How Your Boss’ Political Beliefs Can Hit Your Pocketbook

Recently, on an episode of my SiriusXM radio show, InThe Workplace, I caught up with Forrest Briscoe, associate professor of Management and Organization at Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business. In the middle of election season, in the swing state of Pennsylvania, it seemed fitting to discuss his research on how the political views of bosses affect how they manage their subordinates in terms of bonuses.

As we approach the November election (and long before that), the conversation in many offices turns to politics, and the many ways in which politics can trickle down into the ways we manage our people and the way we ourselves are managed.

Forrest, along with Aparna Joshi, also of Penn State, studied the partner/associate relationship, analyzing data from a six-year period at one of the largest U.S. law firms, with over 1,000 attorneys. He monitored the earnings and progress of associates (about 36 percent of them female) who worked under the supervision of partners.

“I’d been interested in the careers of lawyers and professionals in general and had been looking at who gets promoted inside the firm and how careers evolve and then I realized that you can get unobtrusive data on the political values of partners, at least in firms, because their campaign donation records are publicly available,” Forrest said.

Liberals or Conservatives: Who Pays Better?

Forrest’s findings suggest that in settings where partners or managers have leeway over rewards and careers, whether they are liberal or conservative has an important influence on outcomes for male and female workers.

When partners give performance-based annual bonuses to associates, the amount awarded by political liberals is about the same for males and females. But male bonuses are considerably higher when bosses are politically conservative, the study shows. Whether the supervisor is male or female is not statistically significant.

Interestingly, Forrest also found that this political ideology effect is greater for senior associates than for new associates, turning out to be more than seven times greater after five or six years with the firm than in year one or two.

He suggests that the complexity of work grows with greater seniority, “increasing the scope for discretion and any attendant bias originating with the supervisor.”

What Every Woman Should Know

Also, as seniority increases and with it the likelihood that associates will become partners, conservative supervisors may simply “not see senior women as fit for leadership and high status roles in the organization.”

In his study, "Bringing the Boss's Politics In: Supervisor Political Ideology and the Gender Gap in Earnings," Forrest offers two suggestions – one, to identify and reward supervisors who show the lowest gender gap in subordinate worker evaluations and two, to look to the influence that clients might have.

“Clients advocating gender equality could require evidence that supervisors working on their most valuable projects are staffing them with equal numbers of female workers and that worker pay outcomes are equitable,” he said.

Forrest said this study could have implications for a wide variety of professional and managerial jobs.

Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources. His most recent book is Will College Pay Off? A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You’ll Ever Make. “In the Workplace” (SiriusXM Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School–Channel 111) airs live 5 pm ET Thursdays.