- Director: Dr Pedro Rey, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
- Date of defense: September 18th, 2023
Abstract:
Leadership is a crucial aspect in any organization, and understanding the impact of gender on leadership can help organizations adopt more equitable and effective leadership practices. Despite significant improvement in educational attainment and participation of women in the workforce, the glass ceiling remains intact. Gender stereotypes and biases play a significant role in perpetuating societal expectations that limit women's progression to leadership positions. In this thesis we look at the how gender stereotypes affect our perception of leaders and selection of individuals into leadership positions under the ambit of social role theory. This thesis comprises of three studies, each of which takes the form of a chapter. In the first study, we begin with an examination of the characteristic traits we attribute to leaders in conversations on social media. We look at whether the traits we ascribe to leaders are in line with their prescribed gender roles i.e. men are more associated with agentic (action oriented) traits and women with communal (relationship oriented) traits. Using data from Twitter and natural language processing, we examine how cultural and socio-economic factors influence the gendered nature of conversations in the fields of politics, business and journalism for a sample of 720 leaders from 12 countries. The study finds that masculine societies are more likely to have gender stereotyped conversations about their leaders. Additionally, increased presence of women in the labor force corresponds to an increase in the gender divide in conversation content along the lines of gender stereotypes. Taking into consideration that we find evidence of gendered conversations about leaders, we move on to examine the character traits sought in a leader. In the second study we look at how preference for agency and communion in a leader is affected by individual risk preferences and whether gender is more salient in choice of leadership than the traits possessed by a leader. The study finds that while a majority of people prefer a combination of agentic and communal traits in their leader, irrespective of gender of the leader. Risk averse individuals on average prefer communal leaders more often, while individuals who are uncertain of themselves prefer agentic leaders. Both men and women on average rank a leader who belongs to their own gender the highest. On the contrary, whenever a leader exhibits unmitigated agency, they are ranked the lowest, particularly when the leader belongs to one's own gender. In the last study, we look at how the gender stereotypes about a task affect leadership outcomes. In particular, we examine how men and women get selected into positions of leadership mediated by perceptions of their ability. Additionally, we look at whether affirmative action in the form of quotas can reduce the gender gap in leadership positions created as a result of biased perceptions. In a between subject experiment with we vary the gender stereotype of the task, the gender information available about potential candidates for leadership and the presence or absence of affirmative action in the form of quotas to observe their impact on choice of leadership. The results demonstrate that men are more likely to get selected for positions of leadership when actual performance is unobservable and perceptions of performance depend on self-reports of performance from the leadership candidates. In addition, affirmative action for women in a male stereotyped task increases women in leadership positions only because men promote themselves less as opposed to women promoting themselves more, when gender information is available. Overall, the three studies contribute to literature by demonstrating the ways in which gender stereotypes continue to affect our perceptions of leaders, the ways in which our perceptions are evolving and by providing possible insights into shattering the glass ceiling. In the first study, we find evidence of conformity to social role theory in gendered conversations surrounding leaders. In the second study, we find that in general, attributes of the leaders precede gender in choice of leadership. In the last study, we find that role congruity of the task, increases probability of men getting selected for leadership positions. Furthermore, affirmative action for women does not increase the willingness of women to promote themselves.
