Departmental status in light of a growing proportion of female staff: the case of human resource management

Human Resource Management (HRM) has a history of striving for acceptance and legitimacy in relation to top and line management. The identification of factors influencing HRM status, therefore, is very important for the field. One of these relevant factors is gender. On the occupational level, there is evidence from various occupations that an increase in the proportion of women is associated with a status loss in these occupations. Besides one stream of literature that states that gender is an omni-relevant and -present category, there are also other approaches which hold that the category of gender has lost its relevance, and functional attributes are the dominant categories in the workplace today. Using a multilevel model of 1508 companies located in 17 countries, this study analyses the impact of gender composition and functional attributes on the organisational status of the HR department. It reveals that while gender still has a significant influence on status, education and experience are more important.