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To promote gender equality, world leaders at the UN came up with Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5). It proposes to eliminate discrimination against women by providing them with similar opportunities for reaching leadership positions. Hence, this study aims to examine the contribution made by women transformational leaders to their employees’ performance. The study seeks to emphasize the role played by female leaders in the on-job performance of employees and their mental well-being by encouraging intrinsic motivation among them.

For the purpose of data collection, a questionnaire was sent through Google Forms to the employees who had females as their superiors or in the decision-making position. Data from a final sample of 517 respondents was gathered, on which SEM was applied to analyze the direct impact of transformational women’s leadership on employee performance and the indirect impact through the mediation of intrinsic motivation.

The study found that by having feminine traits, women are stronger transformational leaders as they encourage individuals to be self-motivated instead of getting stimulated because of some external incentive. Also, such a leadership style ensures better work performance and mentally healthier employees. In addition, transformational women's leadership creates a better work environment by inspiring a teamwork culture instead of individualism.

The study has implications for not just researchers but other stakeholders as well. The study is useful for organizations as it directs them to hire and promote more women for leadership positions. Also, the results hint that people prefer working for women-led organizations as it will ensure a healthier work atmosphere.

There are many studies from earlier times related to transformational leadership. However, female leadership and the role it plays for employees have not gotten their fair share of attention. Thus, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present work is one of the very few where contributions made by women transformational leaders have been assessed.

This study aims to investigate how the role of female leadership works in sports coaching. Drawing key insights from the ability–motivation–opportunity (AMO) framework of human resource management, the authors explore the underlying mechanisms of female leadership and the role female coaches play in enabling athletes to develop their self-initiative through AMO enhancement.

The sample in this study is made up of 11female coaches from eight teams in China selected using purposive sampling. Data was collected and analyzed on various aspects of female leadership.

Analysis of interviews and secondary data show that the mechanisms and enablers related to AMO enhancing practices stimulated by female coaching leadership can increase team performance.

This study opens new avenues for sports science research and strengthens the theoretical and practical understanding of the intentions and mechanisms female coaches implement as leaders in sports coaching.

First, this study contributes to the AMO framework by helping form new theoretical insights based on the understanding of female sports coaching mechanisms. Second, this study provides novel insights into female leadership literature by investigating the mechanisms of female leadership in the context of sports exercise. Third, this study also contributes to the body of research on sports coaching in Asia, especially that of Chinese women in such leadership roles.

This article aims to illuminate the gendered organisational structure of higher education in Jordan by collecting and analysing a national-level snapshot of the current distribution of women and men in leadership positions and academic ranks across Jordanian universities to pinpoint inequalities in specific levels and fields.

Grounded in gendered organisational theory, this study presents a snapshot of the gender composition of 10 public and 14 private universities in Jordan. The snapshot, collected in September 2022 from these universities’ websites, examines counts of male and female administrative leaders as well as academic staff across all ranks for all faculties in both STEM and liberal arts fields.

The distribution of women and men in leadership positions in universities across Jordan is highly unequal, with men outnumbering women in the uppermost positions by nearly 10:1. This gap decreases as the rank of positions decreases, indicative of a highly gendered organisational structure, with only three to four fields approaching gender parity.

This paper offers a comprehensive and detailed quantitative foundation for researchers to investigate the underlying social, cultural, legal, political and economic factors perpetuating gender inequality in academia in Jordan and in comparative studies.

This study is relevant for targeting policies for advancing sustainable development goals, specifically 5.5, which aim at women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making.

This study provides the most detailed and extensive macro-level analysis of the gender composition of universities in Jordan.

This paper aims to appraise the effectiveness of gender quotas in breaking the glass ceiling for women on boards (WoBs) in companies that are legally obliged to comply with quotas (listed companies and state-owned companies, LP) and in those that are not (unlisted companies and nonstate-owned companies, NLNP). Furthermore, it investigates the glass cliff phenomenon, according to which women are more likely to be appointed to apical positions in underperforming companies.

A balanced panel data of the top 116 Italian companies by total assets, which are present in both 2010 and 2017, is used for estimating ANOVA tests across sectors and fixed-effects panel regression models.

WoBs significantly increased in both the LP and the NLNP companies, and this increase was greater in the financial sector. Furthermore, the relationship between the percentage of WoBs and firm performance is not linear but depends on the financial corporate health. Specifically, the situation in which a woman ascends to a leadership position in challenging circumstances where the risk of failure is high (glass cliff phenomenon) is only present in companies with the lowest performance in the sample, in other words, when negative values of Roe and negative or zero values of Roa occur together.

These findings have relevant policy implications that encourage the adoption of gender quotas even in specific top positions, such as CEO or president, as this could lead to a “double spillover effect” both vertically, that is, in other job positions, and horizontally, toward other companies not targeted by quotas. Practical interventions to support women in glass cliff positions, on the other hand, relate to the extent of supervisor mentoring and support to prevent women from leaving director roles and strengthen their chances for career advancement.

The authors explore the ability of gender quotas to break through the glass ceiling in companies that are not legally obliged to do so, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, the glass cliff phenomenon in the Italian context.

The lack of progress toward equity in the U.S. is evident across many spheres of society, academia notwithstanding. Women academicians, in particular, face many barriers that prevent them from advancing–including a continued unsupportive climate, competing work and family demands, and interpersonal discrimination. This paper reflects on a collaborative research effort in the United States to enhance allyship for women in academia.

The authors partnered with a major university to hold ally training for department chairs during a university-wide department chair meeting. The authors developed a methodology for creating and implementing training content using a focus-group-based training needs analysis and a diversity science grounded approach to allyship training. The authors followed this up with surveys to assess impact.

Participants indicated that they learned from the training, but participation in follow-up data collection was limited, hampering the ability to conduct rigorous quantitative analyses around intervention impact.

Although the sample size may have been too limited to detect effects, the current study provides an approach that furthers the way in which researchers and practitioners can better assess the impact of allyship to women academicians.

Published research on allies is very limited. The current research examines allies in the context of helping women in academia.

Despite widespread recognition of the importance of first-line supervisors in support of diversity, limited intervention designs are available. The authors add to the extant literature on diversity interventions, while highlighting barriers to rigorous intervention evaluation.

This study investigates the relationship between board gender diversity (BGD) and the time to Initial Public Offering (IPO), which stands as an entrepreneurially risky choice, particularly challenging in family firms. We also investigate the moderating role of family ownership dispersion (FOD).

We draw on an integrated theoretical framework bringing together the upper echelons theory and the socio-emotional wealth (SEW) perspective and on hand-collected data on a sample of Italian family IPOs that occurred in the period 2000–2020. We employ ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and alternative model estimations to test our hypotheses.

BGD positively affects the time to IPO, thus, it increases the time required to go public. FOD negatively moderates this relationship. Our findings remain robust with different measures for BGD, FOD, and family business definition as well as with different econometric models.

The article develops literature on family firms and IPO and it enriches the academic debate about gender and IPOs in family firms. It adds to studies addressing the determinants of the time to IPO by incorporating gender diversity and the FOD into the discussion. Finally, it contributes to research on women and outcomes in family firms.

The operational framework of external financing in the correlation between the gender of entrepreneurs and firm performance remains to be resolved. This study aims to investigate the mediating effect of external financing on gender-based disparities in private firm performance and to explore its heterogeneity within the Chinese context.

Based on national data from the 10th to 13th Chinese Private Enterprise Survey, this study used a bootstrap-based mediation effect model to analyze the role of external financing as a mediator in the relationship between entrepreneur gender and firm performance.

This study found that external financing is a constructive mediator between entrepreneur gender and firm performance. Heterogeneity analysis revealed that external financing plays a complementary mediation role in the impact of entrepreneur gender on performance in West China. In the tertiary industry, external financing acts as the sole mediator for the impact of gender on firm performance. Notably, this mediating effect is present in non-startups but not in startups.

The findings suggest that external financing can improve the firm performance of female entrepreneurs. Governments and policymakers should strengthen financial support for female entrepreneurs in West China, tertiary industry and non-startup enterprises.

This paper contributes to the literature on gender and corporate governance by shedding light on the mediating role of external financing in the relationship between the gender of business owners and firm performance.

The purpose of this study was to examine the boundary conditions of Kanter's (1977) tokenism theory as applied to the gender wage gap. The authors aimed to discover if there was a point where the relationship between the percentage of women in a job category and the gender wage gap changed, and, if so, where the threshold was located and what was the nature of the shift in relationship.

The authors used the Andrews’ (1993) threshold effects technique. Using 22 separate years of publicly available Canadian wage data, they examined the relationship between the percentage of females in 40 unique occupational categories and the female-to-male earnings ratio (for a total of 880 observations).

The results showed the existence of a threshold point, and that early gains in percent female within an occupation, up to approximately 14% female in the occupation, associate with strong gains in the female-to-male wage ratio. However, beyond that point, further gains in percent female associate with smaller improvements in the female-to-male wage ratio.

The findings are useful in understanding the dynamics of occupational group gender composition, potential theoretical reasons for the nuances in relationship, as well as opportunities that may facilitate more equitable outcomes.

The results show that, though improvements were made above and below the threshold point, enhancements in the wage gap are actually larger when there are less women in the job category (e.g. tokens).

Using Schein’s Descriptive Index (SDI), this paper aims to first examine gender role stereotypes and requisite managerial characteristics among Irish business students over a 10-year period. Then, the paper investigates whether there have been changes in gender role stereotypes during this period and subsequently unpack the reasons behind any changes recorded.

In total, 1,124 students from the same business student population rated men, women and managers in general, using SDI. Data was collected first during the academic year 2008–2009 and again in 2018–2019 to determine stability or change in gender role stereotypes and requisite managerial characteristics. Intraclass correlation coefficients scores were computed to determine the relationship between gender and requisite managerial characteristics and identify differences and similarities between the two samples. To explore the content of gender stereotypes, an examination of the specific descriptive items was conducted by performing a factorial analysis using Duncan’s Multiple Range Test. Finally, the authors adapted the scales developed by Duehr and Bono (2006) to determine whether broad gender stereotypic characteristics with respect to communal and agentic, attributed to men, women and managers, differ by sample.

The overall findings indicate changes in the extent of gender role stereotyping of the managerial role among the male cohorts studied. The subsequent analysis of the descriptive items identified that the change among the male cohort is due to the levels of agency they perceive women to now possess.

The authors contribute to the literature on both gendered and managerial stereotypes by showing changes in the pro-male stereotype of the managerial role and contribute to the existing debate on a shift towards a more androgynous view of leadership.

These findings help understand the content of gender role stereotypes that recent graduates bring with them to their first job post-graduation. The observed changes in the level of agency ascribed to women by their male counterparts could prove to be an important step forward for women’s advancement to managerial positions.

The findings indicate that both male and female cohorts in Sample 2 perceived men and women in general to possess the same levels of communal and agentic traits as their managerial counterparts.

This study aims to develop and test a model of the antecedents, mediators and consequences of the glass cliff phenomenon through public sector service organizations in Iran to explore more insights on gender inequality in managerial positions.

The current research was conducted based on a mixed-method approach, using both qualitative and quantitative research designs. First, the qualitative method includes content analysis by conducting semi-structured interviews with 20 university professors and expert managers working in public sector service organizations in Iran. The outcomes of the qualitative phase lead to designing the conceptual framework and research hypothesis. Then, through a quantitative phase, 384 female managers working in public sector service organizations in Iran are selected using stratified random sampling and fill out the research questionnaire. The exploratory factor analysis was used to verify the model. Moreover, structural equation modeling, using AMOS 24, was used to test the research hypothesis.

The findings of the qualitative phase were represented in three categories including antecedents (e.g. the characteristics of women’s leadership, the selection of women based on meritocracy criteria, women’s preferences and organizational factors), mediation effect (e.g. succession planning, personal development planning and support networks) and consequences of the glass cliff phenomenon (e.g. positive and negative consequences). The results of the exploratory factor analysis show there are ten components, explaining 88.5% of variances. Moreover, the test of the structural model supports the direct effect of antecedents on the glass cliff phenomenon. The results also show the effect of the glass cliff phenomenon on consequences through mediation effects.

There are some limitations that can be addressed by other researchers. Accordingly, the limited number of female managers in Iran prevented larger quantitative research. Moreover, the current research only found casual and mediation consequences of the glass cliff phenomenon, and potential moderators were not considered in this study.

The present study’s innovations may include using a mixed-method approach to investigate the antecedents, mediators and consequences of the glass cliff phenomenon in this study and examining the model constructs in some public sector service organizations. This research may provide a deep understanding of the antecedents, mediators and consequences of the glass cliff phenomenon by finding new factors using a mixed-method approach.