Gendered cognitions: a socio-cognitive model of how gender affects entrepreneurial preferences

ABSTRACT

This research explores the social-cognitive factors which lead both women and men to pursue ventures consistent with their gendered social identity, therefore, reinforcing the gender gap in entrepreneurship. We measured the self-assessments of individuals presented with experimentally manipulated entrepreneurial opportunities that were either consistent or inconsistent with their self-reported gender. A theoretical model derived from Social Role Theory is presented and tested. It posits that a gender match (mismatch) with the entrepreneurial opportunity results in higher (lower) reported self-efficacy, anticipated social resources, and venture desirability and lower (higher) venture risk perceptions. The experimental data are tested in a sequential mediation SEM model. We find evidence that self-efficacy and anticipated social resources mediate the effect of gender congruency on perceived risk and venture desirability. The results provide insight into the insidious barriers that play a role in reproducing a gender gap in entrepreneurial outcomes by ‘nudging’ women into lower-return ventures in less lucrative industries.     

Work-to-family enrichment and gender inequalities in eight European countries

Abstract

All social roles have positive and rewarding as well as negative/problematic aspects. Research on the work–family interface has predominantly focused on conflicting roles. In contrast, this paper extends research on work–family enrichment (WFE), a positive aspect of work and gender differences in WFE in a cross-national context. Drawing upon social role theory and the culture sensitive theory on work–family enrichment, we examined gender differences in experiences of developmental WFE in a sample of service sector employees in eight European countries. In line with traditional gender roles, women reported more WFE than men. The relationship was moderated by both an objective and subjective measure of gender egalitarianism but in the opposite direction as hypothesized. The gender gap in WFE was larger in more gender-egalitarian countries, where women may be better able to transfer resources from the work domain to benefit their family role than in low egalitarian societies. National differences in labour market factors, family models and the public discourse on work–life balance mainly explain the unanticipated findings.     

Gender and voice in aged care: embeddedness and institutional forces

Abstract

Little is known about the role of gender in employee voice which is a particular research gap in feminised industries such as residential aged care. This article employs a multiple case study method to examine employee voice in residential aged care in New Zealand. It investigates the role of ‘embedded’ voice mechanisms, with a focus on informal voice and managerial agency as well as the impact of the external environment on organisational voice. This article questions the role of voice in maintaining low wages in residential aged care; and what role gender has in the embeddedness of voice. It finds that managerial agency is important at an organisational level, but that gender regimes influence institutional forces that have a greater influence on employee voice.     

Public service motivation and customer service behaviour: testing the mediating role of emotional labour and the moderating role of gender

ABSTRACT

Prior research indicates that public service motivation (PSM) provides a motivational base for effective emotion regulation. This study extends this body of research by investigating how service workers in different gender groups regulate their emotions during service transactions. Analysis of survey data from public service workers in Thailand showed that ‘deep acting’ is the primary emotional labour strategy-linking PSM and customer service behaviour (CSB), whereas ‘surface acting’ does not play a mediating role. The results further revealed that PSM has a stronger association with male workers’ CSB only via deep acting. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed.     

Managing Scottish higher and further education

Abstract

This article outlines the traditional gendered nature of further and higher education and how this has been challenged by long term developments. The focus on managerialism and competition provides a context for a re-invigorated ‘agentic’ (associated with masculinity) gendering. Non-executive management in further and higher education is deeply unbalanced in gender terms. Senior management in universities is male dominated but significantly more balanced in colleges. Furthermore, in universities, the career dynamic which privileges research and the gendering of this in favour of males, more than outweighs some new career spaces open to women. In colleges, the 1990s evacuation of many male managers created openings for women but in a particularly tough economic and business environment in which some have suggested that women have been used to bolster an ‘agentic’ male styled approach to management; others that a more adaptive less stereotypical approach is emerging.     

Gender,social salience,and social performance: how women pursue and perform in social ventures

Abstract

We investigate how women that start organizations contribute to the creation of social value in communities and society. We draw on theory from gender self-schemas and social identity theory to explain how women with a female gender-self schema have a natural inclination to create organizations with social goals and intentions in mind. We label these social goals and intentions as social salience and draw on goal theory and existing understandings on intentions to explain how the presence of a social salience in an organization is related to the social performance of their organization. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we show that gender positively influences social salience that subsequently has a positive relationship with the social performance of the organization. We also show that social salience fully mediates the relationship between gender and social performance implying that gender alone is not enough to explain the social performance of an organization. We conclude by highlighting the implications, contributions, and future research that result from our findings.     

Women in the migrant economy. A positional approach to contextualize gendered transnational trajectories

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the life histories of migrant women entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and Spain, this article explores the influence of transnational trajectories on their social positions and business strategies. A translocational positional approach enables us to research the transnational strategies of women entrepreneurs more effectively in addition to examining the changes in social positions and gendered identities between the country of origin and the country of destination. This approach contributes to scholarship on ‘context’ by offering a transnational gendered dimension in relation to the effects of social, spatial and institutional factors. Our findings demonstrate how female migrant entrepreneurs redefine their social status in different contexts by establishing a business and challenge, contest or comply with gender relations in their transnational entrepreneurial journeys.     

Exploring the effect of gender diversity in MFIs during turbulent periods

Abstract

Gender diversity is generally recognized as relevant in microfinance, and the relationship between gender diversity and firms’ performance has received attention in academic literature. The above-mentioned relationship has not been addressed until now in the microfinance industry specifically. This study seeks to explain the role played by gender diversity in the workforce of microfinance institutions (MFIs) during turbulent periods in the firms’ performance. The study analyses data from 555 ratings of 185 MFIs from MicroFinanza Rating, a leading microfinance rating agency. The analysis shows that the number of women on the staff of MFIs is significantly and positively associated with both the Return on Equity and Operational Self-Sufficiency of MFIs, indicating a positive impact of gender diversity on firms’ performance.     

Stress and turnover intents in international organizations: social support and work–life balance as resources

Abstract

This study investigates whether work opportunities have an impact on stress and the related turnover intentions of employees working in intergovernmental international organizations (IOs). It contextualizes the job resources and demands model within IOs’ specific work conditions. The empirical test is based on original data from a survey administered in four major organizations of the United Nations system. Results demonstrate that social work opportunities and work–life balance are organizational levers reducing stress and willingness to quit for employees who are facing red tape or the stresses of being an expatriate. In this context, the relationships between these work opportunities and turnover intention are partially mediated by stress. Contextualized HR management propositions are made to help organizations coping with these management challenges.     

Embeddedness in context: understanding gender in a female entrepreneurship network

ABSTRACT

In this paper I argue that through a process of embeddedness in context, a female entrepreneurship network is able to challenge gender structures. I investigate how a female entrepreneurship network is constructed and how they reinforce and possibly challenge existing gender structures. From an ethnographic study, three processes in the female entrepreneurship network were identified: making proper entrepreneurs, building relationships and engaging in change. In the different processes the women involved in the network reinforced gender structures through compliance with a masculine discourse of entrepreneurship, but also challenged gender structures through questioning this discourse. Through becoming embedded in their local community, the women entrepreneurs were able to take charge of the development of the network and challenge gender structures as a result of questioning the masculine discourse of entrepreneurship. This implies an interplay between embeddedness and gender as two separate but dependent processes. Linking together gender and embeddedness elicits a new take on the way female entrepreneurship networks are constructed and how they could advance gender equality within entrepreneurship. Consequently, this paper emphasises a need for further examination of embeddedness within gender and entrepreneurship research.     

Job demands–resources: a gender perspective on employee well-being and resilience in retail stores in China

Abstract

Organisational resilience can be promoted through human resource management (HRM) practices that enhance individual employees’ well-being and ability to cope with adversity. However, the extant literature tends to neglect the influence of gender on employee well-being and resilience. Shop floor employees in retail stores often undertake demanding roles, characterised by considerable pressure and low pay, and attendant high levels of employee turnover. Drawing on the job demands–resources model, by analysing data collected from 697 employees at foreign-invested retail stores in China, this paper found that workload and employee participation in decision-making had a similar impact on the well-being of both male and female employees. However, the impact of job security and emotional demands on employees differed by gender. This paper extends the job demands–resources model by articulating the influence of gender on employee well-being. Additionally, its empirical insights, drawn from an emerging economy context, enable a contribution to the literature on employee well-being and resilience. Relevant implications for HRM and resilience are discussed.     

Gender and organisational position: predicting victimisation of cyberbullying behaviour in working life

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate possible predictors of cyberbullying behaviour in working life by examining previously known predictors of face-to-face bullying as well as demographic variables such as gender and formal position in the work organisation. Multiple regression analyses were conducted on a random sample of 3371 respondents. The results show that a poor social climate at work predicted exposure to cyberbullying behaviour. The study also found differences related to gender and organisational position. While low support from managers was related to higher exposure to cyberbullying behaviours for men managers, men non-managers and women non-managers, this relation did not apply to women managers. For women managers alone, low support from colleagues was associated with exposure to cyberbullying behaviours. Further, only for women managers age had no protective effect of exposure to cyberbullying behaviour. These findings imply that men and women have different social experiences in terms of holding power in working life. As women managers are in a minority in working life, other factors may be involved in predicting exposure to cyberbullying behaviour for women managers than for the other three groups. This article contributes to the sparse knowledge on cyberbullying in working life by recognising triggering factors.     

What if the supervisor has a different gender? The roles of value fit,identification, and beliefs in gender equality

In the past decades, the number of female employees and managers has strongly increased in most developed countries. This demographic development emphasizes the importance to investigate gender dissimilarity between employees and their supervisor and how it can be managed to elicit beneficial gender dissimilarity effects on employees’ attitudes and interpersonal interactions. Past gender dissimilarity research often assumes women and men to have different values. Due to these value differences, women and men should be less satisfied with a supervisor who has a different gender. However, past research reported inconsistent gender dissimilarity effects on employees’ satisfaction and other work-related satisfaction variables. To clarify gender dissimilarity effects on employees’ satisfaction with their supervisor, we analyze the moderating role of an employee’s beliefs in gender equality. We further draw on social identity theory and investigate value fit with the supervisor and identification with the supervisor as underlying mechanisms of gender dissimilarity effects. To test our research model, we conducted a three-wave survey study with 463 employees. Value fit and identification with the supervisor mediated the relationship between gender dissimilarity and employees’ satisfaction with supervisor. This indirect relationship was only significant for employees with low beliefs in gender equality. This means high beliefs in gender equality can offset dysfunctional gender dissimilarity effects.     

Structural change and female participation in recent economic growth: a multisectoral analysis for the Spanish economy

ABSTRACT

Economic growth has different impacts on gender gaps. In recent decades the growing participation of women in the labour market has reduced the gender employment gap, however a notable gender pay gap still persists standing at around 15% on average in the European Union. In this context, this paper evaluates the impact of economic growth patterns on the evolution of gender employment and pay gaps. First, sectorial feminization, direct discrimination, and structural change factors are identified and evaluated as ways to explain changes observed in the gender pay gap. Second, we explore the influence of demand, technology, and intensity factors on the evolution of employment combining gender, skill, sectorial, and temporal perspectives. As a case study, we examine Spanish economic growth from 1980 to 2007 and the influences on the size, composition (by skill), and distribution (by sector) of female and male employment, as well as the consequences for gender gaps. Our results show that structural change contributed to reduce the gender employment gap in Spain; while the evolution of the gender pay gap is less conclusive, following a sort of inverted U-shape. This paper shows the suitability and potential of the multisectorial input–output framework to analyse structural and technological changes and their impacts on the gender employment and pay gaps.     

Demographic determinants of public service motivation: a meta-analysis of PSM-age and -gender relationships

ABSTRACT

Although age and gender are among the most analysed determinants of public service motivation (PSM), their effects on PSM development remain unclear due to contradictory findings among studies. To address this issue, we carried out a meta-analysis of PSM-age and -gender correlations, synthesizing findings from 30 independent samples, with pooled sample sizes as large as N = 86,958. Moreover, we considered the role of cultural context as a moderator of these relationships. Overall, we found that age and gender are indeed antecedents of PSM, but importantly, that these effects differ across cultural contexts. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Sex-Role Stereotyping, Gender Biases, and Job Selection: The Use of Ordinal Logit in Analyzing Likert Scale Data

Sex-role stereotyping and gender biases are examined in a study of 246 individuals. Results show that previous gender biases in job selection have all but disappeared; however, biases still seem prevalent in the assessment of individuals' long term success on the job. Specifically, the findings showed that while gender biases are found only slightly in the hiring decisions of male and females evaluators, the perception of the applicant's future job performance was generally less favorable toward the female applicant as compared to males. An important contribution of this study is in the methodology. It introduces the use of an ordinal logit framework which improves upon previous research by exploiting the simultaneous and ordered nature of a Likert scale.     

英汉语言中的性别差异研究(英文)

性别差异研究是一个非常普遍的研究课题,许多领域都予以重视。了解一些有关性别差异研究的知识对于促进男性和女性的和谐相处具有重大意义。本文就此从词汇、句法、言语交际、会话含义等方面谈论了语言中体现的性别差异,并从词形和词义来两方面来阐述了由此而导致的性别歧视。由此看出,男女在语言使用上反映出的性别差异体现了男女在社会地位上的不平等。     

The impact of state legitimacy on entrepreneurial activity

The purpose of this research is to analyze the influence of the state legitimacy on of the different countries’ entrepreneurial activity’s development, the opportunities’ perception and the entrepreneurship’s motivations. This paper is set into the research field which analyze how the institutional environment influence entrepreneurship in different countries. Research framework has been built based on the Institutional Theory. To develop the model we use a set of data extracted from the European Social Survey and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor about 28 European countries and we analyze them through Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling. Results show that state’s legitimacy influences the level of entrepreneurship in the different countries and the perception of the entrepreneurial opportunities and chances. Besides, the research shows that, in the scenario of the most legitimated countries, entrepreneurial activities is related to the need of self-employment. Based on the Institutional Theory, this research provide relevant contributions in the research field about entrepreneurship and countries’ institutions. From a practical point of view, the research shows ideas on how policymakers can improve entrepreneurial activity managing state legitimacy. Furthermore, the results provide new contributions in the research on the influence of the institutional context on the states entrepreneurial activity, providing an analysis and a comparison of the differences between countries, based on institutional theory.

     

Darwin and Lamarck in creative ideas: a qualitative study of inventors’ stories

Knowledge creation has been enormously emphasized in recent years as the critical factor for long term economic growth. Knowledge creation can affect individuals and societies by increasing economic opportunities. In order to see the knowledge creation process, individuals who have different approaches to the problems can be a starting point to understand creativity in inventions. Accordingly, this study aims to understand the generation process of inventive ideas from inventors’ point of view. Inventors in cancer research are interviewed by asking the question of how they came up with their inventive ideas. From inventors’ stories six themes are developed: stumbled into solution, like raising arm, tried different things, open to variety, possibility of error, and extension from previous knowledge.     

家族企业女性承继研究综述

随着女性地位的不断提高,性别与继承成为家族企业代际传承领域新的研究方向。以代际传承过程的三个阶段为纵向主线,对女性代际继承问题进行系统归纳与评述。在传承前准备阶段,对女性继承的机会与障碍研究较多,而对继承因素的性别差异性研究不足;传承中过渡阶段,研究主要集中于女性继承人与家族内外利益相关者的关系;而传承后二次创业阶段,研究多关注于角色冲突及女性继承与企业绩效的研究,对于女性继承人小家庭的涉入较少。继承要素的性别差异性及小家庭涉入应是未来颇具研究价值的课题。