As already mentioned by another commenter, freakonomics had a good series on CEOs, including an episode on the glass cliff: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/glas

As already mentioned by another commenter, freakonomics had a good series on CEOs, including an episode on the glass cliff: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/glass-cliff/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/glass-cliff/ The hypothesis being: female/minority CEOs are more likely to be hired as CEOs at failing firms (perhaps) because male candidates are less likely to apply/accept. Which, if true, would contradict your hypothesis.