{"id":7038,"date":"2025-07-08T20:39:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T20:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=7038"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:33:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:33:13","slug":"why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Gender Pay Gaps at the Top Undermine Everyone across the Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jason Collins<\/a><\/p>\n

Although more women are being appointed to executive leadership positions, a gender pay gap persists. According to Pew Research Center<\/a>, the gap has narrowed slightly, but in 2024, it was at 15%. Research shows that when companies pay women less, company performance suffers.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Carol Kulik<\/a> of the University of South Australia said she recommends that companies recognize the negative implications of pay gaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a gender pay gap within your top management team, you’re basically telling that team that some people\u2019s opinions don\u2019t matter as much,\u201d Kulik said.<\/p>\n

Gender pay gaps directly impact the effectiveness of the management team and their decision-making and undermines peers\u2019 and employees\u2019 trust in them. But why do we get pay gaps at all?<\/p>\n

Kulik emphasizes that \u201cit\u2019s very difficult for organizations to monitor everything at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGender equity is like an octopus,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are many complex arms to monitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Companies might be focusing on visible markers of diversity, such as the number of women and people of color they have hired, rather than monitoring equity through pay audits. But even if a company is carefully monitoring pay equity, gaps can appear in other parts of the compensation package, such as benefits and perks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see bigger gender pay gaps in total remuneration than in base salary because we get bigger gaps when managers have more discretion,\u201d Kulik said. \u201cManagers have more discretion over things like bonuses, overtime, or long-term incentives.\u201d<\/p>\n

To address pay inequities, Kulik suggested that managers need to become more transparent about the criteria they use to decide who qualifies for bonuses, perks, and other benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Academy of Management Scholar Carol Kulik of the University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":7039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,73,77,78],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[841],"class_list":["post-7038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communicating","category-gender","category-pay","category-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Gender Pay Gaps at the Top Undermine Everyone across the Company - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jason Collins\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jason Collins\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/9552e9718df5b29713d7c49aea25a029\"},\"headline\":\"Why Gender Pay Gaps at the Top Undermine Everyone across the Company\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-08T20:39:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:33:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":289,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/06\\\/c06d5201-d8ec-4d32-af99-554219531ef6.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"COMMUNICATING\",\"GENDER\",\"PAY\",\"POLICY\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-gender-pay-gaps-at-the-top-undermine-everyone-across-the-company\\\/\",\"name\":\"Why Gender Pay Gaps at the Top Undermine Everyone across the Company - 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According to Pew Research Center, the gap has narrowed slightly, but in 2024, it was at 15%. Research shows that when companies pay women less, company performance suffers. Academy of Management Scholar Carol Kulik of the University…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7038"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=7038"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}