February 17, 2008 6:27 PM

Why this economy may be good for women
Posted by Diane Danielsonat 6:27 PM

Chrystia Freeland of the Financial Times writes about how women find it easier to adapt to new situations than men.  She focuses on a study about analysts recently published in the Harvard Business Review.

I am also a strong believer in the idea that the best way to effect real change is for sisters to do it for themselves. That's why I am taking such comfort from research published in this month's Harvard Business Review suggesting that female analysts are more likely than male ones to flourish when they move to new firms.

One of the things that I like about Professor Boris Groysberg's finding is that it was accidental - his analysis builds on previous research warning managers that hiring star performers from the competition usually doesn't work. But when Groysberg combed through his data, he found one surprising exception: women. Appealingly, Groysberg attributes this gender divide to the strategies and skills the star female analysts had to develop to thrive in a sexist environment: call it the uses of adversity, or finding lemons and making lemonade.

Facing "less-than-wholehearted acceptance" on Wall Street, successful women analysts "built their franchises on portable, external relationships with clients" rather than the internal schmoozing the guys focused on. That made it easier for them to move smoothly from one firm to another.

Click here to read the complete article.