Research clearly shows that increasing the number of women in leadership positions yields financial benefits for the organization. Despite this, there has been limited upward movement in the percentage of women in senior leadership positions. Few studies have examined the linkage between masculine culture and the implications for men. Using a mixed methods approach with two studies, this research focused on four aspects of masculine contest cultural norms and how they impact male identity and perceptions of career advancement. Study 1 (...) used a qualitative interview study of 10 male executives and found that masculine contest culture norms were evident but were being perpetuated and reinforced by organizational culture instead of individual masculine identities. In addition, Study 1 demonstrated a shift in masculine contest culture norms reducing the emphasis on the strong male archetype. Study 2 examines the relationship between masculine contest culture attributes impacting perceived opportunities for career development and promotion. We evaluated these relationships through a large‐scale survey study and found that at higher levels of masculine contest culture norms, men's perceptions of procedural justice for career development and promotion were lower compared with women. Broadly, the findings suggest that masculine archetypes of leadership negatively affect men and women. (shrink)

Constructive deviance, rule-breaking to benefit the organization, is an emerging topic in the scholarly research and is considered to be an ethical decision. Despite the value of guiding constructive deviance in organizations, the effect of ethics-oriented leadership on employees’ constructive deviance remains unclear. This research identifies leader moral humility as a new antecedent of constructive deviance and examines how and when leader moral humility influences employee constructive deviance. Drawing on social–cognitive theory, we propose that leader moral humility fosters employee moral (...) identity, which in turn triggers employees to exhibit constructive deviance. Moreover, the mediating effect of moral identity is more pronounced when normative conflict with organizational rules is high, as this conflict inspires identity-driven behavior. Two studies with scenario-based experimental and time-lagged field methods provided general support for our hypotheses. Study 1 reveals that leader moral humility positively affects constructive deviance via employee moral identity. Study 2 replicates and extends Study 1 to support the moderating role of normative conflict. These findings enrich the understanding of constructive deviance by shedding light on the moral cognitive process in the relationship between leader moral humility and employee constructive deviance and by identifying the boundary condition for the relationship. (shrink)

Does a board with greater gender diversity make better investment decisions? Drawing on Austrian economic cycle theory and work groups theory, we argue that such board openness will help male board members to overcome gender biases, discrimination, and conflicts; integrate different perspectives under the economic cycle and crisis; and foster an environment in which better decisions are made. The results of an empirical study of 14,609 firm-quarter observations from 1,555 listed firms in China between 2007 and 2009 strongly support our (...) arguments. We find that a Chinese board is more likely to accept female directorship during an economic crisis than during an economic prosperity stage. Boards with greater gender diversity are more likely to make tough, counter-cyclical investments to improve firm performance during a crisis. Our study enriches the board decision-making literature by exploring the impacts of board gender diversity on firm performance within the context of an economic crisis. The results of our study also carry significant managerial implications for overcoming gender stereotypes, biases, and prejudices on a board. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020 has changed the conventional learning mode for most students at schools all over the world, and the e-learning at home has become a new trend. Taking Chinese college students as the research subject and drawing on the stimulus–organism–response model, this paper examines the relationship between the peer referent, perceived closeness, and perceived control and the learning engagement. Using data from 377 college students who have used e-learning, this study shows that perceived closeness, (...) perceived control, and peer referents in e-learning have a positive effect on the self-efficacy and well-being of students, thus improving students’ enthusiasm for learning. Our intent is to assist researchers, instructors, designers, and others in identifying effective methods to conceptualize and measure student engagement in e-learning. (shrink)

The present article attempts to examine the relationship between learning agility and authentic leadership development. The recent rise in the cases of fraud involving leaders at various levels in the organizations, and the resulting distrust among the employees towards their leaders, points to the need to have authentic leaders, given the positive organizational outcomes associated with this leadership approach. Further, scholars have suggested that leadership development is possible through learning from one’s life experiences. The developmental definition of authentic leadership also (...) reflects the importance of learning from past experiences. Yet, studies have largely overlooked to explore the association between learning agility and authentic leadership development. This paper further tries to analyze the moderating effects of learning goal orientation and organizational culture on this relationship. Therefore, based on the existing research, the associations among these factors have been delineated and a conceptual model has been presented along with several propositions. Implications for future research and limitations of this work have also been discussed towards the end. (shrink)

This paper aims to study the determinants of subjective happiness among working females with a focus on female managers. Drawn on a large social survey data set in China, this paper constructs gender development index at sub-national levels to study how institutional settings are related to female managers’ happiness. We find that female managers report higher levels of happiness than non-managerial employees. However, the promoting effect is contingent on individual characteristics and social-economic settings. The full sample regression suggests that female (...) managers behaving in a masculine way generally report a high level of happiness. Meanwhile, female managers who refuse to support gender equality report low happiness levels. Sub-sample analysis reveals that these causalities are conditioned on regional culture. Masculine behavior and gender role orientation significantly predict subjective happiness only in gender-egalitarian regions. This study is one of the first to consider both internal and external factors when investigating how female managers’ happiness is impacted. Also, this study challenges the traditional wisdom on the relationship between female managers’ job satisfaction and work-home conflict. This study extends the literature by investigating the impacts of female managers’ masculine behavior on their happiness. This study is useful for promoting female managers’ leadership effectiveness and happiness. (shrink)

This study examines the role of responsible entrepreneurship among female entrepreneurs by examining how and when responsible entrepreneurship may exert a positive influence on female entrepreneurial success. Using the data collected from 337 Chinese female entrepreneurs, and by integrating responsible entrepreneurship research with a dynamic capability framework, our findings show, firstly, that responsible entrepreneurship is positively correlated to female entrepreneurial success; secondly, this relationship is mediated by female entrepreneurs’ opportunity recognition; and thirdly, the indirect effect of responsible entrepreneurship on female (...) entrepreneurial success through opportunity recognition is weaker when women entrepreneurs perceive more gender discrimination. Furthermore, using a post hoc analysis, we find that responsible entrepreneurship has a positive impact on entrepreneurial success for both male and female entrepreneurs, but that this impact is more significant for female entrepreneurs than for their male counterparts. With the contextual factor of traditional female social stereotypes inadvertently contributing to greater gender discrimination in the field of entrepreneurship, our results underscore the importance of both responsible entrepreneurship and opportunity recognition in promoting female entrepreneurial success. (shrink)

Research on academic pay finds an unexplained gender pay gap that has not fully dissolved over time and that appears to increase with years of experience. In this study, I consider how role congruity bias contributes to this pay gap. Bias is more likely to manifest in a context where there is some ambiguity about performance and where stereotypes are stronger. I predict that bias in the attribution of credit for coauthored research leads to lower returns to research for female (...) professors. To test this prediction, I use a sample of Canadian faculty in accounting, where research is typically coauthored, where females are underrepresented at the most senior ranks, and where many universities evaluate merit in research, teaching, and service to determine salary increases. In regressions of salary on individual and institutional determinants of salary, I find that women earn marginally less than men. However, the pay gap is only evident for women who publish in a selective list of journals; for the subset of faculty with no publications from this list, there are no significant differences in salary. For researching faculty, the pay gap relates specifically to research productivity. While women publish less on average than men, the returns to their research are also lower. In particular, the relation between the individual’s research ranking and salary is significantly lower for women who publish a higher proportion of their work with men, than for all other faculty. Additional analysis of salary and coauthor patterns confirms that women receive significantly less credit for coauthored articles they publish with men than those they publish with other women but that no similar variations in reward are evident for men across publishing patterns. These findings suggest bias in the attribution of credit for coauthored research in the determination of salary, consistent with role congruity theory, and provide an important potential explanation for why salaries for women vary systematically from those of men even after considering productivity. Providing lower rewards for equal work represents a continuing ethical issue in academe and compounds the challenges women already facing in the profession. (shrink)

Studies have shown that narcissistic individuals are more likely to become leaders in uncertain situations, while few studies paid attention to the relational mechanism, linking a narcissistic leader with subordinates and team attitudes and behaviors. Based on the “guanxi” and dominance complementarity theory, we examined the influencing mechanism of narcissistic leaders on subordinates and team followership. Two-wave data collected from 326 employees in the manufacturing and technology industry in China supported our hypothesized model. We have found that narcissistic leaders have (...) a negative impact on followership and TF of subordinates; Supervisor–subordinate guanxi and team leadership relationship identity play a partial mediating role between narcissistic leadership and subordinates and team followership. Furthermore, individual and team values play a moderating role in the process of influencing a mechanism. In other words, the higher the individual tradition and team power distance, the less negative impact of leader narcissism on SSG and team leadership relationship identity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. We also offer several promising directions for future research. (shrink)

Gender plays an important role in various aspects of second language acquisition, including lexicon learning. Many studies have suggested that compared to males, females are less likely to experience boredom, one of the frequently experienced deactivating negative emotions that may impair language learning. However, the contribution of boredom to gender-related differences in lexicon learning remains unclear. To address this question, here we conducted two experiments with a large sample of over 1,000 college students to explore the relationships between gender differences (...) in boredom and lexicon learning. In Experiment 1, a cohort of 527 participants completed the trait and state boredom scales as well as a novel lexicon learning task without awareness of the testing process. In Experiment 2, an independent cohort of 506 participants completed the same novel lexicon learning task with prior knowledge of the testing procedure. Results from both experiments consistently showed significant differences between female and male participants in the rate of forgetting words and the state boredom scores, with female participants performing better than male participants. Furthermore, differences in state boredom scores partially explained differences in the rate of forgetting words between female and male participants. These findings demonstrate a novel contribution of state boredom to gender differences in lexicon learning, which provides new insights into better language-learning ability in females. (shrink)

Is there a compensation gap between female CEOs and male CEOs? If so, are there mechanisms to mitigate the compensation gap? Extending role congruity theory, we argue that the perception mismatch between the female gender role and the leadership role may lead to lower compensation to female CEOs, resulting in a gender compensation gap. Nevertheless, the compensation gap may be narrowed if female CEOs display agentic traits through risk-taking, or alternatively, work in female-dominated industries where communal traits are valued. Additionally, (...) we expect that female CEOs’ risk-taking is less effective in reducing the gender compensation gap in female-dominated industries due to the conflicting emphases on agentic and communal traits. Leveraging a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms, we find support for our hypotheses. Overall, this study contributes to the ethics literature on income inequality issues, by highlighting the effectiveness of potential mechanisms to close the gender compensation gap between female and male CEOs. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to social and economic problems and pose a threat to most of enterprise. Faced with crisis and challenge, effective leaders and devoted employees are important factors for enterprises to overcome difficulties. We propose a moderated mediation model wherein narcissistic leader predicts subordinate’s followership through leader self-interest behavior perceived by subordinates, with organizational identification of leader acting as the contextual condition. Two-wave data collected from 303 employees in the manufacturing and technology industry in China supported our (...) hypothesized model. We found that narcissistic leader has negative impact on subordinates’ followership due to their perception of leader’s self-interest behavior. Further, organizational identification of leader plays a moderate role in the relationship between narcissistic leader and subordinates’ followership. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. We also offer several promising directions for future research. (shrink)

Although leader role expectations appear to have become relatively more compatible with stereotypically feminine attributes like empathy, women continue to be highly underrepresented in leadership roles. We posit that one reason for this disparity is that, whereas stereotypically feminine traits are appreciated as nice “add-ons” for leaders, it is stereotypically masculine attributes that are valued as the defining qualities of the leader role, especially by men (who are often the gatekeepers to these roles). We assessed men’s and women’s idea of (...) a great leader with a focus on gendered attributes in two studies using different methodologies. In Study 1, we employed a novel paradigm in which participants were asked to design their “ideal leader” to examine the potential trade-off between leadership characteristics that were more stereotypically masculine (i.e., agency) and feminine (i.e., communality). Results showed that communality was valued in leaders only after meeting the more stereotypically masculine requirements of the role (i.e., competence and assertiveness), and that men in particular preferred leaders who were more competent (vs. communal), whereas women desired leaders who kept negative stereotypically masculine traits in check (e.g., arrogance). In Study 2, we conducted an experiment to examine men’s and women’s beliefs about the traits that would be important to help them personally succeed in a randomly assigned leader (vs. assistant) role, allowing us to draw a causal link between roles and trait importance. We found that both men and women viewed agentic traits as more important than communal traits to be a successful leader. Together, both studies make a valuable contribution to the social psychological literature on gender stereotyping and bias against female leaders and may illuminate the continued scarcity of women at the very top of organizations, broadly construed. (shrink)

Women use power in more prosocial ways than men and they also engage in more emotional labor. However, these two constructs have not been previously connected. We propose that gendered emotional labor practices and pressures result in gender differences in the prosocial use of power. We integrate the literature on emotional labor with research on the psychology of power to articulate three routes through which this happens. First, women may be more adept than men at the intrapersonal and interpersonal processes (...) entailed in emotional labor practices—a skill that they can apply at all hierarchical levels. Second, given women’s stronger internal motivation to perform emotional labor, they construe power in a more interdependent manner than men, which promotes a more prosocial use of power. As a result, female powerholders tend to behave in more prosocial ways. Third, when they have power, women encounter stronger external motivation to engage in emotional labor, which effectively constrains powerful women’s behaviors in a way that fosters a more prosocial use of power. We discuss how, by promoting prosocial behavior among powerholders, emotional labor can be beneficial for subordinates and organizations, while simultaneously creating costs for individual powerholders, which may reduce women’s likelihood of actually attaining and retaining power by making high-power roles less appealing, guiding women toward less prestigious and more precarious leadership roles, draining powerful women’s time and resources without equitable rewards, and making it difficult for women to legitimize their power in the eyes of subordinates. Thus, emotional labor practices can help explain the underrepresentation of women in top leadership positions. (shrink)

Popular press suggests that gender diversity benefits the performance of work groups. However, decades of research indicate that such performance benefits of gender diversity are anything but a given. To account for this incongruity, in this conceptual paper we argue that the performance of gender-diverse work groups is often inhibited by self-reinforcing gender role expectations. We use the analogy of a flywheel to illustrate how gender role expectations tend to reinforce themselves via three mechanisms. Specifically, we argue that gender role (...) expectations shape (a) the allocation of jobs, tasks, and responsibilities, (b) the behavior of perceivers, and (c) the behavior of target women and men. In turn, these three consequences of gender role expectations tend to confirm the initial gender role expectations, thus creating an automatic, self-reinforcing flywheel effect. Such self-reinforcing gender role expectations provide superficial impressions of individual women and men’s actual knowledge and abilities at best. We therefore further propose that each of the three mechanisms of the flywheel of gender role expectations negatively affects group performance to the extent that gender role expectations inaccurately capture group members’ actual knowledge and abilities. Because the extent to which work group members rely on gender role expectations depends on how they form impressions of others, we propose that individuals’ motivation to form accurate impressions is crucial for inhibiting the flywheel of gender role expectations. We close by advancing an agenda for future research on each of the three areas of interest in our conceptual analysis: the flywheel effect of gender role expectations, the consequences of this flywheel effect for group functioning, and ways to motivate group members to form accurate impressions. (shrink)

We provide an ethical evaluation of the debate on managing diversity within teams and organizations between equality and business case scholars. Our core assertion is that equality and business case perspectives on diversity from an ethical reading appear stuck as they are based on two different moral perspectives that are difficult to reconcile with each other. More specifically, we point out how the arguments of equality scholars correspond with moral reasoning grounded in deontology, whereas the foundations of the business case (...) perspective are crafted by utilitarian arguments. We show that the problems associated with each diversity perspective correspond with the traditional concerns with the two moral perspectives. To resolve this stalemate position, we argue that the equality versus business case debate needs to be approached from a third, less well-known moral perspective (i.e. virtue ethics). We posit that a focus on virtues can enhance equality by reducing prejudice and illustrate this by applying it to the HRM domains of recruitment and selection and of performance management. Subsequently, we argue that values are key to aligning virtues with each other and with corporate strategy, delineate our values and virtues perspective on diversity, and argue why and how it can enhance organizational performance. (shrink)

Although narcissists often emerge as leaders, the relationship between leader narcissism and follower performance is ambiguous and often even found to be negative. For women, narcissism seems especially likely to lead to negative evaluations. Since narcissists have the tendency to be impulsive and change their minds on a whim, they may come across as inconsistent. We propose “inconsistent leader behavior” as a new mechanism in the relationship between leader narcissism and follower performance and argue that leader gender plays an important (...) role in whether narcissistic leaders are perceived as inconsistent. Specifically, we expect leader narcissism to have a negative relationship with follower performance through perceived inconsistent leader behavior, especially for female leaders. Thus, we examine leader gender as a personal factor moderating the relationship between narcissism and perceived inconsistent behavior. Also, as perceived inconsistency is likely less problematic when a good relationship exists, we examine leader–member exchange as a contextual condition moderating the relationship between leader behavior and follower performance. We test our moderated mediation model in a multi-source study with 165 unique leader–follower dyads. As expected, leader narcissism was positively related to perceived inconsistent leader behavior, and this relationship was stronger for female leaders. Inconsistent leader behavior was negatively related to follower performance, but only when LMX was low. Our research highlights that perceived behavioral inconsistency can be problematic and—for female leaders—provides an explanation of the negative relation of leader narcissism with follower performance and of the inconsistencies in evaluations of narcissistic leaders’ effectiveness. (shrink)

In the study of women in academia, the focus is often particularly on women’s stark underrepresentation in the math-intensive fields of natural sciences, technology, and economics. In the non-math-intensive of fields life, social and behavioral sciences, gender issues are seemingly less at stake because, on average, women are well-represented. However, in the current study, we demonstrate that equal gender representation in LSB disciplines does not guarantee women’s equal opportunity to advance to full professorship—to the contrary. With a cross-sectional survey among (...) N = 2,109 academics at mid-level careers in the Netherlands, we test the hypothesis that in LSB, female academics perceive to hit a “thicker” glass ceiling—that is, they see a sharper contrast between the high representation of women at the lower compared to the top levels. We test whether this predicts female academics’ lower estimated chances to reach full professorship relative to men in LSB. We introduce a novel perceived glass ceiling index, calculated based on academics’ perceptions of the share of women and men in their direct work environment minus their perceptions of gender ratio among full professors in their field. Results confirm that the perceived glass ceiling is thicker in the non-math-intensive LSB compared to math-intensive NTE fields. Furthermore, only in LSB, women perceived a thicker glass ceiling than men. Moreover, only among female academics, the thicker the perceived glass ceiling, the lower their estimated chances to become full professor 1 day. Combined, a moderated mediation showed that for women only, a thicker perceived glass ceiling in LSB compared to NTE disciplines predicted their lower estimated chances to advance to full professor level. No such mediation occurred for men. We conclude that women’s higher numerical representation in LSB disciplines does not negate a male-dominant normative standard about academic leadership and success. Paradoxically, the perceived odds for female academics to reach the top of their field are lower in fields where they are relatively highly represented, and this may pose unique barriers to women’s perceived opportunities for career success. (shrink)

Despite changes in their representation and visibility, there are still serious concerns about the inclusion and day-to-day workplace challenges various groups face (e.g., women, ethnic and cultural minorities, LGBTQ+, people as they age, and those dealing with physical or mental disabilities). Men are also underrepresented in specific work fields, in particular those in HEED (Health care, Elementary Education and the Domestic sphere). Previous literature has shown that group stereotypes play an important role in maintaining these inequalities. We outline how insights (...) from research on stigma, social-identity, and self-regulation together increase our understanding of how targets are affected by and regulate negative stereotypes in the workplace. This approach starts from the basis that members of negatively-stereotyped groups are not just passive recipients of negative attitudes, stereotypes, and behaviors, but are active individuals pursuing multiple goals, such as goals for belonging and achievement. We argue that it is only by understanding stigma from the target’s perspective (e.g., how targets are affected and respond) that we can successfully address workplace inequality. Key in this understanding is that stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination have taken on much more subtle forms, with consequences for the way members of stigmatized-groups cope. These insights lead us to propose an approach to understanding barriers to workplace equality that highlights four key aspects: a) the different (often subtle) potential triggers of identity-threat in the workplace for members of stigmatized-groups, b) the ways in which members of stigmatized-groups cope with these threats, c) the role of supportive factors that mitigate potential threats and affect self-regulation, and d) potential hidden costs for the self or others of what appears at first to be effective self-regulation. The focus on threats, coping, support, and potential hidden costs helps us understand why current diversity efforts are not always successful in increasing and maintaining members of stigmatized-groups in organizations, and provides insight into how we can aid efforts to effectively lower barriers to workplace equality. (shrink)

Research on destructive leadership has largely focused on leader characteristics thought to be responsible for harmful organizational outcomes. Recent findings, however, demonstrate the need to examine important contextual factors underlying such processes. Thus, the present study sought to determine the effects of an organization's climate and financial performance, as well as the leader's gender, on subordinate perceptions of and reactions (i.e., whistle-blowing intentions) to aversive leadership, a form of destructive leadership based on coercive power. 302 undergraduate participants read through a (...) series of vignettes describing a fictional organization, its employees, and an aversive leader in charge of the company's sales department. They were then asked to envision themselves as subordinates of the leader and respond to several quantitative measures and open-ended questions. Consistent with Padilla and colleagues' (2007) toxic triangle theory, results suggest that both perceptions and reactions to aversive leadership depend on the three aforementioned factors. Specifically, aversive leaders were perceived more aversively and elicited greater whistle-blowing intentions in financially unstable organizations possessing climates intolerant of negative leader behavior. Moreover, female aversive leaders were perceived more aversively than their male counterparts under such conditions. Theoretical and practical implications as well as future research directions are also discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Despite 40 years of equal opportunities policies and more than two decades of government and organization initiatives aimed at helping women reach the upper echelons of the corporate world, women are seriously underrepresented on corporate boards. Recently, fifteen countries sought to redress this imbalance by introducing gender quotas for board representation. The introduction of board gender quota legislation creates ethical tensions and dilemmas which we categorize in terms of motivations, legitimacy, and outcomes. We investigate these tensions through four overarching theoretical (...) perspectives: institutional, stakeholder, social identity, and social capital. We outline a future research agenda based on how these tensions offer greater focus to research on quotas and more broadly to ethics and diversity in organizations in terms of theory, anticipated ethical tensions, data, and methodology. In sum, our review seeks to synthesize existing multidisciplinary research and stimulate future enquiry on this expanding set of legislation. (shrink)

Purpose: We investigated the role of gender in abusive leadership practices, along with the effects of abusive leadership on employee health. We tested two hypotheses regarding the relationship between abusive leadership practices and subordinates’ health outcomes. Design: At two points of measurement, 663 participants in Germany rated their 158 direct team leaders on abusive supervision and stated their own levels of emotional exhaustion and somatic stress. To test our hypotheses, we used a mixed model approach. Findings: The results show no (...) gender differences between the ratings for female and male leaders regarding abusive supervision, but do confirm that the leaders’ gender did play a role in employees’ perceptions of abuse; perceived abusive supervision is more strongly related to increased emotional exhaustion and somatic stress when the leader is male. Limitations: The generalizability of the study is limited due to a majority of females in the sample. Practical implications: Organisations should review their policies and procedures to first identify abusive supervision, then to offer adequate support programs for both leaders and subordinates. Originality/value: The study integrates gender into research on leadership and health, shifting the focus from previous studies that investigated constructive to destructive leadership. A further strength of the study is the application of a multilevel design and two separate points of measurement. (shrink)

In recent years, positive psychology and mindfulness practices have increasingly been integrated in neo-liberal organisations to promote individuals’ well-being. Critics have argued that these practices actually function as management techniques, encouraging individuals’ self-governance and acceptance of the status quo despite adverse contexts. This article extends this argument by unpacking ways in which such ‘well-being’ programmes are also gendered, having been formulated around neo-liberal hegemonic masculine values of rationality, individualism and competition, and further masculinised through integration into gendered organisations. The argument (...) is presented that this process produces a neo-liberal version of hegemonic masculinity that the author calls ‘mindful masculinity’. This theoretical argument is illustrated through examples of specific ways in which ‘well-being’ practices have been reworked in strongly masculine settings to promote neo-liberal hegemonic masculine goals under a symbolic veneer of spirituality and mental health. (shrink)

Although the proportion of women in leadership positions has grown over the past decades, women are still underrepresented in leadership roles, which poses an ethical challenge to society at large but business in particular. Accordingly, a growing body of research has attempted to unravel the reasons for this inequality. Besides theoretical progress, a central goal of these studies is to inform measures targeted at increasing the share of women in leadership positions. Striving to contribute to these efforts and drawing on (...) several theoretical approaches, the present study provides a contemporary examination of whether women and men differ in their levels of power motivation and whether potential gender differences in this motivation contribute to the unequal distribution of women and men in leadership positions. Results from four studies provide converging support for these assumptions. Specifically, we found that women consistently reported lower power motivation than men. This in turn mediated the link between gender and leadership role occupancy. These results were robust to several methodological variations including samples from different populations, diverse operationalizations of power motivation and leadership role occupancy, and study design. Implications for theory and practice, including ways to contribute to a more equal gender distribution in leadership positions, are discussed. (shrink)

We analyze investors’ perception and long-term effects of board gender diversity on firms’ stock market performance in an international setting. Our results, controlling for the endogenous nature of board compositions, indicate that female board representation neither improves nor reduces firms’ long-term stock performance. Hence, we argue that it is imperative to go beyond the conventional thinking in terms of the business case for gender diversity and broaden the perspective also to incorporate societal and ethical aspects in the strive to board (...) gender equality. Even more so, as our results show that it does not entail reduced shareholder value, which the literature on mandatory gender quotas commonly seems to suggest. (shrink)

Leadership archetypes are embodied and emotionally powerful identity profiles related to cultural conceptualizations of leadership and implicit leadership theories. The currently dominant archetype reinforces “think leader, think male” and racial biases that have been long- and well-documented in leadership research, and more recently highlighted as integrated into ethical leadership models. The pervasiveness of the archetype of leaders as agentic solo heroes leading through competition and power over others blinds us to other ways of leading. Unpacking archetype reveals that our culturally (...) dominant narrative is what restricts leadership to a narrow group of people, creating the misperception of a shortage of leadership talent. The dominant cultural archetype is traced back through time to figures in culturally foundational texts, and forward in time to modern stories, art, and media. An alternative leadership archetype is developed through historical and theological analysis, revealing a leadership archetype in Mary of Nazareth as a young, pregnant, ethnically oppressed leader, and her _Magnificat_ as a leadership vision statement oriented toward justice and the common good. This analysis revitalizes a neglected implicit theory or archetype of leadership, which had been crushed under layers of patriarchy, comprising leadership through supportive, creative collaboration; self-named holistic identity; feminine voice and values; justice-based vision; and a contemplative spiritual foundation. Implications for business ethics, organizations, and leadership are discussed. (shrink)

This paper examined the existence of gender differences in the degree to which leader’s perceptions of successor potential is influenced by interpersonal fit. In Study 1 (n = 97 leaders and n = 280 followers) multi-source field data revealed that for male leaders, ratings of followers’ potential as successors were positively related to interpersonal fit, measured by the degree to which followers’ saw their leadership as being close and interpersonal (i.e., being coaching, transformational and leading by example). For female leaders, (...) these relationships were absent, suggesting that they are less driven by interpersonal fit. In Study 2 (n = 311 leaders) a scenario study provided causal evidence that male leaders rated potential successors more positively when they perceived greater interpersonal fit with followers, whereas female leaders’ successor ratings where not informed by fit perceptions. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications for gendered leadership successor perceptions in organizations. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that gender is a primary cultural frame for coordinating behavior and organizing social relations. I describe the implications for understanding how gender shapes social behavior and organizational structures. By my analysis, gender typically acts as a background identity that biases, in gendered directions, the performance of behaviors undertaken in the name of organizational roles and identities. I develop an account of how the background effects of the gender frame on behavior vary by the context that (...) different organizational and institutional structures set but can also infuse gendered meanings into organizational practices. Next, I apply this account to two empirical illustrations to demonstrate that we cannot understand the shape that the structure of gender inequality and gender difference takes in particular institutional or societal contexts without taking into account the background effects of the gender frame on behavior in these contexts. (shrink)

Despite efforts to foster gender equality in academia, women are vastly under-represented in tenured professorships, specifically in STEM disciplines. While previous research investigated structural and organizational barriers for women in academia, we explored professors’ subjective view on attributes required before and after reaching tenure. The perspective of professors is needed as they are gatekeepers when it comes to the career advancement of junior researchers. Hence, we interviewed 25 tenured STEM professors in Germany about which attributes they personally consider to be (...) required pre- versus post-tenure and analyzed whether these attributes are associated with gender stereotypes. We found that different attributes are mentioned in the pre- versus the post-tenure career stage and that the required attributes can be associated with gender stereotypes: While agentic–stereotypically male–attributes were mentioned more frequently than communal attributes in the pre-tenure career stage, communal–stereotypically female–attributes were reported slightly more often than agentic attributes after reaching tenure. Based on these novel findings, we discuss important implications for gender research and practice to contribute to more diversity and transparency in academic career advancement. (shrink)

We report on the case of a 2-year-old female, the youngest person ever to undergo ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC). This patient was diagnosed with a rare form of sickle cell disease, which required a bone-marrow transplant, and late effects included high risk of future infertility or complete sterility. Ethical concerns are raised, as the patient's mother made the decision for OTC on the patient's behalf with the intention that this would secure the option of biological childbearing in the future. Based (...) on Beauchamp and Childress's principlism approach of respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice, pursing OTC was ethically justified. (shrink)

This paper problematises the ways women’s leadership has been understood in relation to male leadership rather than on its own terms. Focusing specifically on ethical leadership, we challenge and politicise the symbolic status of women in leadership by considering the practice of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. In so doing, we demonstrate how leadership ethics based on feminised ideals such as care and empathy are problematic in their typecasting of women as being simply the other to men. We apply (...) different strategies of mimesis for developing feminist leadership ethics that does not derive from the masculine. This offers a radical vision for leadership that liberates the feminine and women’s subjectivities from the masculine order. It also offers a practical project for changing women’s working lives through relationality, intercorporeality, collective agency and ethical openness with the desire for fundamental political transformation in the ways in which women can lead. (shrink)

We examine the issue of entrepreneurial gender bias by focusing on the underlying mechanisms that impact the likelihood of receiving external venture-capital financing. We claim that gender bias negatively affects socially attributed dimensions (such as the stigma ascribed to entrepreneurs who have previously suffered a failure), while it has no effect on objective dimensions (such as the experience gained by entrepreneurs). Our results, based on 2088 US firms, show that female entrepreneurs are less likely to attract external funds if they (...) have previously encountered failure. This negative effect becomes less impactful when novel or serial successful entrepreneurs are considered. Consequently, novel or serial successful entrepreneurs are expected to suffer less from gender bias if compared to peers who experienced a failure during their entrepreneurial career. (shrink)

This article offers an account of organizational change to explain why women leaders are underrepresented compared to women athletes in many sports organizations. I distinguish between accommodation and transformation as forms of change: the former includes women without challenging binary constructions of gender, the latter transforms an organization’s gendered logic. Through a case study of the International Olympic Committee from 1967-1995, I trace how the organization came to define gender equity primarily in terms of accommodating women’s segregated athletic participation. Key (...) to this was the construction of women’s bodies as athletically able but inferior to men, an arrangement formalized in codified rules and procedures and legitimized by external stakeholders. Defined in these terms, gender equity did little to transform the organization’s binary and hierarchically gendered logic, which continued to shape the informal norms and procedures associated with the organization’s allegedly gender-neutral and meritocratic yet male-dominated leadership. I argue that the exclusion of women from ostensibly gender-integrated leadership positions allows organizations to avoid revealing gender similarity between men and women. This maintains a logic underpinned by notions of binary gender difference and masculine superiority. (shrink)