Glass Cliff: When Do Female Executives Exceed Glass Ceiling?

The concept of glass ceiling refers to the career barriers in front of women in reaching the senior management positions. These career barriers are caused by male executives, female executives, and the barriers placed by individuals themselves. The concept of glass cliff, on the other hand, is important as it constitutes a new career barrier for women to reach their career goals. The concept of glass cliff refers that women exceeding the glass ceiling find themselves in the senior management position under negative conditions of their company. This concept is a risky position given to women for failing during the crisis periods of company. The factors causing the glass cliff involve personality, gender, organizational performance, organizational factors, group dynamics, and ambivalent sexism. This concept was developed by male managers in order to take the female executives to senior management positions under negative performance conditions of the company and make them say “women cannot be managers anyway” after the failure. Men who want the failure of women who are thought to have a difficulty in coping with stress will assign women as executives during the crisis periods and “push them into a glass cliff”. Having the quality of a review, this study aims to introduce the concept of glass cliff and report the studies on glass cliff in literature. The main contribution of this study is that it is the first Turkish study that has ever been conducted regarding glass cliff.