CHAPTER 2: Women Reaching the Senior Executive Suite: A Framework of Life Partner Advocacy and Power

This work focuses on extra-organizational processes that consider the extent to which a life partner can act as a career catalyst (or inhibitor) during the final rounds of the competition to reach the C-suite. Our objective has been to contribute to the theoretical underpinning needed to address the contention that there is a strong association between the type of life partner one has at mid-career and ultimate career attainment. We have presented a framework for describing the domain of possible partner types, proposed linkages between these partner types and reaching the C- suite, and proposed how gender affects these linkages and processes. We contend that it will be through building better theory regarding the extra-organizational circumstances surrounding the careers of high potential managerial and professional talent that needed progress will be made in understanding why there is little gender diversity in top-management teams.