Search results

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide a theoretical explanation for the persistence of the glass ceiling keeping women from assuming leadership positions.

The methodological approach of this paper is to compare and contrast social role theory and expectation states theory as theoretical underpinnings to explain the persistence of a glass ceiling for women leaders.

Both social role theory and expectation states theory belong to the structural/cultural models describing differences between the genders. Social role theory and expectation states theory explicate diverse reasons for the emergence of these differences. However, both theories propose that gender differences will result in evaluation bias against women.

As a result of evaluation bias against women, the glass ceiling phenomenon keeping women from assuming top leadership positions continues to occur.

This paper is being written on the 20 year anniversary of the term glass ceiling being coined. It adds to the body of literature by closely examining two structural/cultural theories as possible causes to an invisible barrier which keeps women leaders from entering top level management positions.

Based on the social role theory, role congruity theory and gender role conflict theory, this paper aims to investigate the mediating role of “relationship conflict” in the association between traditional gender role (TGR) endorsement and objective and subjective negotiation outcomes.

Two experimental negotiation studies (n1 = 138, n2 = 128) were conducted at a US university.

This paper presents three original and noteworthy findings: One, in mixed-gender negotiations, as a dyad’s TGR endorsement increases, final agreements become significantly more likely to favor men than women. Two, in mixed-gender negotiations, TGR endorsement is significantly associated with a decreased ability to establish a pleasant, mutually satisfactory and successful business relationship, resulting in a possible future economic cost due to lost opportunity. Three, the heightened relationship conflict during the negotiation mediates the negative association between TGR endorsement and women’s economic outcomes.

Empirical findings support social role theory, role congruity theory and gender role conflict theory. The use of a distributive negotiation case and laboratory research methodology may limit the generalizability of findings.

Findings about the detrimental effects of TGR in mixed-gender negotiations magnify the importance of becoming aware of our TGR orientations and their potential negative consequences on our long-term collaborations. Also, it is necessary to provide negotiation trainings to both genders with regard to gender-driven conflicts and offer tools to prevent or tackle such conflicts.

Negotiations are among the most consequential of social interactions as their results have a substantial impact on individuals’ careers and financial outcomes. Understanding the effect of TGRs is paramount to improve female representation, participation and effectiveness in management and leadership. Mixed-gender negotiations such as collective equality bargaining, workplace social interactions, work-life balance discourse are critical to establishing gender equality and fairness in organizations and societies.

Understanding how gender influences negotiation processes and outcomes and using the findings to improve both genders’ negotiation success are crucial to establishing fairness and equity in society and business. This research attempts to close a gap in the literature by focusing on the potential function of gender role orientation in explaining gender differences in negotiation.

In recent years, mandatory rules and regulations were issued to stress the importance of increasing gender diversity in companies, assuming that gender diversity would enhance financial performance. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to review recent research concerning board gender diversity and its impact on financial performance for the period of 2002 to 2022.

Using the Web of Science and Scopus databases, 152 studies were analyzed, out of 91 high-impact journals. The analysis focuses on discussing the moderating, mediating and controlling variables and exploring the theories and theoretical foundations that are most prevalent in the literature.

The findings indicated an incompatibility between the results of the studies on the impact of gender diversity on financial performance. In addition, results showed the majority of studies focused on discussing the controlling variables associated with the company compared to the variables related to employees or the surrounding environment. On the other hand, the results also showed widespread use of the theoretical basis with the development of new theories in the recent period in parallel with the increase in the literature.

The results of this study help to reconcile the findings of the different and conflicting literature by presenting the perception that the efficacy of the positive impact of gender diversity on financial performance is related to several organizational and environmental factors that companies have to consider.

The purpose of this paper is to apply insights from social role theory to trust repair, highlighting the underexplored implications of gender. Trust repair may be more difficult following violations that are incongruent with the transgressor’s gender role.

This paper reviews research on trust repair, particularly Kim et al.’s (2004, 2006) discovery that apologizing with internal attributions is best for ability-related violations and denying responsibility is best for integrity-related violations. Propositions about trust repair are grounded in attribution and social role theory.

Trust violations may incur a bigger backlash when they are incongruent with gender roles, particularly for individuals in gender-incongruent professions and cultures with low gender egalitarianism. Men may find ability-related violations more difficult to repair. Women may find repairing benevolence and integrity-related violations more difficult. When apologies are offered, attributions that are consistent with gender roles (internal attributions for men, external attributions for women) may be most effective.

Gender can be a relevant factor in trust repair. Policies and training addressing conflict should consider how these differences manifest.

Gender role differences have largely been overlooked in trust repair. By integrating social role theory and exploring benevolence-based violations, this paper offers a more complete understanding of trust repair.

Using data collected from professionals in a large U.S. national public accounting firm, we explored gender differences in perceived levels of role stress and job outcomes as well as the effects of a healthy lifestyle as a coping mechanism for role stress, burnout, and related job outcomes. Our large sample size (1,681) and equal participation by women (49.7 percent) and men (50.3 percent) allowed us to analyze the causal relationships of these variables using a previously tested multi-disciplinary research model (Jones, Norman, & Wier, 2010). We found that women and men perceive similar levels of role stress as defined by role ambiguity and role overload, and that women perceive less role conflict. Men and women perceive similar levels of job satisfaction and job performance. Contrary to earlier studies, women do not report higher levels of turnover intentions. Results show that efforts of the public accounting firms over the past decade may be somewhat successful in reducing the levels of role stress and turnover intentions among women. Another plausible explanation could be that an expansionist theory of gender, work, and family (Barnett & Hyde, 2001) may now be responsible for improved well-being of females to the point where the genders have converged in their experience of role stress and job outcomes in public accounting.

The authors study the role of collectivistic norms and beliefs on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in Mexico, including differences across gender and generations.

The authors researched the relationship between Mexican employees' collectivistic norms and beliefs and their OCBs, which the authors grouped into etic (universal), emic (regional) and unique (indigenous) categories, the latter referred to as Mexican OCBs (MOCBs). The authors also studied the role of gender and generations as moderators.

Collective norms had a positive relationship only on the etic OCBs of sportsmanship, while collective beliefs impacted altruism and civic virtue; the etic OCBs of personal development, protecting company resources, interpersonal harmony; and the MOCBs of dedication and camaraderie. Collective beliefs on the etic OCB of altruism, the emic OCB of protecting company resources and the unique MOCB of camaraderie were stronger for workers from Xers than for Millennials. Moderation tests also showed that collective belief had stronger effects on the emic OCB of protecting company resources and the unique MOCBs of dedication and camaraderie for men than for women.

Gender roles in emerging economies where society is characterized by collectivistic attributes, especially in a sample drawn from professional employees, may have changed. This could explain the reason why most of the interactions were stronger for men. Future studies involving gender roles should look beyond a demographic variable and design an instrument measuring self-perceptions of role identity, such as the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974). This study's findings could be generalized, particularly, to other Latin American nations, but scholars should acknowledge differences in economic development and gender roles, as well as unique cultural elements (Arriagada, 2014; Hofstede, 1980).

The results of this study yield three practical implications for international managers, including (1) distinguishing between the impact of changing cultural norms or beliefs on OCBs, (2) understanding how demographic factors such as gender or generation may influence the degree of OCBs exhibited in the workplace by specific employee groups, and (3) identifying cultural contexts which promote OCBs. First, workers from a younger generation in a collectivistic society, such as Millennials, respond less positively than workers from older generations to cultural beliefs concerning OCBs, such that they are less willing to engage in a particular category of OCBs including protecting company resources.

Global managers should be aware that employees engage in distinct OCBs for different reasons. Emphasizing cultural rules and norms behind helping one another may backfire in Mexico, particularly among men and younger generations of workers. This is understandable for these OCBs. For example, engaging in personal development for the organization's sake due to collective norms may be less effective that pursuing personal development opportunities that employees are passionate about or recognize as beneficial for their careers. Dedication and sportsmanship behaviors that stem from rules are likely less strong or effective as OCBs employees engage in due to strong beliefs or altruistic spontaneity.

The authors filled a gap in scholar's understanding of cultural norms and beliefs on behavior. Specifically, the authors found that cultural beliefs shape etic, emic and unique MOCBs, particularly for men and older generations, and that cultural norms have a negligible and sometimes negative role, being positively related only to the etic OCB of sportsmanship.

This study examines how neutralization strategies affect the efficacy of information system security policies. This paper proposes that neutralization strategies used to rationalize security policy noncompliance range across ethical orientations, extending from those helping the greatest number of people (ethics of care) to those damaging the fewest (ethics of justice). The results show how noncompliance differs between genders based on those ethical orientations.

A survey was used to measure information system security policy noncompliance intentions across six different hypothetical scenarios involving neutralization techniques used to justify noncompliance. Data was gathered from students at a mid-western, comprehensive university in the United States.

The empirical analysis suggests that gender does play a role in information system security policy noncompliance. However, its significance is dependent upon the underlying neutralization method used to justify noncompliance. The role of reward and punishment is contingent on the situation-specific ethical orientation (SSEO) which in turn is a combination of internal ethical positioning based on one's gender and external ethical reasoning based on neutralization technique.

This study extends ethical decision-making theory by examining how the use of punishments and rewards might be more effective in security policy compliance based upon gender. Importantly, the study emphasizes the interplay between ethics, gender and neutralization techniques, as different ethical perspectives appeal differently based on gender.

The extant literature suggests that men and women do not necessarily possess identical negotiating styles. However, unfortunately the literature has yet to clearly identify the role that gender plays in the negotiation context and in the behaviours of male and female negotiators. This paper aims to contribute to understanding of this topic.

Conceptual/theory paper (with relevant literature reviews).

Perceived power in a multi‐party negotiation can be affected by numerical status, as well as social status with the result that a minority female in a group dominated by males will act differently from a male in a female‐dominated group.

This paper draws on theories of proportional representation, social roles and perceived status, in order to identify a number of factors that can affect the degree of influence exerted and the behavioural style adopted among male and female negotiators in mixed‐gender, multi‐party business negotiations.

This paper explores a very practical question – do men and women behave differently at the “bargaining table”? And how does gender play a role in multi‐party negotiations?

This study is highly original, given the lack of theory in this area.

Prior research shows that a board of directors' gender diversity positively influences organizations. However, little is known about how and why gender diversity influences the board of directors' functioning and decisions. The objective of this paper is to investigate the differences between women and men when fulfilling their role as directors.

This research uses a qualitative approach based on 29 in-depth semi-structured interviews with female and male board members.

The authors’ findings reveal that women are as involved as men in the board tasks and responsibilities. Also, women have the same understanding as men of their role and of the skills needed to be board members. However, women fulfil their role differently than men. Women come to board meetings more prepared, take more notes and do more follow-up, and they also dare to ask tough questions to top management. Women directors bring a different point of view — representing different interests — to board discussions, have a different communication style, are not a part of the boys' club and have a social upbringing that might explain gender differences in the boardroom.

This study could help boards and policymakers introduce diversity measures and provide ways to better integrate women into top decision-making groups such as board of directors.

This study's findings can help organizations include females in key decision-making groups such as board of directors.

This study reveals that in the same social setting, with the same role and expectations, and the same understanding of their role, both genders continue to perform differently.

Based on direct evidence from board members, this study highlights how and why women do their role in the boardroom differently.

The paper addresses the influence of culture and gender on the choice of a management career among men and women MBA students in Israel, the USA, the UK, Turkey, Cyprus, Hungary and India. The culture by gender comparison enabled an examination of five theories: two that focused on culture (Hofstede's and an application of Schneider's ASA model) and three that focused on gender (evolutionary theory, social role theory and social construction theory). The five theories have contradictory predictions about the relative influence of culture and gender.

Seven hundred and forty‐seven MBA students (390 male and 357 female and approximately 100 in each country) responded to a self‐report measure that was assembled especially for the purpose of the study.

The findings showed large cross‐cultural differences and small gender differences in the influences and aspirations associated with a career choice in management.

The findings support Hofstede's research and social construction theory, which predicted the cross‐cultural differences. They provide some support for social role theory, which predicted both gender and cross‐cultural differences, and very limited support for evolutionary theory, which predicted large and universal gender differences, and for the application of Schneider's ASA model, which predicted no cross‐cultural differences.

The findings are important in light of the small percentage of women in top management positions and the view of an MBA as means for breaking through the glass ceiling into top management. The findings can be translated to recommendations for encouraging women's entry into management.