Gender diversity from the top: the trickle-down effect in the Australian public sector

Organisational strategies to achieve gender diversity have tended to focus on ‘bottom-up’ approaches such as mentoring or leadership training. We investigate an alternative ‘top-down’ approach: the trickle-down effect. We integrate theories from the psychology and management literatures to hypothesise a positive relationship between female representation at two levels. Data from 20 departments in an Australian public service were collected for the period 2002–2012. Female executive representation in 1 year had a positive impact on female representation in the executive feeder group in the following year. The trickle-down effect was strongest in the first 2 years, but still significant after 5 years. We investigated two moderators, department size and gender diversity target. The effect was stronger in large departments. Surprisingly, the gender diversity target strengthened the trickle-down effect only when female executive representation was under 15%. Our finding of a trickle-down effect suggests public sector departments should consider appointing women to senior roles as a top-down strategy for increasing organisational gender diversity.