Although African Americans have made progress in reaching middle and upper management positions, a disproportionate number are stalled in lower levels of management where their remuneration often lags behind that of Whites in comparable positions. Further penetration into executive ranks may depend largely on the perceptions and attitudes of employers. Negative stereotypes held by top managers may have a deleterious effect on African American opportunities. Among a sample of White middle managers, Schein's (1973, 1975) descriptive index revealed a significant resemblance between ratings of Whites and ratings of managers (r' = .54), whereas the resemblance between ratings of Blacks and ratings of managers was nonsignificant (r' = .17). Managers were perceived to possess characteristics more commonly ascribed to Whites than to African Americans.

As globalization intensifies, the need for tapping the capabilities of corporations’ human resources, gecome more paramount. To this end, businesses cannot afford to have their most important resource, their people, hampered by attitudes that detract from their abilities to perform at their best. This is especially relevant when there may be a misconception that being male is synonymous with management competency. The focus of this research was on exploring the attitudes towards women managers in the United States and Poland. Questionnaires were distributed to two groups of individuals within each nation, professionals and graduating business students or “future managers”. There were 157 and 295 usable responses from Poland and the United States, respectively. The results indicate that Polish women may have more negative attitudes to overcome in becoming managers in comparison to the US counterparts. Perhaps more disconcerting is the potential that “future managers” in Poland may have even more negative attitudes toward women as managers.

Traditionally, organisations “put their best foot forward” in hiring employees by providing only positive information. Their intention is to attract, hire, and retain the best applicants. On the other hand, applicants have their own ideas of what their prospective jobs entail. In most cases, these job applicants' expectations are unduly distorted and the practice by organisations of providing information that is all positive tend to reinforce unrealistic expectations. Real‐istic Job Preview is an attempt to “vaccinate” or make the expectations of prospective employees more congruent with real job experiences (e.g., Brancheau, 1987; Wanous, 1980). Hence, supporters of Realistic Job Previews (RJPs) claim that by giving prospective employees an accurate description of the job, those who take an appointment with the organisation will be less likely to leave the organisation voluntarily (e.g., Buhler, 1992). Furthermore, some proponents claim that in addition to bringing job applicant expectations “down to earth”, RJPs may serve any of the following functions: (1) discourage employees who will be less likely to survive on the job from accepting extended job offers (otherwise called self‐selection) (e.g.,Ilgen&Seely, 1974); (2) make applicants feel that the organisation is being honest and upfront—this may lead them to be more committed to the organisation (e.g., Wanous, 1977); and (3) increase the probability that the new employee will be able to cope with the demands of the job (e.g., Breaugh, 1983).

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine current gender differences in job expectations among Chinese college students, how current job expectations across gender differ from an earlier study, and how they might impact organizational practices such as recruitment and retention. Design/methodology/approach – Using Manhardt’s 25-item measure of job expectations, this study asked Chinese college students to rate the importance of various job characteristics on a five-point Likert scale (5=very important to 1=very unimportant). Male and female responses were compared for 430 college students. Findings – Results of the current study found that males and females differed in their ratings on 23 of 25 items, with females rating all 23 of these items to be of higher importance. These findings differ significantly from an earlier study so they are compared and discussed. Research limitations/implications – This paper is limited in that it focusses solely on college students and only examines gender as a basis for comparison. Future studies should examine employees and consider other factors such as Chinese ethnicity as a basis for comparison. Practical implications – Organizations may choose to change/improve aspects of certain jobs to more closely align with job candidates’ interests and/or choose to differently implement tools such as realistic job previews in order to improve retention. Social implications – This paper provides an updated status on gender differences in job expectations of China’s soon-to-be emerging workforce. Findings provide organizations with insight on how to develop human resource tools to hold on to talent. Originality/value – This paper advances on previous work by drawing on a much larger sample and by utilizing a structured forward-translation, back-translation process for its survey.