Track record

According to Engel, the common argument that women simply cannot be found in the tech industry does not hold water. 'Companies may sometimes not see enough women entering their candidate pools and quickly conclude that women are just not there to begin with. However, employers might also not see qualified women because these women just won’t apply to workplaces with a bad diversity track-record. If you were a woman, would you want to work for a company where you are by far in the minority? Some do, most don’t.'

Diversity debt

The diversity debt imbalance emerges after hiring a homogeneous group in the initial period after establishing a company. ‘This can be destructive for both the culture and further growth of the company’, explains Engel. Yet little research has been done into its causes. ‘In the world of startups, two facts keep repeating themselves over and over again. The first is that finding staff is one of the startup's biggest challenges, the second is that women are underrepresented in these companies. But very few considered these two facts might be linked. Startups might be missing the talent they need to grow because their current gender imbalance hurts their chances to attract women.’

Rapid growth

According to Engel, the rapid growth that some startups experience is one of the reasons they have a lack of diversity in their workforce.  'When a startup is rapidly growing, not much attention is paid to recruiting and hiring a diverse group. This aspect is neglected until it becomes a problem beyond repair. But it can become an issue even in the early stages. It takes several recruitment rounds to straighten out the difference between 5 men and 1 woman. You can imagine how much more difficult this gets if you start working a year later trying to address the difference between 50 men and 10 women.'

Signalling and communication

According to Engel, the road to a more balanced workplace starts with the timely identification of the moment when this lopsided growth arises. 'Our research shows that women interested in a startup want to know more about the gender distribution in the workplace. If they see startups that signal diversity debt, women could worry about how they might be treated. Companies that realise they may be accumulating diversity debt in the early stages can focus on communication that openly acknowledges this issue. They can send a message that they are aware of the problem and are not trying to conceal it. And they can then clearly state how they intend to deal with it. Diversity debt doesn’t mean you’re doomed and will forever scare women away from joining your startup. It just means you need to find other ways to make women feel safe.'

Publication details

Yuval Engel, Trey Lewis, Melissa S. Cardon and Tanja Hentschel: 'Signaling Diversity Debt: Startup Gender Composition and the Gender Gap in Joiners’ Interest' (Academy of Management Journal, 10 November 2022).