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It has been suggested that household and family responsibilities may adversely impact the career success achieved by women. This paper examines the number of hours spent weekly on household tasks by male and female business school graduates. Analysis of variance and multiple regression revealed that the presence of children increases the number of hours spent on household tasks by all graduates, but the effect is most pronounced for female graduates. The presence of children adds from three to ten hours per week to the workload of male graduates and from ten to 20 hours per week to the workload of female graduates. Effective organizational initiatives and changes in expectations within families and society are needed so that graduates of business schools, particularly women, can accommodate the careers for which they have been educated as well as their household responsibilities.

AbstractWe assess the inclusion of women in Canadian corporate annual report (CAR) photographs and on boards of directors at TSX100 firms and evaluate whether either is related to financial performance. We find that women are underrepresented in CAR photographs and on boards. In CAR photographs women are frequently portrayed as outsiders or less powerful organizational members than men. Higher return on equity (ROE) was found at companies that more frequently depicted women in their CAR photographs. However, no association was observed between the inclusion of women on the board and the ROE of the firm. The applied and theoretical implications of these results are discussed. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the gendered nature of interactions in mixed sex Canadian corporate annual report (CAR) photographs.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative content analysis of 106 CAR photographs is performed to evaluate, at the level of the photograph, how women and men interact in mixed sex photographs to reveal their relative prominence, power and status.FindingsWomen in CAR photographs overall are under‐represented. In mixed sex photographs, however, the relative proportions of women and men approximate those of women in the Canadian workforce, but men are more prominent in most photographs. Mixed sex photographs are relatively similar in composition (depicting largely passive, smiling subjects, few of whom are talking or in positions of authority). Where there are differences in mixed sex photographs, however, women are portrayed as less powerful than the men in the photographs. Supplemental testing suggests that the findings are persisting over time.Originality/valueThis paper looks at gendered interactions in CAR photos in a Canadian context. It takes the photograph, rather than individual subjects in the photo, as the level of analysis. This research clearly situates the inclusion of photographs in CARs in the voluntary disclosure literature and explores the implications for management and readers of CARs.

Female and male business school graduates (N = 355) assessed the importance of 20 university‐based initiatives designed to address the chilly climate for women students and to incorporate gender and diversity issues into the business school curriculum. Women and men rated the importance of two initiatives as equally important; women saw all other initiatives as significantly more important than men. Changes in the importance of 12 initiatives between 1989 and 1994 was also assessed for a subset of 133 women respondents. Six initiatives remained equally important over time; five increased in importance over time; only one decreased in importance.