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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 examines how the different attributes of authentic leadership influence trust and employee organization fit and how such influences differ by gender and the level of positions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study employed a survey to examine US employees' perceptions toward different attributes of authentic leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study showed that self-awareness, balanced processing and internalized moral perspective positively relate to trust in the employer, mediated through employee–organization fit. However, relational transparency has a backfiring effect, negatively related to trust through the mediation of employee–organization fit. Additionally, this study highlights the differences in gender and level of positions in reactions to authentic leadership.

This study contributes to the understanding of internal public relations in a turbulent crisis time by proposing a mediated model that explains the effects of authentic leadership on employees' trust through their fit with the organization. Additionally, it identified that gender and position level are important factors moderating such effects.

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.

The literature on help-seeking at work has experienced significant growth in the past decades. However, our knowledge about this research domain remains fragmented and lacks sufficient theoretical integration. Therefore, this paper aims to comprehensively integrate the extant literature on help-seeking behavior at work and propose an overarching, organized framework to propel this field forward.

A state-of-the-art review and theoretical development on help-seeking at work are conducted.

First, the authors provide the conceptual clarity of its definitions, key characteristics, types and measurement techniques. Second, the authors develop a fine-grained and integrative process-based framework consisting of antecedents, proximal psychological mechanisms, subsequent influencing processes and distal outcomes to advance our understanding of seeking help in the workplace. Third, the authors offer a detailed agenda for future research to target opportunities within the field.

The current study is comprehensive in surveying the full body of knowledge on help-seeking at work. It uniquely provides a coherent overarching framework that organizes prior findings and channels future research. Additionally, this review paints a complete picture of what has been done and what needs to be done in the field. More research can be spurred based on our conceptual framework.

This article aims to explore the potential of feminist phenomenology as a conceptual framework for advancing women’s entrepreneurship research and the suitability of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to the proposed framework.

The article critically examines the current state of women’s entrepreneurship research regarding the institutional context and highlights the benefits of a shift towards feminist phenomenology.

The prevailing disembodied and gender-neutral portrayal of entrepreneurship has resulted in an equivocal understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and perpetuated a male-biased discourse within research and practice. By adopting a feminist phenomenological approach, this article argues for the importance of considering the ontological dimensions of lived experiences of situatedness, intersubjectivity, intentionality and temporality in analysing women entrepreneurs’ agency within gendered institutional contexts. It also demonstrates that feminist phenomenology could broaden the current scope of IPA regarding the embodied dimension of language.

The adoption of feminist phenomenology and IPA presents new avenues for research that go beyond the traditional cognitive approach in entrepreneurship, contributing to theory and practice. The proposed conceptual framework also has some limitations that provide opportunities for future research, such as a phenomenological intersectional approach and arts-based methods.

The article contributes to a new research agenda in women’s entrepreneurship research by offering a feminist phenomenological framework that focuses on the embodied dimension of entrepreneurship through the integration of IPA and conceptual metaphor theory (CMT).

This study aims to investigate the relationship between feminine gender identity and leadership intention. Based on the theory of planned behavior and social role theory, the indirect relationship between feminine gender identity and leadership intention was analyzed through affective motivation to lead and perceived leadership self-efficacy. In addition, drawing on the person–environment fit theory, feminine gender identity was examined as a moderator of the relationship between cooperative organizational culture and leadership intention.

A cross-sectional survey was administered among a sample of 183 full-time employees.

Results demonstrated that controlling for sex, perceived leadership self-efficacy mediated the relationship between feminine gender role identity and leadership intention. In addition, feminine gender role identity acted as a moderator in strengthening the relationship between cooperative organizational culture and leadership intention such that highly feminine individuals in high cooperative organizational cultures showed higher intentions to become leaders than did individuals with less feminine identities.

In research on leadership intentions, it will be important to measure both sex and gender, as gender identity explains variance in important outcomes over and above sex. In addition, beginning to include organizational characteristics (such as perception of culture) in this stream of research is important.

Organizations wishing to promote more feminine individuals to leadership roles should examine their organizational culture to determine if it is cooperative, as this type of culture allows these individuals to be more intent on seeking leadership roles.

This research adds up to the literature by looking at an organizational factor, culture, and analyzing its role in increasing leadership intention in highly feminine individuals. In addition, by studying gender while controlling for sex, this paper suggests that regardless of sex (being a female or a male), feminine individuals will benefit from a cooperative environment. This includes any individuals (females and males) that identify more with communal behaviors.

Despite the significance of a gender-diverse workforce, there is a lack of comprehensive review of gender diversity and women's career advancement literature. Moreover, past literature focuses on women-on-board and other subsets based on outcomes like firm financial and non-financial performance, corporate social performance and board interlocks. The purpose of this study is to examine the research on gender diversity and women's career advancement through an analysis of 143 articles published during past decade. Theoretical frameworks, contexts and constructs-based contribution to scholarship were reviewed. The authors attempt to highlight key theories, constructs and contexts and provide direction for future research.

A comprehensive systematic literature review of 143 articles spanning January 2008–March 2023 about gender diversity and women’s career advancement was conducted.

Majority of the past studies have focused on women on board and top management team, and most of them have been conducted in the context of the USA and China. There is no specific industry which has been covered extensively. Resource dependency, resource-based views and agency theories are the primary theoretical frameworks used in the past studies. Furthermore, these findings suggest the scope to further focus on women’s retention and career growth initiatives, especially at levels other than top levels, for a stronger leadership pipeline.

This study has been conducted with a focused analysis of the context, constructs and theoretical frameworks, enabling future researchers to decide how and where to focus, to now strengthen retention of women.

Abusive supervision provokes subordinates’ interpersonal deviant behavior. It is, therefore, essential to explore the contingent factors of this relationship. Drawing upon gender role theory, this study aims to explore how subordinate and leader genders moderate the relationship between abusive supervision and subordinate interpersonal deviance. Furthermore, this study posits a three-way interaction effect of abusive supervision with leader and subordinate genders on interpersonal deviance.

Multisource survey data were collected from 45 supervisors and 170 subordinates in eight companies in China. The data were analyzed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS.

The results showed that the positive relationship between abusive supervision and interpersonal deviance was stronger among female leaders than male leaders. Furthermore, the authors found a three-way interaction effect between abusive supervision and leader and subordinate genders on subordinates’ interpersonal deviance. Compared with female subordinates, male subordinates engaged in significantly more interpersonal deviance when experiencing abusive supervision from a female leader than from a male leader.

The authors reveal that gender differences exist in the effect of abusive supervision on subordinates’ interpersonal deviant behavior. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that subordinate and leader genders jointly influence the effect of abusive supervision. Finally, the findings extend the literature on gender’s moderating effects from constructive and neutral leader behaviors to destructive leader behaviors.

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.

Based on the transformative learning theory, this paper analyses a French women-only training programme (WOTP) that aims to develop women’s soft skills in their professional contexts. This paper aims to focus on the process of personal transformation, the collective dimensions and the unexpected effects of the transformation.

This paper used a mixed qualitative design that mainly combines a qualitative two-step study of 47 women to assess their personal changes in terms of self-confidence, self-efficacy and assertiveness. This paper used 13 semi-structured interviews to explore the perceived changes in-depth.

The analysis shows that beyond “fixing their lack of skills” – including self-limiting behaviours, low feelings of self-efficacy and difficulty claiming one’s place – a WOTP can trigger a transformational learning experience at the individual level and can modify the surveyed women’s attitudes and behaviours at work. The results also highlight the collective dimension of transformation and, to some extent, an avenue for a societal transformation.

One can state that these WOTPs may positively contribute to human resources development in organisations, and that they may be considered a relevant practice in the move to promote women and gender diversity in organisations.

The findings reveal that, at their individual levels, these women may become agents of change by influencing and acting in their professional lives. The results stress that training women may contribute to organisational changes in terms of gender diversity. These findings contribute to the enrichment of the transformative learning theory by developing the collective and societal dimensions.