Virus for Women Employees: Exploring the Stereotypical Beliefs of the Leaders about their Female Followers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22555/pbr.v24i4.816Keywords:
Stereotypical beliefs, female followers, leadership, organizational behaviorAbstract
The never-ending gender discrimination in societies needs multidimensional exploration to understand its causes. Gender stereotyping has remained one of the foremost causes of gender discrimination in the workplace. This study strived to explore the stereotypical thinking and beliefs about women employees in the minds of their office leaders and discusses how these stereotypes play role in management of talent and performance of female employees. With the qualitative approach, this study has used hermeneutic phenomenology as the method of exploration. The data was collected with purposive sampling from managerial leaders, working in private companies whose followers include women employees. Nineteen in-depth interviews were conducted with a question designed from theory, expert and construct validity. The data were analyzed with multi-level coding and thematic analysis. The results revealed that managerial leaders have work-related, family-related and personal stereotypes about their female followers. They generalize that women employees are less ambitious, less professional, over occupied an emotional. They believe that they feel need to micromanage the females as they require more guidance. Those organizations that believe to maintain the diversity in employees should regularly organize training sessions to neutralize the stereotypes in the minds of their managers so that they could not hamper the progression of their female followers.
Keywords: Stereotypical Beliefs; Female Followers; Leadership; Organizational Behavior
References
Alam, A. (2011). Impact of Gender Discrimination on Gender Development and Poverty Alleviation. Sarhad J. Agric, 27(2), 329–339.
Ali, F., & Syed, J. (2017). From Rhetoric to Reality: a Multilevel Analysis of Gender Equality in Pakistani Organizations. Gender, Work and Organization, 24(5), 472–486. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12160
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2003). Good visions, bad micro-management and ugly ambiguity: Contradictions of (non-)leadership in a knowledge-intensive organization. Organization Studies, 24(6), 961–988. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840603024006007
Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C., Sorensen, C. K., Walker, D. A., & Razavieh, A. (2018). Introduction to Research in Education. In Measurement. Cengage. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
Ascher, J. (2012). Female Entrepreneurship – An Appropriate Response to Gender Discrimination. Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, 8(4), 97–114. https://doi.org/10.7341/2012847.
Awad, G. H. (2010). The Impact of Acculturation and Religious Identification on Perceived Discrimination for Arab/Middle Eastern Americans. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 16(1), 59–67. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016675.
Bodenhausen, G. V., Kramer, G. P., & Süsser, K. (1994). Happiness and Stereotypic Thinking in Social Judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(4), 621–632. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.66.4.621.
Brescoll, V. L. (2016). Leading with their hearts? How gender stereotypes of emotion lead to biased evaluations of female leaders. Leadership Quarterly, 27(3), 415–428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.02.005.
Carter, D. A., Simkins, B. J., & Simpson, W. G. (2003). Corporate governance, board diversity, and firm value. Financial Review, 38(1), 33–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6288.00034.
Coe, I. R., Wiley, R., & Bekker, L. G. (2019). Organisational best practices towards gender equality in science and medicine. The Lancet, 393(10171), 587–593. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)33188-X.
Cundiff, J. L., & Vescio, T. K. (2016). Gender Stereotypes Influence How People Explain Gender Disparities in the Workplace. Sex Roles, 75(3–4), 126–138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0593-2.
Deaux, K., & Lewis, L. L. (1984). Structure of gender stereotypes: Interrelationships among components and gender label. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(5), 991–1004. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.5.991.
Dušan, D., & Dzúrová, D. (2017). Social hazards as manifested workplace discrimination and health (Vietnamese and Ukrainian female and male migrants in Czechia). International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(10), 1207.
Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109(3), 573–598. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-295X.109.3.573
Eagly, A. H., Nater, C., Miller, D. I., Kaufmann, M., & Sczesny, S. (2020). Gender stereotypes have changed: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of U.S. public opinion polls from 1946 to 2018. American Psychologist, 75(3), 301–315. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000494.
Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (2016). Social Role Theory of Sex Differences. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss183.
Eitle, D. J. (2002). Exploring a source of deviance-producing strain for females. Perceived discrimination and general strain theory. Journal of Criminal Justice, 30(5), 429–442. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2352(02)00146-0.
Ellemers, N. (2014). Women at Work: How Organizational Features Impact Career Development. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(1), 46–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/2372732214549327.
Etikan, I., Musa, S. A., & Alkassim, R. S. (2016). Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American journal of theoretical and applied statistics, 5(1), 1-4.
Fiske, S. T., & Stevens, L. E. (1993). What’s so special about sex? Gender stereotyping and discrimination. In Gender issues in contemporary society.
Floersch, J., Longhofer, J. L., Kranke, D., & Townsend, L. (2010). Integrating thematic, grounded theory and narrative analysis: A case study of adolescent psychotropic treatment. Qualitative Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325010362330.
Gibbert, M., & Ruigrok, W. (2010). The “What” and “How” of Case Study Rigor: Three Strategies Based on Published Work. Organizational Research Methods, 13(4), 710–737. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428109351319.
Gino, F., Wilmuth, C. A., & Brooks, A. W. (2015). Compared to men, women view professional advancement as equally attainable, but less desirable. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(40), 12354–12359. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1502567112.
Global Gender Gap Report 2020 | World Economic Forum. (n.d.). Retrieved December 22, 2019, from https://www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality.
Goldblatt, H., Karnieli-Miller, O., & Neumann, M. (2011). Sharing qualitative research findings with participants: Study experiences of methodological and ethical dilemmas. Patient Education and Counseling, 82(3), 389–395. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2010.12.016.
Hanrahan, E. A., Huntoon Lindeman, M. I., & Finkelstein, L. M. (2017). Discounting seniors: Implications of age stereotypes at work. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 3(4), 370–377. https://doi.org/10.1037/tps0000132.
Heilman, M. E. (2012). Gender stereotypes and workplace bias. Research in Organizational Behavior, 32, 113–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2012.11.003.
Heilman, M. E., & Caleo, S. (2018). Combatting gender discrimination: A lack of fit framework. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 21(5), 725–744. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430218761587.
Heilman, M. E., & Eagly, A. H. (2008). Gender Stereotypes Are Alive, Well, and Busy Producing Workplace Discrimination. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(4), 393–398. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2008.00072.x.
Inzlicht, M., & Schmader, T. (2012). Stereotype Threat: Theory, Process, and Application. In Oxford University Press (Vol. 9780199732). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732449.001.0001.
Kazi, M., & Niaz, A. M. (2018). Gender stereotypes and education: A comparative content analysis of Malaysian, Indonesian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi school textbooks. PLoS ONE, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0190807.
Kim, S. (2015). The effect of gender discrimination in organization. International Review of Public Administration, 20(1), 51–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/12294659.2014.983216.
Kinkingninhoun-Mêdagbé, F. M., Diagne, A., Simtowe, F., Agboh-Noameshie, A. R., & Adégbola, P. Y. (2010). Gender discrimination and its impact on income, productivity, and technical efficiency: Evidence from Benin. Agriculture and Human Values, 27(1), 57–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-008-9170-9.
Koenig, A. M., Eagly, A. H., Mitchell, A. A., & Ristikari, T. (2011). Are leader stereotypes masculine? A meta-analysis of three research paradigms. Psychological Bulletin, 137(4), 616–642. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023557.
Langdridge, D. (2008). Phenomenological psychology: Theory, research and method. Pearson Education.
London, M. (2013). How People Evaluate Others in Organizations. In Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410600608.
Long, T., & Johnson, M. (2000). Rigour, reliability and validity in qualitative research. Clinical Effectiveness in Nursing, 4(1), 30–37. https://doi.org/10.1054/cein.2000.0106.
Macarie, F. C., & Moldovan, O. (2012). Gender discrimination in management. Theoretical and empirical perspectives. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 35, 153–172.
Madsen, R., (2016). “Dads Play Basketball, Moms Go Shopping!” Social Role Theory and the Preference for Male Coaches. Journal of Contemporary Athletics, 10(4), 277-291.
Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2003). Women who think too much: How to break free of overthinking and reclaim your life. Macmillan.
O’Reilly, M., & Parker, N. (2013). “Unsatisfactory Saturation”: A critical exploration of the notion of saturated sample sizes in qualitative research. Qualitative Research, 13(2), 190–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112446106.
Patterson, L., & Walcutt, B. (2014). Explanations for continued gender discrimination in South Korean workplaces. Asia Pacific Business Review, 20(1), 18–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602381.2013.818805.
Posthuma, R. A., & Campion, M. A. (2009). Age stereotypes in the workplace: Common stereotypes, moderators, and future research directions. Journal of Management, 35(1), 158–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206308318617.
Saldaña, J. (2016). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. In Sage.
Samo, A. H., Qazi, S. W., & Buriro, W. M. (2018). Labelling them is negating them. Management Research Review, MRR-04-2018-0170. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRR-04-2018-0170.
Schneider, K., Möhring, J., & Proskunina, U. (2019). Ego development and innovation orientation of women entrepreneurs in Germany and Ireland. Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 22(2),1-25.
Shannon, G., Jansen, M., Williams, K., Cáceres, C., Motta, A., Odhiambo, A., Eleveld, A., & Mannell, J. (2019). Gender equality in science, medicine, and global health: where are we at and why does it matter? The Lancet, 393(10171), 560–569. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)33135-0.
Van Manen, M. (2016). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Walker, J. L. (2012). The use of saturation in qualitative research. Canadian Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, 22(2), 37–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-007-0077-6.
Walker, W. (2007). Ethical considerations in phenomenological research. In Nurse researcher 14, (3), 36–45 https://doi.org/10.7748/nr2007.04.14.3.36.c6031.
Zarar, R., Moula Bukhsh, M., & Khaskheli, W. A. (2017). Causes and Consequences of Gender Discrimination against Women in Quetta City. Arts and Social Sciences Journal, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.4172/2151-6200.1000277
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Asif Hussain Samo, Sara Wali Qazi, Aamir Feroz Shamsi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
