female leadership plays an important role for individual women to emerge and succeed in leadership roles. We find that a female CEO is more likely to be appointed when a company’s industry has other female CEOs and when it has a higher percentage of women on its board of directors and/or among its senior executive team. Moreover, a female CEO is more likely to survive and deliver good firm performance when the company has at least another woman on its board and/or senior executive team.

Amid the #MeToo movement, many institutions are under social pressure to replace accused men with women. However, as the movement cools down, the pressure will go away. Whether the cracking of the glass ceiling is temporary or has a lasting impact depends upon how well the incumbent female leaders perform and how many female talents will be developed in the pipelines. Both issues require efforts from aspiring women, their allies as well as the society at large.

Yan "Anthea" Zhang is the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Professor of Management in Strategic Management at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

Yoon Jung “Jenny” Kwon, a Strategic Management Ph.D. student at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

Here’s a lesson for chief financial officers: If you talk like your boss talks, the authors of a new study have found you’ll probably make more money.

Analyzing the language used in conference calls with investors, management experts at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business and the University of Miami Business School found that CFOs who mimic the way their CEOs talk are not only likely to pocket bigger paychecks, they’re also more likely to win seats on their corporate boards.

“Examination of CEO-CFO Social Interaction through Language Style Matching: Outcomes for the CFO and the Organization” is based on an analysis of a sample of 2,384 U.S. companies’ conference calls with investors and security analysts between 2002 and 2013.

The researchers kept their eyes and ears open for what they call “language style matching,” an unconscious form of imitation based on so-called function words like “I,” “we” and “us.” They observed that the longer executives work together, CFOs tend to change their language style to be more like their CEOs, but CEOs generally don’t parrot their CFOs.

CFOs who sound like their bosses may collect higher salaries and gain entry into the boardroom, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re serving their companies well, the authors said. They’re also less likely to voice different viewpoints and challenge CEOs during strategic decision discussions, the study concluded. As a result, those companies tend to undertake more and larger mergers and acquisitions, the authors found, and those transactions yield lower returns.

The paper was co-authored by Yan “Anthea” Zhang, professor and the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Chair of Strategic Management; Robert Hoskisson, the George R. Brown Professor Emeritus of Strategic Management; and Wei Shi, who earned his doctorate in strategic management at Rice Business and is now an associate professor of management at the University of Miami Business School. It will be published in the Academy of Management Journal.

The findings of the study have three important practical implications for boards of directors, investors and top executives, the authors said.

First, given that social interactions between senior executives are difficult for people outside top management teams to witness, it may be challenging for the companies’ independent board members and other key observers to assess them.

“These findings suggest that the board of directors, as well as other internal and external key constituents, should be concerned if the CEO and the CFO are too similar to each other in their language style use,” the authors wrote in a summary of the paper.

Second, the study suggests that language style matching offers a useful tool for CEOs to evaluate whether they are matched with constructive CFOs — or mismatched with unconstructive CFOs.

“If CFOs are showing high language style matching with CEOs, CEOs may need to encourage or provoke the CFOs to voice contrasting opinions in strategic decision-making,” the authors wrote. “In addition, CEOs may consider introducing programmed conflicts to decision-making processes. CFOs need be forced to voice dissent regardless of their true feelings.”

This matters because a close match in language style suggests that CFOs may not exercise strong due diligence, which is one of their most important jobs, especially with regard to significant transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, the authors said.

Third, these findings have implications for other top executives.

“When CFOs are unwilling to shoulder the role of a ‘devil’s advocate,’ other top executives may need to step in and avoid the tendency of agreeing with CEOs,” the authors wrote. “Instead, these executives should debate different viewpoints with CEOs to avoid ‘groupthink’ decision-making.”

While this study focuses on the relationship between CEO-CFO language style matching, the authors suggest it’s only logical these lessons would apply to other executives, too. High levels of language style matching between other top executives may benefit their personal interests, but they probably undermine the quality of a company’s other critical decisions, the authors said.

“For instance, given that chief operating officers and CFOs have a low level of power imbalance and thus neither side has a strong incentive to ingratiate the other, COO-CFO language style matching may reflect their social bond, which might impact strategy implementation,” they wrote.

For more insights from this study and information about Rice Business faculty research, visit the school’s Rice Business Wisdom online ideas magazine at https://business.rice.edu/wisdom.

Follow the Jones School via Twitter @Rice_Biz.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Related materials:

Study: https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2016.1062

Zhang bio: https://business.rice.edu/person/yan-anthea-zhang

Hoskisson bio: https://business.rice.edu/person/robert-e-hoskisson

Shi bio: www.bus.miami.edu/thought-leadership/faculty/management/shi.html