Cultural values and definitions of career success

This paper examines how national culture relates to the ways that individuals define career success. Data are drawn from interviews with 269 professional services employees in 15 countries. Interviews are content coded and linked with country‐level Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness measures of cultural values. We test our hypotheses using a multilevel multinomial logit model. The results demonstrate that the ways in which employees define career success vary across countries, due in part to differences in cultural values after controlling for gender, occupation, job level, and national economic development. We find that employees from countries high in future orientation, uncertainty avoidance, and performance orientation are more likely to define career success in terms of interpersonal outcomes, and those from countries high in collectivism (institutional and in‐group), humane orientation, and gender egalitarianism are more likely to prefer intrapersonal outcomes. We find that employees from countries that are high in assertiveness, uncertainty avoidance, and performance orientation are more likely to define career success in terms of achievement‐oriented outcomes. Finally, we find that employees from countries high in power distance report career success definitions in terms of safety and security outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of cultural differences in careers across countries.     

The interactive effects of leader–member exchange,gender and spouse's gender role orientation on work interference with family conflict

Based on social support and gender role theories, we examined the direct and interactive effects of leader–member exchange, gender and spouse's gender role orientation on work–family conflict. Survey data were collected from matched dyads from 185 dual-earner couples in Sri Lanka. The results show that leader–member exchange is negatively related to work interference with family. There is also support for crossover effects among couples such that individuals with spouses who have a traditional gender role orientation experience greater work interference with family conflict. Finally, there is a three-way interaction such that a spouse's gender role orientation moderates the relationship between leader–member exchange and work interference with family conflict differently for men and women.     

Women in grassroots leadership: Barriers and biases experienced in a membership organization dominated by men

Among governing boards traditionally dominated by men, the presence of women is becoming more common. However, these women may face prejudices and discrimination that prevent them from feeling and ultimately being successful. This qualitative study focused on the experiences of women who participated in a grassroots organization's leadership training program. Interviewees revealed that they believed gender‐related obstacles were preventing them from being effective leaders. Four significant themes emerged: persisting stereotypes and bias, separation and isolation, desire for change, and potential for added value. In response, the authors recommend organizations and practitioners engage in more intentional and complete implementation of path‐goal theory throughout the leadership development process.     

Women leaders—challenges,successes, and other insights from the top

The reasons for the persistent lag of women as leaders are complex. Attrition is an issue for women for many reasons, including traditional gender roles that may affect how women are perceived and the choices they have available (or they make), a lack of role models, the undervaluing of women's traditional communication and leadership styles, and organizational culture. Within medicine (clinical environments) and academic medicine (medical school and clinical environments), it is clear that the lack of women in leadership positions is more than a pipeline or a labyrinth problem. We undertook this case study to better understand the current challenges experienced by women aspiring to leadership positions in medicine and academic medicine. What types of challenges do women face as they move up in an academic or medical environment? And which challenges impact more than others in attaining leadership roles in these organizations: race and ethnicity, differences in leadership style and skills, mentorship and network, life experiences and family responsibilities, organizational culture, or gender? Our study addresses a gap in the literature by examining the leadership experiences of eight successful women in the fields of medicine and academic medicine. The emerging insights from these leaders may be useful for women from diverse backgrounds aspiring to be senior leaders in the future.     

为何言路难开?领导拒谏构念维度与形成机理探究

员工谏言不仅具有建设性,而且具有挑战性和结果的不确定性,使得领导者可能纳谏也可能拒谏。然而,现有研究主要关注员工谏言与领导纳谏,却忽略了领导拒谏。本研究在回顾员工谏言及相关研究的基础上发现,领导者会对员工谏言进行建设性评估和威胁性评估,具有建设性和防御性两种行为目的。基于此,首先,从领导者的双元行为目的出发探讨了领导拒谏的概念与维度,依据发展视角、人际视角和防御视角将领导拒谏划分为:指导员工驱动的拒谏、维持关系驱动的拒谏、保证权威驱动的拒谏。其次,分析了领导拒谏的形成机理,从谏言内容、谏言员工和谏言行为三方面考察领导者对员工谏言的认知评估过程,详细讨论了组织距离如何通过领导注意间接影响领导拒谏,并探讨了权力距离在领导注意与领导拒谏之间所具有的调节作用。本研究有助于推动领导拒谏的理论构建,拓展认知评估理论的应用,而且能为组织管理实践给予一定的参考与借鉴。     

Do Women Leaders Promote Sustainability? Analyzing the Effect of Corporate Governance Composition on Environmental Performance

In this study, we investigate the impact women leaders have on the corporate environmental strategies of organizations. Using a dataset of all Fortune 500 CEOs and boards of directors for a ten‐year period, we examine several aspects of gender in leadership on environmental strategy. Specifically, we test the impact of women CEOs, the proportion of women on the BOD, the number of interlinks women board members hold, and the interactive and cumulative effects of women CEOs and gender diverse boards. Findings suggest that firms characterized by gender diverse leadership teams are more effective than other firms at pursuing environmentally friendly strategies. This study contributes to research on corporate governance and environmental performance by showing how the gender composition of leaders affects corporate practice. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Leadership and management effectiveness: A multi-frame,multi-sector analysis

Bolman and Deal (1984, 1991) have developed four perspectives, or frames, for understanding organizations and leadership: structural, human resource, political, and symbolic. This paper reports two studies that operationalize that model. The first study uses critical incidents written by managers to assess how many and which frames they use. Most incidents show the use of one or two frames; very few contain all four. In every population, the structural frame was used frequently while the symbolic frame was rarely evident. Across different populations, the use of the human resource and political frames varied substantially. The second study used survey instruments to assess managers' frame orientations. Regression analyses show that their orientations, as perceived by colleagues, are differentially related to perceived effectiveness as manager and leader. Managerial effectiveness is related to an emphasis on rationality and organizational structure. Leadership effectiveness is linked to symbols and culture. For men and women in comparable positions, gender is unrelated to leadership orientations or to their effectiveness as managers or leaders.     

Gender and leadership: A criterion-focused review and research agenda

There is a large and growing body of work on gender on leadership, but this literature remains fragmented and incomplete, due in part to insufficient attention paid to nuances of the criterion variable of leadership. To provide a broader perspective on this literature, we draw upon Campbell, McCloy, Oppler, and Sager's (1993) theory of job performance as a framework to organize our review. First, we position gender as an indirect determinant of leadership and summarize prior work on (a) gender differences in leadership outcomes (i.e., emergence and effectiveness), (b) gender differences in leader behaviors, (c) gender differences in direct determinants of leader behaviors (i.e., declarative knowledge, skill, and motivation), and (d) potential mediated or indirect relationships between gender and these leadership criteria. Second, we explore gender as a moderator of both interpersonal (i.e., leader behaviors → leadership outcomes) and intrapersonal (i.e., direct determinants → leader behaviors) leadership processes. Throughout our review, we highlight new directions for future research to advance the study of gender and leadership.     

Individualization and Marketization of Responsibility for Gender Equality: The Case of Female Managers in China

This article investigates the question of where the responsibility for promoting gender equality resides in the Chinese employment context. Utilizing Acker's (2006) inequality regimes framework, the study explores women's underrepresentation in management roles in China and explains the persistence of gender inequalities in managerial echelons of Chinese organizations. Based on 30 interviews with female managers, the findings demonstrate the marketization and individualization of gender equality in organizational activity. The existing gender inequality, and the lack of responsibility for tackling it, has been either legitimized by eluding to the commercial‐only focus of organizations or rendered invisible through a belief in individual choice as the determining factor of career progression for women. Gender inequality in management is also maintained through the compliance of female managers themselves with the presumed legitimacy of gender‐based differential access to managerial roles. References to culture and tradition, market forces, competitive pressures, and individual choices by female managers are often made in explaining the unequal career paths and outcomes for men and women in their organizations. Our findings contribute to the human resource management (HRM) literature by framing macrosocietal context as a dynamic and endogenous aspect of management of human resources in organizations and provide novel insights into the interplay between HRM and societal context. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Gender inequities in the workplace: A holistic review of organizational processes and practices

In this paper, we provide a broad, integrative review of the degree to which gender inequities exist in organizational domains and practices covering areas such as performance evaluation, compensation, leadership, work-family conflict, and sexual harassment, spanning the employee lifecycle from selection to exiting the organization. Where the literature allows, we review intersectionality findings. We also review the factors and processes that facilitate and hinder gender equity in the workplace, by drawing on the most robust empirical evidence. Throughout the paper, we distinguish between findings that allow us to infer gender inequity versus gender equality. Consolidating these disparate literatures allows us to develop a model that explains how gender inequities cumulate across the employee lifecycle and are reinforced across multiple levels (i.e., societal, organizational, interpersonal, and individual). We also identify important gaps in the literature, suggest next steps for research and highlight practical implications for organizations aiming to advance gender equity.     

Self‐Monitoring and Performance Appraisal Satisfaction: An Exploratory Field Study

Members of 12 project teams in five organizations participated in a study that assessed their self‐monitoring characteristics and level of satisfaction with their performance appraisal system. Overall, taking part in self‐ratings and upward appraisals of team leaders was associated with greater levels of appraisal satisfaction than was participating in peer evaluations. Self‐monitoring level was negatively associated with appraisal satisfaction after controlling for level of ratings generated by peers, self, and leader. The paper discusses results, and offers practical implications in light of the social and interpersonal context that surrounds performance evaluation. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Agreeing to disagree? Explaining self–other disagreement on leadership behaviour

ABSTRACT

Leadership research tends to treat differences among ratings of the same leaders as measurement error. Our study makes such varying perceptions of leadership behaviour its main phenomenon of investigation. We conceptualize divergent leadership ratings based on the difference between managers’ self-ratings and team members’ assessments of leadership behaviour. Using data from three German public organizations on 51 teams and 190 leader–follower dyads, we find that divergent leadership ratings are a function of managers’ motivation, their use of managerial reflection routines, and team members’ personality. The findings point to the importance of using multisource feedback and developing managers’ self- and other-awareness.     

CAREER ORIENTATIONS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AND COMPANIES: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF WEST GERMAN,BRITISH AND US INDUSTRIAL R&D PROFESSIONALS[1]

This study examined dimensions and levels of career orientations and their correlation with work-related outcome criteria among industrial R&D professionals. Questionnaire data were obtained in 11 West German, 4 British, and 2 US R&D units of large industrial companies. Respondents were 729 West German, 217 British, and 124 US scientists and engineers. Managerial career orientation and professional/scientific career orientation emerged from factor and scale analyses as two independent orientation dimensions with similar meaning across the three countries and the 17 R&D organizations. Results indicated significant cross-country differences in levels of professional/scientific career orientation, but not in levels of managerial career orientation. Significant differences in levels of both orientation dimensions were detected between R&D units within countries. Distinctive characteristics of West German firms employing R&D staff with particularly strong professional/scientific or managerial career orientations are suggested. Managerial and professional/scientific career orientations were found to be differentially related to objective indicators and self-ratings of research performance. Directions for future research and managerial implications for selecting and rewarding R&D employees with different patterns of career orientations are discussed.     

Fundraising as women's work? Examining the profession with a gender lens

Fundraising is a mission-critical area for nonprofit organizations and has emerged as a professional field in the past 50 years. This paper explores the gendered nature of fundraising work and its feminization as a profession over time, while simultaneously documenting the persistence of a gender pay gap and male overrepresentation in senior-level positions in both North America and in the UK. The application of gender theory reveals that fundraising roles and responsibilities rely on key relationship-building and organizational tasks, which are commonly associated with stereotypical women's work and are, thus, valued less in a patriarchal society. As a result, the devaluing of fundraising as mission-critical work, and a career suitable for both women and men, may limit the credibility and power of the nonprofit sector to represent diverse voices and enhance democratic values in society. The article concludes with recommendations for research and practice.     

Gender,family and career in the era of boundarylessness: determinants and effects of intra- and inter-organizational mobility

Changes in patterns of long-term employment make understanding the determinants of different career forms increasingly important to careers research. At the same time, the rise of dual-earner families demands greater attention to the ways in which gender and family characteristics shape careers than has been paid by traditional research. This paper addresses these issues, examining the determinants and consequences of intra-organizational and inter-organizational mobility, using a sample of employees from dual-earner couples. We find significant gender differences in these different types of career mobility, and in the effect of family relations on different forms of mobility. Women experience more inter-organizational mobility, while men experience more intraorganizational mobility. Having more children positively influences men's intra-organizational mobility, but increases inter-organizational mobility for women. Marital instability increases intra-organizational mobility among women, but has no effect among men. Each form of mobility has distinctive effects on objective and subjective indicators of career success for both men and women. Moving between organizations tends to depress earnings, but has no effect on how successful people feel in their careers. Job changes within an organization increase earnings, but have a negative effect on perceived success.     

Gender, emotion and power in work relationships

We offer a theoretical account of how gender and emotion combine to influence the development of power in work relationships. We document the profound impact gender has on the display, perception and evaluation of emotion in the workplace. We illustrate the reciprocal relationship between emotion and power, and identify cycles of powerlessness that prevent women from developing and leveraging power in their work relationships. By exploring the nexus of gender, emotion and power in work relationships, we offer new insights into how the gendering of emotion creates and perpetuates gender differences in power in organizations. Implications for research and practice are offered.     

Health Among Leaders: Positive and Negative Affect, Engagement and Burnout, Forgiveness and Revenge

abstract    The health of an organization's leader has profound implications not only for the leader, but also for the organization itself and for its members. This study focused on three indicators (positive affect, engagement, forgiveness behaviours) of eustress, the positive stress response, and three indicators (negative affect, burnout, revenge behaviour) of distress, the negative stress response, in relation to the health of pastors, whose jobs closely parallel those of leaders in all types of organizations. Results indicated that both positive affect and revenge behaviour were significantly related to health. A post-hoc analysis indicated that work–family conflict was negatively related to revenge behaviour, while family–work conflict was positively related to revenge behaviour, and that engagement was negatively related to revenge behaviour. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for future studies of leader health, and their practical applications for promoting leader health while preventing distress.     

Leader–member exchange as a moderator of the relationship between employee–organization exchange and affective commitment

While there is some evidence on the outcomes of employee–organization exchange relationships and leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships, less is known about their combined role as predictors of employee outcomes. Relying on a recent conceptualization of social leader–member exchange (SLMX) and economic leader–member exchange (ELMX) as two separate dimensions of LMX, the present study explored whether SLMX and ELMX moderate the associations between organizational social and economic exchange and affective commitment. The main finding was that the association between organizational economic exchange and affective commitment is attenuated by SLMX. In addition, a positive association between intrinsic motivation and affective commitment was also unveiled, suggesting that affective commitment is not only determined by the prosocial motivation emanating from social exchange relationships, but also from the intrinsic motivation inherent in the work itself.