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The purpose of this paper is to describe how gender stereotypes and self-stereotypes of Danish managers vary among managers at different job levels, from lower level managers to CEO level, in a large survey of Danish private-sector managers.

This study is explorative. Measures of stereotypes and self-stereotypes are constructed and analyzed with regressions models that control for a large number of individual and firm characteristics.

The results document significant gender differences in stereotyping among managers. Male managers have significantly more masculine stereotypes of successful leaders, and they rate themselves higher on masculine traits than female managers. For CEOs, the picture is different. Stereotypes do not differ by gender and female CEOs have more pronounced masculine stereotypes than female managers at lower levels. Female managers at the age of 50 are the least gender stereotyping managers. Younger female managers have significantly more masculine stereotypes about the role as a successful leader.

This study is based on cross-sectional data and does not claim to uncover causal relationships.

The results suggest that gender stereotypes and self-stereotypes among Danish private-sector managers are not going to change quickly indicating that new government policies with more focus on gender equalization and affirmative actions are called for.

Most earlier studies of stereotypes concerning female managers are based on studies of samples drawn from the general population or consisting of students. This study makes use of a large sample of managerial employees from all levels of the corporate hierarchy in different types of firms.

This study considered the use of video conferencing virtual backgrounds with employees located in a large multinational corporate organisation in Ireland and the USA to discern if background images evoking gendered stereotypes of leadership can cue stereotype threat in female technology workers undertaking a leadership activity, thus negatively effecting performance. This study aims to contribute to the body of research on stereotype threat by establishing whether virtual backgrounds used in video conferencing software are inherently identity safe or whether their use could have a negative performance impact on marginalised groups.

Using a mixed methods research design with 22 participants in two countries working in the one large organisation, using two quantitative methods (an experiment and a survey) and one qualitative method (semi-structured interviews), the study examined the relationship between performance on the leadership activity and exposure to gendered backgrounds on a video conference call.

It found that female leaders undertaking a leadership test experienced more anxiety and achieved lower scores on average when exposed to a male-gendered virtual background compared to male colleagues or female leaders exposed to a female gendered background. It was also found that these leaders were aware of the stereotype of leadership being White and male, and showed symptoms of prolonged exposure to stereotype threat in the workplace. While the authors still are working through a post-pandemic environment, it may be judicious for organisations to restrict the use of virtual backgrounds to identity-safe ones, specifically chosen by the company.

The study makes several practical recommendations, indicating actions which can be taken at the individual, team and corporate levels. Re-running this experiment in a more controlled environment with a larger sample set could yield more definitive, statistically significant results and contribute more to the literature.

Some individual impacts were found via the interviews. Male leaders in the organisation need to do more to mentor and endorse their female colleagues. By doing this, they can counter the negative effects of solo status and the subsequent performance degradations of their female counterparts, while also setting an example for other leaders. Participation in the mentoring programme and initiatives such as Dare and value, inclusion, belonging, and equity should be encouraged and supported. Reverse mentoring should also be encouraged among the population of male leaders to aid in allyship and bias-awareness.

Teams should note that a democratic vote is not always the best way to decide on the names of teams, projects or meeting rooms. These may skew towards niche interests that can serve to alienate members of the team who do not associate themselves with that interest. Rather, the teams should strive to be fully inclusive and educated on the need for identity-safety. Team events may also serve to alienate members if teams are not mindful of the need to be inclusive. Activities, such as “go-kart” racing and physical or competitive team events have been highlighted as unsuitable for some team members, and should be avoided in favour of inclusivity.

A significant body of research has documented the effect to which stereotype threat can be triggered by both the physical environment and by the use of various technology media. However, there is a dearth of research exploring the relationship between stereotype threat, defined as “the concrete, real-time threat of being judged and treated poorly in settings where a negative stereotype about one’s group applies” (Steele et al., 2002, p. 385), and video conferencing software features, such as virtual backgrounds.

The purpose of this paper is to examine gender‐related management stereotypes, perceived gender bias and evaluations of actual managers, and to directly compare stereotypes and ratings of actual managers.

Questionnaires were distributed to employees in the bank and insurance sector, and 240 participants rated their actual managers and stereotypes of male and female managers.

Men evaluated the female manager stereotype more positively on communal attributes, and the male manager stereotype more positively on agentic attributes. Women evaluated the female manager stereotype more positively on both communal and agentic attributes, but perceived a higher degree of gender bias in favor of male managers than men did. Actual male and female managers were rated similarly. Still, ratings of actual male managers corresponded more with stereotypes of male than female managers, and ratings of actual female managers corresponded more with stereotypes of female than male managers.

Future research needs to determine the direction of association between stereotypes and evaluations of actual managers, and the relative importance of agentic over communal attributes.

While women appeared biased in favor of their own gender, men may underestimate the difficulties that female managers encounter. Managers and human resource practitioners should notice these different views, and recognize that gender equality is not achieved in Sweden.

The present study contributes with data from an egalitarian society with a positive view of female managers, and a direct comparison of stereotypes and workplace evaluations.

This paper aims to investigate cross-gender effects of gender stereotypes in advertising. More specifically, it proposes that the negative effects found in studies of women’s reactions to stereotyped female portrayals should hold across gender portrayal and target audience gender.

In two experimental studies, the effects of stereotyped portrayals (vs non-stereotyped portrayals) across gender are compared.

The results show that advertising portrayals of women and men have a presumed negative influence on others, leading to higher levels of ad reactance, which has a negative impact on brand-related effects across model and participant gender, and for gender stereotypes in terms of physical characteristics and roles.

Whereas previous studies have focused on reactions of women to female stereotypes, the current paper suggests that women and men alike react negatively to stereotyped portrayals of other genders.

The results indicate that marketers can benefit from adapting a more mindful approach to the portrayals of gender used in advertising.

The addition of a cross-gender perspective to the literature on gender stereotypes in advertising is a key contribution to this literature.

The purpose of this research is to develop and validate a new gender role stereotypes scale intended to be a short, effective, and modern measure of gender role attitudes.

A total of 800 participants completed an online survey, with 546 completing a second survey one week later. Recommended scale development procedures were utilized throughout in order to design and test the proposed instrument.

Item analyses determined a final set of most effective items, while exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provided support for the eight‐item, two‐dimensional (female stereotypes, male stereotypes) scale (Gender Role Stereotypes Scale – GRSS). Additionally, internal consistency and test‐retest reliabilities were acceptable, as was the construct‐related validity. This study also finds that gender role stereotypes are best examined as a two‐factor construct (male, female), rather than conceptualized as two poles of a unidimensional continuum.

The GRSS has advantages over similar measures, including that it assesses attitudes toward both men and women with only eight items, and includes items that are easily understandable, cross‐culturally appropriate, and modern. Practitioners can use the GRSS to assess potential gender role stereotypes held by management. If managers are found to have highly traditional gender role stereotypes, organizations may be able to intervene before stereotypes affect performance ratings or task assignments.

This paper yields an updated and sound measurement scale to replace outdated scales assessing similar constructs and/or assessing only one gender role stereotype (male or female, versus both). The GRSS allows for the parsimonious, comprehensive, and effective measurement of gender role stereotypes in research and practice alike.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the differences in male and female attitudes and establish a causal relationship between general (a priori) attitudes towards female stereotypical advertisements and attitudes towards specific advertising stimuli, providing evidence from Greece and Cyprus.

Male and female respondents (158 in Cyprus and 156 in Greece) indicated their general attitudes towards female stereotypes in advertising and were subsequently exposed to three stereotypical advertisements, to which they expressed their specific attitudes.

The results of the study prove that in countries with similar cultural backgrounds, such as Greece and Cyprus, general attitudes towards stereotypes in advertising do not have significant differences. General attitudes towards sex role portrayal in advertising directly impact attitudes towards specific advertisements. Further, it was demonstrated that respondents' gender plays a key role in attitude formation. The age of the respondents is also of interest, given that differences exist in general attitudes towards stereotypes in advertising and in attitudes towards specific stereotypical advertisements within respondents of the same gender, but of a different age bracket.

The key potential contribution of this study is threefold. First, it investigates the effect of gender and age on attitudes towards stereotypes in advertising. Second, it establishes a causal relationship between general attitudes towards stereotypical advertisements and attitudes towards specific advertising stimuli. Third, the study further validates the established relationship and the relevant measures across culturally similar countries.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the “think manager, think male” research paradigm by examining managerial stereotypes as a function of both gender and sexual orientation, thus comparing the similarity of managerial stereotypes against the stereotypes of male (heterosexual and gay) and female (heterosexual and lesbian) managers.

In total, 163 heterosexual participants used the 92-item Descriptive Index attribute inventory to rate one of five target groups: successful managers, heterosexual male managers, heterosexual female managers, gay male managers, and lesbian female managers. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated to assess the degree of correspondence between ratings of the target groups.

The findings showed a higher correspondence between the descriptions of heterosexual male or female managers and the successful manager prototype than between the descriptions of gay male managers and the successful manager prototype. Additionally, results showed that the stereotypes of lesbian female managers were seen as having a moderate level of fit with the successful manager prototype.

The results of this study suggest that heterosexuals’ beliefs about gay male and lesbian female managers’ abilities are important. In particular, heterosexuals’ stereotypes that gay males lack the qualities of being a successful manager can limit gay men’s access to positions with managerial responsibilities and impede their progress into leadership positions.

This study addresses a critical gap in the management literature as it is the first empirical investigation to assess whether the “think manager, think male” phenomenon holds for managers who are members of sexual minority groups.

The extant literature on leadership in the Arab world reflects the traditional bias of leadership being a male domain. Arising out of a patriarchal social structure, men assume leadership in organizations while women are often confined to work at home. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emergence of women leaders in UAE organizations by going beyond biological sex role biases to identify leadership as masculine or feminine gendered role stereotypes in organizations.

The data collected over two periods comprised two sets of Schein Descriptive Index (SDI) together with those of leadership intention and behaviour style; correlations thereof were computed to test hypotheses constructed from the literature.

The findings indicate that within organizations in the UAE, employee feedback highlights gender‐role stereotypes as defining leadership roles, rather than individual biological sex and their traditional family and social role. The findings reveal that in the UAE, gender stereotypes influence leadership intention and behaviour rather than individual biological sex and related traditions. Accordingly, women leaders having higher proportions of “agentic” characteristics of male gender stereotype together with lower proportions of “people orientation” of female gender stereotype, which makes successful leaders in the UAE break the proverbial “glass ceiling”. This explains the emergence of an increasing number of women leaders in the UAE.

Generalizability of the findings is limited by non‐representation of countries with high gender egalitarianism, as well as the geographical limitation of the study to the UAE only. In the context of traditional male‐dominated organizations in the UAE, the findings on gender‐role stereotypes of leaders in these organizations cannot only help organizations take informed decisions in choosing leaders without the “glass ceiling” biases, but can go further to identify and nurture potential leaders, including women leaders, within organizations. These findings are of considerable significance to the Middle East and the Arab world in general, in the wake of the developments witnessed there.

The paper explains women leadership in organizations in the UAE, a part of the Arab world of the Middle East, from the perspective of gender‐role stereotypes, as opposed to traditional sex‐role biases, to bring women leaders there into the mainstream gender literature.

The study which this paper documents aimed to test nine hypotheses through the use of content analysis of gender stereotypes within the advertising of educational/non‐educational children's games.

A total of 130 UK adverts, fitting the time period of 1970‐2011, were used. Then 17 dimensions of each advertisement were coded and chi‐squared analyses were carried out. Additional comparisons were carried out examining differences in pre‐1990 and post‐1990 adverts, age and game categories.

Nine hypotheses were tested and most were supported, including: males being shown as the main characters in educational adverts compared to non‐educational adverts; gender stereotypes occurring within advertising ‐ adverts aimed at males consisted of males being the main characters, female‐orientated adverts consisted of females presenting the majority of adverts; and young males were displayed alone whereas females were either alone or supervised by another female.

This study is possibly the first to conduct a thorough content analysis of television advertisements for games aimed at children. It reveals the amount of stereotyping found in general advertisements aimed at adults in many western countries.

Although situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) is centered on rationality and cognitive information processing, it ignores that people are also driven by irrationality and non-cognitive information processing. The purpose of this study aims to fill this gap by examining how gender stereotypes, based on perceived spokesperson sex influence the public’s perceptions of crisis response messages.

A 2 (industry type: automotive vs daycare industry) × 2 (spokesperson’s sex: male vs female) × 2 (crisis response appeal: rational vs emotional) between-subject online experiment was conducted to examine the effect of gender stereotype in crisis communication.

Results showed that either matching spokesperson sex with sex differed industry or matching sex differed industry with appropriate crisis response appeal can generate a more positive evaluation of the spokesperson and the organization. The results also revealed under which circumstances, the attractiveness of different sex of the spokesperson can either promote or mitigate people’s perceptions of the organization. Furthermore, when people are aware of a spokesperson’s sex, in a female-associated industry, a mismatching effect of a positive violation of a male-related stereotype overrides a matching effect of a female-related stereotype in crisis communication.

This study is among the first to identify how the gender of a spokesperson and industry type affect publics’ crisis response.