Originally found at Forbes

Women are caught in a “vicious cycle” of underrepresentation in startups, according to new research. If the earliest hiring decisions at a new company exclude women, which they often do, then the organization will have difficulty attracting female talent in the future. As a result, entrepreneurial companies that start with gender disparities have a tough time correcting the imbalance.

The researchers found that male-dominated startups attracted fewer women. When women made up less than 15% of an organization’s workforce, female applicants were almost 30% less likely to apply than their male counterparts. The more gender-balanced the organization, the more likely women were to apply. For organizations where women represented more than a third of the workforce, the gender composition of the company no longer had a significant impact on the gender gap in job applications.

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Read the original research in Academy of Management Discoveries and Academy of Management Journal.

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Learn more about the AOM Scholars and explore their work:

• Elena Obukhova, McGill University
• Adam M. Kleinbaum, Dartmouth College
• Yuval Engel, University of Amsterdam
• Trey Lewis, Virginia Tech
• Melissa S. Cardon, University of Tennessee