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One Step Forward, One Step Back: White Male Top Manager Organizational Identification and Helping Behavior Toward Other Executives Following the Appointment of a Female or Racial Minority CEO
Abstract
In this paper we examine white male managers' intrapsychic and behavioral responses to the appointment of a female or a racial minority CEO at their firm. Drawing from intergroup relations literatures we theorize how and why the appointment of a minority-status CEO is likely to impact the amount of help that white male top managers provide to their fellow executives. We first explain how white male managers' negatively-biased perceptions of racial minority and female CEOs lead them to experience a diminished sense of organizational identification following the appointment of a minority-status CEO. We then examine how this diminished sense of organizational identification is likely to reduce white male managers' general propensities to provide help to other executives at the firm. We finally consider how reduced identification might have especially strong negative implications for the amount of help that white male managers provide to colleagues who are racial minorities or women. Our results consistently support our theoretical expectations that, following the appointment of a female or racial minority CEO, white male top managers tend to experience a diminished sense of organizational identification, and in turn provide less help to colleagues, with this reduction particularly pronounced for help provided to minority-status colleagues.
... As her structural power increases, we theorize that surface-level differences become even more salient, increasing relational conflict within the TMT. A female executive's structural power can increase relational conflict as males begin to identify less with the organization (McDonald, Keeves, & Westphal, 2018) and become less willing to share insights with and otherwise help their female counterparts. This in turn may make it difficult for TMTs with females possessing high structural power to reach consensus and leverage the collective knowledge of the team. ...
... First, our findings that a female's increased formal power bases (i.e., structural and ownership) lead to negative post-deal performance is consistent with our hypotheses. As gender differences become more salient when a female executive has increased formal power (McDonald et al., 2018), relational conflict is increased, further slowing the team's ability to reach consensus and delaying the decision-making processes during M&A integration efforts when decisive action is required. As such, our findings suggest that having females with formal power sources on gender diverse TMTs may elicit agentic behaviors from their male counterparts (Georgakakis et al., 2022;Sidhu, Feng, Volberda, & Van Den Bosch, 2020) that lower decision quality and disrupt or delay consensus among the TMT members resulting in adverse consequences to performance. ...
... Our findings suggest that the negative aspects of gender diversity which likely manifest in relational conflict are greater when females have structural power. This supports research showing that males identify less with their organizations when females become CEOs (McDonald et al., 2018) resulting in detrimental effects. Also, when females have structural power, their male counterparts on the TMT may display agentic behaviors such as being more assertive, competitive, and combative (Georgakakis et al., 2022;Sidhu et al., 2020). ...
Extant research examining the effects of top management team (TMT) gender diversity on firm performance report equivocal findings. We seek to enhance understanding of this critical relationship in the context of an acquisition, which necessitates changes in one or both firms during a process characterized by non-routine decisions, time pressures, high uncertainty, and frequent debates among strategic leaders. Specifically, we examine the effects of gender diversity of top management and female executives’ formal and informal power on post-deal performance. Our results indicate gender diversity has negative effects on post-deal performance. Further, in a subsample of acquirers with gender diverse teams, our results reveal that female executives’ structural power and ownership power have negative performance effects, while power conferred through an elite education has positive performance effects. Our findings highlight the need to expand gender diversity research to consider the strategic context facing diverse TMTs and power dynamics among them.
... Research on the consequences of advice typically focuses on features of networks: asking, for instance, how broad is the search for advice and how it affects subsequent outcomes (e.g., Alexiev et al. 2010;McDonald et al. 2008;Menon and Pfeffer 2003;Menon et al. 2006;Mole et al. 2015;van Doorn et al. 2017). Research that examines the seeker-advisor dyads focuses on friendship ties and functional or demographic similarity (McDonald et al. 2018;McDonald and Westphal 2003;Westphal 1999). ...
... These benefits may not materialize if potential seekers decline to search (Gray and Meister 2004;Hargadon and Bechky 2006), fail to motivate others (Baker and Bulkley 2014;Flynn and Lake 2008), or are tripped by manipulative or secretive sources (Haas and Park 2010;Schilling and Fang 2014). Benefits can be affected by the relationships between the advice-seeker and the advisor (e.g., Bunderson and Reagans 2011;Hinds et al. 2001;Levin and Cross 2004;McDonald et al. 2018;McDonald and Westphal 2003;Reagans et al. 2005;Westphal 1999) as well as the structure of the underlying social network (e.g., Alexiev et al. 2010;Hansen 1999;McDonald et al. 2008;Menon and Pfeffer 2003;Menon et al. 2006;Mole et al. 2015;van Doorn et al. 2017). Finally, the communication of advice can suffer due to characteristics of the task (e.g., Majchrzak et al. 2005;Podolny and Baron 1997), the knowledge itself (e.g., Szulanski 1996), or a combination thereof (Argote et al. 2003). ...
... This process of peer clustering is variedly present in the way professionals are assigned to tasks (Hargadon and Bechky 2006) or summon brainstorming sessions (Sutton and Hargadon 1996). It resembles the way executives seek advice from similar others (McDonald et al. 2018;McDonald and Westphal 2003;Westphal 1999). ...
When facing a crisis (or preparing for one), decision-makers often turn to peer networks, seeking advice and providing it. Scholars and practitioners endorse sharing knowledge and experience, especially for boosting resilience and combating crises. They believe such decentralized, peer-to-peer contact suits the ill-structured challenges organizations encounter. Yet, this endorsement overlooks a bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect: People regularly misjudge their own and their peers’ skills. Thus, ascertaining whether a peer is sufficiently skilled to advise is an error-prone endeavor. Because of the bias, a person in need may mistakenly accept poor advice—and then proceed to unintentionally spread it. To understand advice networks in crisis, we weave case studies and experimental evidence into a formal model. Seeding the model with empirical data on skill (mis)judgment, we confirm that advice improves performance, but only if skill misjudgment is assumed away. When the bias is incorporated into the model, the risk of transmitting poor advice increases. As it cascades from one person to another, poor advice undercuts skill throughout organizations and networks. And it reduces the diversity and range of knowledge and advice, further hampering crisis response. Seeking a remedy, we introduce a theoretically-derived mechanism for carving up the advice network, showing how organizational design can ameliorate the risk. We conclude with implications for resilience and crisis research and practice whether in established organizations or entrepreneurial ventures.
... Building on the existing work, we will start from the process of individual resource gain and loss, and draw from conservation of resources theory to examine how different types of workplaces helping may motivate individuals to direct workplace deviant behavior. We address these problems by classifying workplace helping into caring helping (i.e., helping colleagues overcome negative emotions; Lee and Allen, 2002), coaching helping (i.e., sharing knowledge; Podsakoff et al., 1997), and substituting helping (i.e., substitute colleagues to complete work; McDonald et al., 2018) based on the extent to which a helper engages in helping coworkers. Helping behavior has both the characteristics of resource gain and resource depletion. ...
... Coaching helping refers to the way that the helper helps others to improve their knowledge and work skills by investing cognitive resources to impart knowledge to the recipients and to provide advice and suggestions, which mainly include the sharing of professional knowledge (Podsakoff et al., 1997), sharing innovative ideas (Van Dyne et al., 1994), and so on. Substituting helping means that the helper directly intervenes in the work related to the recipient's help-seeking matter as a substitute by devoting all resources and fully or partially assumes additional work responsibilities, including sharing heavy tasks (Farh et al., 1997), substitute colleagues to complete work (McDonald et al., 2018), etc. Different types of helping behaviors input different resources, and the mechanisms for obtaining resource returns are also different. ...
... According to the work engagement theory, the resources that employees can invest in their work include physical, cognitive, and emotional resources (Kahn, 1990). On the basis of previous research (Williams and Anderson, 1991;Van Dyne et al., 1994;Farh et al., 1997;Podsakoff et al., 1997;Lee and Allen, 2002;Settoon and Mossholder, 2002;McDonald et al., 2018), we explore the influence of three different types of helping behaviors on deviant behaviors from the perspective of helpers. ...
Despite the vast academic interest in workplace helping, little is known about the impact of different types of helping behaviors on physiological and behavioral ramifications of helpers. By taking the actor-centric perspective, this study attempts to investigate the differential impacts of three kinds of helping behaviors (caring, coaching, and substituting helping) on helpers themselves from the theory of resource conservation. To test our model, 512 Chinese employees were surveyed, utilizing a three-wave time-lagged design, and we found that caring and coaching helping were negatively associated with workplace deviance, whereas substituting helping was positively associated with subsequent workplace deviance. Emotional exhaustion mediated the effects of three helping behaviors on subsequent workplace deviance. Moreover, employees' extrinsic career goals influenced the strength of the relationship between three helping behaviors and emotional exhaustion and the indirect effects of three helping behaviors on subsequent workplace deviance via emotional exhaustion. We discuss the implications of our findings for both theories and practices.
... Our investigation of how female executives' perceptions of CEO diversity-valuing behavior shape their psychological safety and impact their departure extends extant theory and research by showcasing a psychological mechanism through which CEOs' gender-inclusive gatekeeping influences women's longevity in executive roles (Dwivedi et al., 2018). Although we do not specifically focus on intersectionality, our arguments may apply to lower status racial minority executives who face similar biases (McDonald et al., 2018) and have higher turnover rates (Hom et al., 2008;Zatzick et al., 2003). ...
... Further, although our study focuses on female executives, these findings may have implications for racial minority executives who are also severely underrepresented in senior management roles (Bloch et al., 2021). Like females, racial minority executives face stereotypes in the upper echelons (McDonald et al., 2018), which may act as "push-toleave" forces instigating their departure (Hom et al., 2008;Zatzick et al., 2003). Our findings suggest that the CEO's diversity stance may also help mitigate such factors for racial minority executives. ...
An extensive body of research has shed light on the structural challenges and stereotypic barriers that lead female leaders to exit their organizations. However, we know little about the factors that mitigate these exits. In this study, we advance the literature by examining how the chief executive officers (CEO's) diversity-valuing behavior relates to female executives' likelihood of turnover. We integrate insights from the literature on gender inclusive leadership, turnover, and psychological safety to propose psychological safety as a key underlying mechanism for this outcome. We test and find support for our theory and hypotheses using a unique data set that combines primary survey data and archival data on turnover for a sample of 365 male and female executives from large U.S. public firms. Our findings show that CEO diversity-valuing behavior is associated with psychological safety for female executives and that psychological safety, in turn, mediates the effect on female executive turnover. We do not find these effects in men. Our study contributes to the literature on gender diversity and female leadership by shifting the conversation from discussing barriers constraining women's longevity to how CEOs enable female executives' retention through diversity-valuing behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... Relatedly, we enhance the decades-old research on the role of homophily in the boardroom (Westphal & Zajac, 1995;. Research has increasingly propelled the notion that directors prefer to surround themselves with others who possess similar characteristics (McDonald, Keeves, & Westphal, 2018;, but to our knowledge, no research has examined how the (mis)alignment of core values between the CEO and individual directors influences the construction of this crucial group. Our work in this regard may thus have implications as it relates to the enhancing diversity in the upper echelons. ...
... Although our work does not necessarily call into question the taken-for-granted idea that directors exhibit homophily, we open the door for more nuanced investigations into precisely what it means for top actors to surround themselves with others who think or look similarly. This is integral given the societal and academic encouragement for those in the upper echelons to exhibit more inclusion and consider diverse perspectives (Dwivedi, Joshi, & Misangyi, 2018;McDonald et al., 2018). Without recognizing the dual (and potentially asymmetric) effects of congruence and incongruence, it will be challenging to offer compelling and accurate theory about how to advocate for diversity in the corporate elite. ...
Political ideologies play a critical role in how individuals view the world and their social interactions. Management scholars have theorized about how executives’ politics may influence their firms’ activities, but organizational research has not yet fully embraced the political science logic that bidirectional ideological alignment is perhaps the most influential factor in crafting social circles. We incorporate this perspective by theorizing about how political ideology (in)congruence between an incoming CEO and directors impacts whether those directors retain their seat or depart from the board. Coalescing political research with the socio‐behavioral view of directorships, we argue that ideological incongruence is related to departure and congruence enhances retention. In post‐hoc analyses, we also uncover preliminary evidence that the salience of ideological incongruence supersedes congruence in director departure. Executives’ political ideologies have a profound impact on the organization, so it is imperative to understand whether the political views of those in the upper echelons play a role in cultivating who sits at the apex of the firm. In this study, we find that directors are inclined to remain on the board when they share a political ideology with an incoming CEO, but that they are also apt to depart from their positions when their political views do not align with the incoming CEO. In intriguing quantitative analyses, we also unearth that, like most individuals in society, directors are perhaps more repelled by a CEO with an opposing political ideology than they are attracted to a CEO with similar political leanings. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... The studies found that employees' job withdrawal behavior was closely related to their perceived relationship with the organization. When employees' organizational identification at a high level, they trust the organization more, see themselves as "insiders" of the organization, and consider organizational goals as their own [46]. At this time, employees think highly of their organizations, are happy to work for them. ...
With the continuous development of education level and the downturn of economic situation, employment competition is intensifying, more and more high-quality talents appear, and the misfit between people and posts has become a common phenomenon. However, there is no consensus on the relationship between perceived overqualification and employee creativity. Based on the conservation of resource theory, this study reveals the micro mechanism and boundary conditions of the influence of excessive qualification on employee creativity. This study analyzed 487 valid samples obtained in three stages. The results show that: (1) Job crafting has a positive mediating effect on perceived overqualification and creativity, and the path of the two halves is positive; (2) Work withdrawal behavior plays a negative mediating role between the perceived overqualification and creativity. The path in the first half is positive, and the path in the second half is negative; (3) Organizational identity moderates the effect of perceived overqualification on job crafting and work withdrawal behavior. Specifically, the higher the sense of organizational identification, the stronger the positive effect of perceived overqualification on job crafting and the weaker the positive effect on work withdrawal behavior; (4) Organizational identification moderates the mediating role of job crafting and work withdrawal behavior in the relationship between overqualification and creativity. Specifically, the higher the organizational identity, the stronger the indirect positive effect of perceived overqualification on creativity through job crafting, and the weaker the indirect negative impact of perceived overqualification on creativity through work withdrawal behavior. The study conclusion deepens the research on the mechanism of the influence of the perceived overqualification on employees’ work behavior, and provides practical enlightenment for the organization and management of employees with excess qualification.
... Desert is difficult to isolate even in seemingly objective tasks, such as stock picking proficiency (e.g., Fama & French, 2010), and fundamental intergroup biases continue to manifest in the selection and support of corporate leaders (Dobbin et al., 2011;McDonald & Westphal, 2013). For example, it has been demonstrated that following the appointment of a female or racial minority CEO, some white male executives experience a diminished sense of organizational identification and, in turn, provide less help to colleagues, particularly minority-status colleagues (McDonald et al., 2018). Although merit often plays a significant role, it may overlook those marginalized groups most affected by injustice, overlook biases in decision making, and place responsibility for societal issues onto individuals. ...
Racial injustice in employment demands the attention of business organizations because it profoundly shapes our life prospects. While comparing the ideal of perfectly equal opportunity with its invariably imperfect alternatives can impede reform, the true challenge lies in addressing persistent inequities as we strive for equality. This article introduces “shared inequity” as a frame of reference for assessing workplace racial disparities and emphasizing a collective responsibility to remedy systemic issues. In critiquing an exaggerated notion of meritocracy, I emphasize that structural racism, rather than just individual acts, facilitates collective advantages, especially for White males. Hence, it is morally fitting to frame racial justice in employment, not only in terms of perfect equality, but also in terms of justly sharing an imbalance that cannot be corrected without counterbalance. The “shared inequity” lens offers a more realistic and just approach to pursuing racial justice in the workplace.
... First, although our analyses are robust and well-informed by the COR theory, we concede that psychological contract violation could be examined beyond anticipatory and reactive helping behaviors. For instance, we reason that psychological contract violation can affect other helping behaviors like altruism, substituting, coaching, and caring (Lin et al., 2020;McDonald et al., 2018;Settoon & Mossholder, 2002;Van Dyne et al., 1994;Williams & Anderson, 1991) through anticipatory anxiety. Moreover, other related extra-role behaviors may also be affected by psychological contract violations (Organ, 2018). ...
An important concept that depicts the nature of employee–employer relationship is the psychological contract. Prior research has argued that all forms of extra-role behaviors suffer once employees’ psychological contracts are violated. Helping behaviors are a specific form of extra-role behaviors that may suffer due to psychological contract violation. We argue that this predominantly negative relationship between psychological contract violation and helping behaviors is because the literature has not adequately examined the different types of helping behaviors. Using the latent moderated structural equation approach with multi-wave and multisource data from a survey of 269 full-time employees and their coworkers from the hospitality industry in Ghana, we show that psychological contract violation is positively related to reactive helping behaviors and negatively associated with anticipatory helping behaviors through anticipatory anxiety.
... Specifically, individuals have historically tended to select their leaders predicated upon stereotypically conventional attributes, as opposed to their actual competencies, cf. (Carton and Rosette 2011;Cook and Glass 2013;McDonald et al. 2018;Rosette and Livingston 2012). Notably, one of the pivotal outcomes of these stereotype-informed choices is the prevalent favoritism of men over women for leadership positions (Christopher and Wojda 2008;Elsesser 2016;Sidanius and Pratto 1999). ...
This research investigated the relation between the need for cognitive closure, social dominance orientation, and attitudes toward women as managers within a sample of Italian workers (N = 391) enrolled in a cross-sectional study. More specifically, we hypothesized and found that the association between need for cognitive closure and prejudice toward women managers was mediated by social dominance orientation. Notably, these results remained significant even after controlling for participants' gender, education, age, and political orientation. Further, results from a moderation analysis revealed that the relationship between social dominance orientation and negative attitudes toward woman leaders was moderated by the need for cognitive closure. That is, the relationship between social dominance orientation and prejudice towards women managers was stronger for participants higher in need for cognitive closure-compared to those who were low. These results could shed light on new routes in practical intervention aimed at solving prejudice towards women in leadership roles.
... Historically, research within social and cultural psychology has attempted to address this issue through a stereotypical, prejudice-based approach. The findings of these studies suggest that people tend to select leaders based on traditional stereotypes rather than skills or abilities [3][4][5][6]. One significant result of these biased choices is the preference for men over women in leadership roles [7]. ...
This cross-sectional study examined the intergroup contact hypothesis in the workplace by enrolling 150 Italian employees. Within the framework of social dominance theory, the purpose of this study was to test the assumption that individuals with higher levels of social dominance orientation are more likely to exhibit prejudice against women in managerial positions and benefit more from intergroup contact with a female supervisor. In particular, we found that individuals with higher levels of social dominance orientation exhibited more negative attitudes towards women in manager positions, but this effect only appeared when their superiors were women, as opposed to men. In addition, participants with higher social dominance orientation experienced more positive outcomes from intergroup contact, resulting in less negative attitudes toward women managers, than those with lower social dominance orientation. Overall, these findings yield insights into how intergroup contact affects individuals with prejudice tendencies, indicating that contact with the targeted group (i.e., women in managerial positions) is negatively associated with negative attitudes towards the group, even when the prejudice is driven by social dominance orientation. These results could shed light on new routes to design practical intervention aimed at solving prejudice towards women in leadership roles.
... Younger cohorts have higher education levels and their exposure to White institutes and power structures are currently greater than in previous generations. The fact that younger cohorts are coming into competition with White cohorts for middle class jobs (which in older generations were cordoned off for the White male population) means that Black exposure to professional malice, envy, rancor, resentment, and disaffection is higher than in previous generations (McDonald et al., 2018). Essentially, because Black individuals in the middle class compete, work and are evaluated alongside White persons, and exposure to racial discrimination increases with upward class mobility, the issue of double discrimination based on race and social status exacerbates the resulting mental health consequences of racism (Noonan et al., 2016;Alang, 2019). ...
Anti-racism approaches require an honest examination of cause, impact, and committed action to change, despite discomfort and without experiential avoidance. While contextual behavioral science (CBS) and third wave cognitive-behavioral modalities demonstrate efficacy among samples composed of primarily White individuals, data regarding their efficacy with people of color, and Black Americans in particular, is lacking. It is important to consider the possible effects of racial stress and trauma on Black clients, and to tailor approaches and techniques grounded in CBS accordingly. We describe how CBS has not done enough to address the needs of Black American communities, using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) as examples. We also provide examples at the level of research representation, organizational practices, and personal experiences to illuminate covert racist policy tools that maintain inequities. Towards eradicating existing racism in the field, we conclude with suggestions for researchers and leadership in professional psychological organizations.
... The separation of female managers starts with the transition process. McDonald et al. (2018) showed how female CEOs had difficulty transitioning due to their white male managers being unwilling to help. Furthermore, expectations about the top female manager's likelihood of success were highly influenced by expectations about typical incumbents, the gender type of the job and both the job title and content (Byrne and Neuman, 1992). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the impact of gender in leadership on strategic orientation and the relative impact of these strategic orientations on organizational performance with the leadership of each gender.
Design/methodology/approach
Cross-sectional survey-based data were collected from 1,260 logistics companies, and 503 responses were found suitable for further data evaluation. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and regression analysis were used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.
Findings
Results show that managers' gender affects only the aggressiveness subdimension ( p = 0.018 and ß = 0.114) in strategic orientation decisions and that male managers tend to be more aggressive-oriented than female managers. Strategic orientation is more effective on organizational performance. More clearly, when female executives use the same strategic orientation as their male counterparts, organizational performance is higher than that of male executives.
Research limitations/implications
Managers' power is related to social norms about their valuable contribution to the organization and roles are associated with experiences. Thus, at different levels of management, different results will be obtained.
Practical implications
Organizations should only define leadership roles in masculine terms with information or research that explains how women leaders can contribute to the organization's outcomes.
Social implications
The lack of fit model should not be expected when determining executive-level female leaders' performance.
Originality/value
There is a significant potential in studying strategic decision-making and whether the ability to provide effective organizational outcomes is related to a person's gender. Even if previous literature suggests that gender stereotypes affect perceptions of men's and women's fit for executive positions, the strategic conception of organizational decisions is immune to gender, but strategy execution is not.
... Furthermore, social similarity produces liking, and people rate whom they like as being more competent (Rivera, 2012); in this way, dominant groups (re) produce their advantages. Socialization along the lines of demographic similarity also means that powerful networks influential in mentoring and promotion are available primarily to the majority demographic (e.g., exclusively male workplace networks organized around male-oriented activities) and are often outside the reach of the minority, which further entrenches barriers to WI (Amis et al., 2020;McDonald et al., 2018). ...
Workplace inclusion is a strategic concern for organizations, yet challenging to achieve. We investigate how Information and Communications Technology (ICT) use can enhance workplace inclusion. Based on qualitative data collected from a leading UK organization, we conceptualize four ICT-enabled workplace inclusion practices-Expanding, Orienting, Enculturating, and Reflecting. Each practice entails the use of multiple ICT applications to enhance workplace inclusion through a distinct set of organizational activities. We also highlight the Reflecting practice as key in enhancing other practices. Drawing from our findings, we develop a framework for ICT-enabled workplace inclusion that constitutes interrelated ICT-enabled practices focused on multiple organizational activities. We contribute to the literature on the strategic role of ICT for organizational/social good, a current area of research priority for the information systems discipline.
... studying the field in dynamics and selecting larger observance period, including more control variables, or eliminating country-/culture-/industry-specific factors and features (e.g., McDonald et al., 2018;De Amicis et al., 2021). ...
Purpose: "Where Are All the Women CEOs?" (Fuhrmans, 2020) is a corporate question describing the growing sense of gender diversity and women's discrimination in top leadership positions. Nowadays, gender equality is an important topic and plays a strategically important role in corporations. However, women remain underrepresented and are treated differently than men counterparts in top executive positions. Thus, this research aims to provide insights into the major themes and critically reflect on the literature regarding women/female CEOs of the past two decades.
Design/methodology/approach: A Structured Literature Review (SLR) was conducted. All included articles stemmed from the ABS or ABDC journal rankings, resulting in 162 relevant articles. The time frame was 2000 through 2020 (20 years). Databases included in this review were: Scopus (Elsevier), ProQuest, Emerald Insight, JSTOR and ABI/Inform. All results were limited to English-only peer-reviewed scientific journal articles.
Findings: The analysed literature on women/female CEOs addresses their personal and professional characteristics (outer appearance and leadership style), their appointment and hierarchical advancement, their effect on different business organizational aspects (such as firm performance and governance), the gender pay gap and the glass ceiling/cliff. Furthermore, the findings suggest that women are underrepresented in CEO positions, face various discrimination statuses, and bear with cultural and ethnic barriers to elevating hierarchy.
Research limitations/implications: The coding process, in particular, the code grouping, could be influenced by the researchers’ subjectivity. In addition, not all collected data was analysed, as some codes and data were not considered beneficial for this research.
Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, such research regarding female leadership, namely the CEO position, is limited, and no structured literature review within the AJG/ABDC ranking was found during the data collection phase. Hence, such an effort can serve for future research to dive deeper into the topic of female/women CEOs. The method has been described in detail to ensure transparency and researchers’ reproducibility of the results.
... McDonald et al., 2018), sex(Ronay et al., 2019;Tskhay et al., 2017), as well as stable traits such as personality (e.g.,Bharanitharan et al., 2021;De Vries, et al., 2012;Klonek et al., 2020) and intelligence (MacLaren et al., 2020). For example, Park and colleagues (2021) examined how the CEO's internal attribution of positive firm performance affects the degree of financial analysts' internal attributions of negative firm performance. ...
Researchers striving to ensure rigor in their scientific findings face a common pitfall: Endogeneity. To tackle this problem, scholars have increasingly adopted instrumental variables estimation (IVE). Although there are many published works showing how IVE should be used, many applied researchers still have trouble understanding how to use the method correctly. In this article, we provide a methodological overview of IVE by discussing the underlying conditions valid instruments must satisfy as well as common mistakes made in using IVE. Using simulated data, we further demonstrate the sensitivity of IVE to violations of its conditions. We then take stock of the literature in a social science discipline (i.e., leadership research) and provide insights regarding trends and shortcomings in the application of IVE. Based on our review, we categorize the different types of instruments used and discuss the potential appropriateness of each type. We conclude by providing non–technical guidelines targeted at the study design, analysis, and reporting phases, which will help applied social science researchers to ensure they use IVE correctly.
... What is more challenging is that female leaders who exhibited masculine leadership behaviors (e.g., autocratic, directive qualities) and transformative leadership style were perceived unfavorably (Ayman, Korabik, & Morris, 2009;Eagly and Makhijani, 1992). Male managers were shown to experience less organization identification after a woman CEO was appointed and were less inclined to provide their assistance (McDonald, Keeves, & Westphal, 2018). The results from this study illustrated that female leaders face a double-bind as they cannot be a good leader and good woman simultaneously. ...
Inequities still exist in today's society, and this book advances awareness, an equitable mindset, and transformative change toward the goal of eliminating inequities and promoting inclusiveness and social justice.
Racialized inequity is injustice or unfairness and exists when prejudice or discrimination based on any aspect of difference precludes access of certain groups to the resources and benefits of society. This volume takes a new look at the psychology of inequity today. Have we progressed or regressed since the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s?
Through an examination of the motivations and beliefs behind inequities and injustices, this text aims to answer this question and any others that a scholar or general reader interested in social inequities and multiculturalism may have. Chapters address the motives that sustain inequity and reflect on the beliefs and behaviors linked to implicit responses to threats of change and loss of privilege posed by the inclusion of "others."
... Furthermore, there is no responsibility when a company's ideals are broken. In many circumstances, corporate culture and the market in general [34] prioritizes efficiency above fairness and prejudice reduction, making it impossible to put the ideas into. When combining bias and fairness criteria, it is critical to what is "fair" for a particular AI system and who defines "fair". ...
The popularity of Artificial Intelligence has grown lately with the potential it promises for revolutionizing a wide range of different sectors. To achieve the change, whole community must overcome the Machine Learning (ML) related explainability barrier, an inherent obstacle of current sub symbolism-based approaches, e.g. in Deep Neural Networks, which was not existing during the last AI hype time including some expert and rule-based systems. Due to lack of transparency , privacy, biased systems, lack of governance and accountability, our society demands toolsets to create responsible AI solutions for enabling of unbiased AI systems. These solutions will help business owners to create AI applications which are trust enhancing, open and transparent and also explainable. Properly made systems will enhance trust among employees, business leaders, customers and other stakeholders. The process of overseeing artificial intelligence usage and its influence on related stakeholders belongs to the context of AI Governance. Our work gives a detailed overview of a governance model for Responsible AI, emphasizing fairness, model explainability, and responsibility in large-scale AI technology deployment in real-world organizations. Our goal is to provide the model developers in an organization to understand the Responsible AI with a comprehensive governance framework that outlines the details of the different roles and the key responsibilities. The results work as reference for future research is aimed to encourage area experts from other disciplines towards embracement of AI in their own business sectors, without interpretability shortcoming biases.
... Furthermore, there is no responsibility when a company's ideals are broken. In many circumstances, corporate culture and the market in general [34] prioritizes efficiency above fairness and prejudice reduction, making it impossible to put the ideas into. When combining bias and fairness criteria, it is critical to what is "fair" for a particular AI system and who defines "fair". ...
The popularity of Artificial Intelligence has grown lately with the potential it promises for revolutionizing a wide range of different sectors. To achieve the change, whole community must overcome the Machine Learning (ML) related explainability barrier, an inherent obstacle of current sub symbolism-based approaches, e.g. in Deep Neural Networks, which was not existing during the last AI hype time including some expert and rule-based systems. Due to lack of transparency, privacy, biased systems, lack of governance and accountability, our society demands toolsets to create responsible AI solutions for enabling of unbiased AI systems. These solutions will help business owners to create AI applications which are trust enhancing, open and transparent and also explainable. Properly made systems will enhance trust among employees, business leaders, customers and other stakeholders. The process of overseeing artificial intelligence usage and its influence on related stakeholders belongs to the context of AI Governance. Our work gives a detailed overview of a governance model for Responsible AI, emphasizing fairness, model explainability, and responsibility in large-scale AI technology deployment in real-world organizations. Our goal is to provide the model developers in an organization to understand the Responsible AI with a comprehensive governance framework that outlines the details of the different roles and the key responsibilities. The results work as reference for future research is aimed to encourage area experts from other disciplines towards embracement of AI in their own business sectors, without interpretability shortcoming biases.KeywordsAI governanceResponsible AIReal life applicationseXplainable AIThree lines model
... On this latter point, Kaiser et al. (2013) used experiments to highlight how non-marginalized group members assume that grievance structures are fair and consequently become less able to detect when discrimination may, in fact, be happening. This is supported by research that documents that diversity initiatives shape how organizational actors engage with both the organization and those who are beneficiaries of diversity initiatives (e.g., Dover et al., 2016;McDonald et al., 2018;Wilkins et al., 2015). ...
Diversity initiatives are designed to help workers from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve equitable opportunities and outcomes in organizations. However, these programs are often ineffective. To better understand less‐than‐desired outcomes and the shifting diversity landscape, we synthesize literature on how corporate affirmative action programs became diversity initiatives and current literature on their effectiveness. We focus specifically on work dealing with mechanisms that make diversity initiatives effective as well as their unintended consequences. When taken together, these literature point to several inequality‐specific omissions in contemporary discussions of organizational diversity initiatives, such as the omission of racial inequality. As we contend in the first section of this review, without affirmative action law, which initially tasked US employers with ending racial discrimination at the workplace, we would not have diversity initiatives. We conclude by providing directions for future research and elaborating on several core foci that scholars might pursue to better (re)connect issues of organizational diversity with the aims of equity, equality and social justice.
... Group think, is a phenomenon that often occurs in group decision making, is defined as a situation in which the majority tried to drown a critical view, unusual, or coming from minority groups (Galbreath, 2018). This is because the commissioner women are more sensitive and sensitive to environmental issues and the like with the development and have better communication than men (McDonald, Keeves, & Westphal, 2018;Sudana & Arlindania, 2011). Based on this study, the first hypothesis was obtained as follows: H1: Gender commissioners significant effect on CSR disclosure . ...
Good companies are inseparable from good Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR is one indication of whether or not a company is good or bad. CSR has a real impact on the environment and society. The better the impact obtained from the company's CSR, the better the company's performance. CSR activities can be seen from the CSR disclosures. CSR disclosure is influenced by various internal and external factors. As for this study, we want to analyze the influence of the diversity of the board of commissioners on CSR disclosure. The independent variables used in this study are gender commissioners, nationality commissioners, and ethnic commissioners. Company data used are from LQ45 companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2015-2017. 20 companies were found to be the sample of this study using purposive sampling method. From the data processing that has been done, the results obtained are that Gender commissioners have no effect on CSR disclosure. Likewise, the Nationality commissioner proved not to affect the increase in CSR disclosure. but conversely with Ethnic commissioners who have a significant influence on CSR disclosure. This means that ethnic diversity on the board of commissioners is very important. In addition to expanding CSR disclosure can also improve company performance.
... I n the United States, women and racial/ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in many organizational contexts, particularly in leadership positions 1,2 . One contributing factor may be that in-group favouritism and bias lead underrepresented group members to receive less instrumental help-advice, feedback, referrals or assistance on tasks-than White men [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] . Such instrumental help can be critical to career success, especially for members of historically marginalized groups [13][14][15] . ...
Receiving help can make or break a career, but women and racial/ethnic minorities do not always receive the support they seek. Across two audit experiments—one with politicians and another with students—as well as an online experiment (total n = 5,145), we test whether women and racial/ethnic minorities benefit from explicitly mentioning their demographic identity in requests for help, for example, by including statements like “As a Black woman…” in their communications. We propose that when a help seeker highlights their marginalized identity, it may activate prospective helpers’ motivations to avoid prejudiced reactions and increase their willingness to provide support. Here we show that when women and racial/ethnic minorities explicitly mentioned their demographic identity in help-seeking emails, politicians and students responded 24.4% (7.42 percentage points) and 79.6% (2.73 percentage points) more often, respectively. These findings suggest that deliberately mentioning identity in requests for help can improve outcomes for women and racial/ethnic minorities.
... According to the theory of tokenism (Kanter 1977), minority individuals have higher visibility, are subjected to greater performance pressure, and face a less cooperative environment overall. McDonald et al. (2018) find that in the presence of a female CEO, white male senior executives tend to develop a diminished sense of organizational identity and consequently provide less help to the CEO. Studies show that even subordinates will subject minorities to hostility, resistance, and dislike (Nesbitt 1997;Heilman et al. 2004). ...
This study examines the voluntary disclosure of earnings forecasts by female CEOs. We find that in the backdrop of increased pressure to perform from investors and other stakeholders, female CEOs tend to issue more earnings forecasts than male CEOs, and those forecasts are more accurate. We also find that while financial analysts generally prefer to follow companies headed by male CEOs, female CEOs’ efforts to issue accurate earnings forecasts pay off, as these efforts help them close the analyst coverage gap. We provide complementary evidence on the disclosure efforts of female CEOs with regard to updates to the forecast and the 10-K report. Lastly, we show that financial analysts rely more on the earnings forecasts of female CEOs, possibly because they recognize female CEOs’ superior forecasting quality. Our results are robust to the use of alternative research designs, including difference-in-difference, propensity score matching, and entropy balancing. Overall, our study documents gender differences in voluntary disclosure by senior management.
... Zhu et al. (2014) *mpa provided evidence that directors are more likely to perceive demographically dissimilar new directors (e.g., education background, gender) as in-group members if they share other demographic characteristics and the effect was stronger when new directors have prior ties to the incumbent (e.g., joint board appointments). Finally, McDonald et al. (2018) *mpa found that white male executives' identification with their organization is negatively affected by the Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
In this paper, we examine the origins and evolution of and main influences on research on within- and between-firm relationships among directors and executives. We conduct a review of the literature supplemented with bibliometric analyses that allow us to examine the complex citation network of publications spanning several decades and multiple disciplines (i.e., management, sociology, economics, accounting, and finance). First, we use main path analysis to uncover the primary paths of knowledge codification and diffusion of the literature on relationships among directors and executives. Next, we conduct bibliographic coupling analysis to map out current themes and developments in the field. In so doing, we provide an integrative framework for research on social processes and relationships of the corporate elite and discuss changes in the field’s emphasis on various issues, identifying key theoretical and empirical advances, and offer directions for future research. Scholars and practitioners have raised concerns about problems underlying the presence and use of intra- and inter-firm relationships among members of the corporate elite. Our findings provide a balanced view of the positive and negative influence of intra- and inter-firm relationships of corporate elite members on organizational outcomes.
Despite well-intentioned gender diversity initiatives aimed at addressing gender imbalances by ensuring minimal female representation in predominantly male groups, such tokenism often exacerbates discrimination and social isolation for these women, potentially leading to absenteeism. Research suggests that the benefits of diversity are realized only when the ratio of women to men reaches a critical threshold that allows for genuine integration and participation. However, this threshold remains uncertain. We integrate tokenism theory with social identity and status characteristics theories to investigate the effects of gender ratios within organizational teams on individual absenteeism. Specifically, we theorize a U-shaped relationship between gender dissimilarity and absenteeism for women, but not for men. Study 1, with a one-year cross-lagged design, encompassing 10,332 blue-collar workers in 1064 teams, supports the U-shaped relationship for women, while the relationship for men was non-significant. In Study 2, we use an experimental design with a sample of 370 female blue-collar workers to explore two potential mechanisms that may together explain the U-shaped gender dissimilarity effect for women. We test whether the gender composition of the work group affects both women’s likelihood of reporting unpleasant experiences and the group’s norms regarding absence. We draw theoretical and practical implications from these findings.
When women join majority-male teams, shifts in team processes and outcomes are often assumed to come from women’s unique qualities. Yet, research seldom explicitly examines how men change due to women’s entry and how these changes contribute to the shifts in team dynamics and outcomes. When it has considered men’s responses, research has focused on their experience of threat. Our review challenges these assumptions, highlighting how men’s responses can vary from physiological to affective, cognitive, and behavioral, with additional variance based on characteristics of the men and women involved. We propose a contingent model of indirect effects of women’s presence on majority-male teams via men’s responses that covary with characteristics of incumbent men and women entrants, opening new research opportunities.
Boomerangs, that is, rehires, should have advantages over other new hires when integrating into an organization due to their familiarity with the work context and their pre-existing relationships. However, research suggests that the effects of hiring boomerangs may not be straightforwardly positive. To better understand these effects, we investigate how boomerangs’ social integration into a work team differs from that of other new hires due to their pre-existing relationships and how those relationships shape their and incumbents’ competence and motivation to provide assistance for collective performance. We theorize and find that boomerangs, compared with new hires, exhibit more performance assistance toward incumbent former and incumbent new colleagues. In contrast, incumbent former colleagues do not direct their performance assistance toward boomerangs, contrary to our prediction, nor do incumbent new colleagues. This study contributes to the nascent literature on boomerangs and the literature on job mobility by finding evidence that prior relationships condition the behavior of both boomerangs and incumbents.
Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16685 .
Research Summary
Collider bias can cause spurious correlations when researchers condition on a variable that is caused by—or shares a common cause with—both the outcome and the exposure variable. Despite its threat to inference, empirical research in strategy and management has largely overlooked the issue of collider bias. We distinguish colliders from other threats to identification and estimation and illustrate its importance with replications of published work suggesting that having a woman CEO reduces the career outcomes (compensation and representation) of other women executives. After accounting for collider bias, we find no evidence that women CEOs damage the career outcomes of other women in their organizations. We close by providing generalizable approaches to identify and mitigate the risk of collider bias in applied research.
Managerial Summary
Collider bias is a type of statistical problem that can generate misleading results in empirical research. Although research in strategy and management has given substantial attention to other types of statistical problems, the issue of collider bias has not received sufficient scrutiny. We illustrate this point with replications of published work suggesting that having a woman CEO reduces the career outcomes of other women executives. After accounting for collider bias, we find no evidence that women CEOs damage the career outcomes of other women in their organizations. We provide advice for detecting and addressing collider bias in empirical research.
The growing literature at the intersection of executives’ characteristics and stakeholders’ evaluations argues that executives’ characteristics not only have “first-order effects” on their organizations’ actions and outcomes, as in upper echelons theorizing, but also give rise to “second-order effects” or “opportunity structures,” whereby stakeholders evaluate and react to focal executives’ organizations based on those characteristics. Despite many insights from the burgeoning literature on the second-order effects of executives’ characteristics on stakeholders’ evaluations and reactions, the literature lacks a comprehensive framework with core tenets by which stakeholders form evaluations of executives’ characteristics that drive their actions (or, reactions, as it were) based on such characteristics and the ensuing outcomes. In turn, knowledge from the proliferating literature on how stakeholders react on the basis of their evaluations of referent organizations’ executives’ characteristics is fragmented, consisting of a series of disconnected findings and attendant insights scattered across various theoretical and topical domains. We conducted a framework synthesis of the literature to iteratively derive a conceptual framework from extant research—which we call the stakeholder view of upper echelons—that synthesizes knowledge at the intersection of executives’ characteristics and stakeholders’ reactions around this framework. In doing so, we provide the foundation for future research to help extend knowledge in this important domain. We identify several avenues that are important for future work to address and provide practical implications from our framework.
Gender role congruity theory emphasizes the ubiquity of male-typed leadership schemas as barriers to female leaders’ career development (i.e., descriptive stereotypes); however, the expectation of female leaders’ fulfilling their gender role (i.e., prescriptive stereotypes) has received limited attention. Extending this line of research, we propose the concept of female-typed leadership schemas and suggest that the (mis)match between female CEOs’ gender-stereotyped behavioral differences (agentic vs. communal) and female-typed leadership stereotypes helps explain the prescriptive gender stereotypes that women face in the CEO post-succession stage. Using data from 251 female CEO succession events at publicly listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2007 to 2017 in China, we found that the risk-taking behaviors of new female CEOs may lead to a perceived mismatch between prescriptive gender-stereotyped expectations and the actual behaviors of female CEOs as top leaders, increasing their likelihood of being dismissed during the post-succession process. Moreover, gender inequality beliefs in local contexts and adverse selection at the time of succession amplify the gender-stereotyped attribution. This study contributes to the female leadership and ethics literature by developing a comprehensive theoretical framework to test how female-typed leadership stereotypes hinder the career development of women in top executive positions.
As part of society’s motivation to address racial and ethnic disparities, scholars have examined racial/ethnic minorities’ underrepresentation in organizations’ upper echelons. However, prior research on minority executive dismissal has yielded equivocal findings. We draw on leadership categorization theory and token status theory to hypothesize that, under conditions of greater ambiguity and uncertainty, the likelihood of dismissal differs for White and non-White executives. Using a sample of NCAA Division 1 college basketball coaches over an 18-year period, we find overall support for our theorizing – lower financial support, low prestige power, and greater strategic change increase the chances of non-White executives being dismissed. Our findings have important implications for minority executive dismissal research and point to potential remedies that organizations can implement to reduce stereotyping and bias against non-White executives.
In this paper I describe the multilevel and systemic nature of symbolic management and decoupling as it applies to corporate social responsibility (CSR), and consider the implications for the corporate purpose movement. I explain how and why the symbolic management system, including the various forms of decoupling that have compromised CSR, could be readily extended to corporate purpose. I further suggest why (i) the symbolic management of purpose would extend a historical pattern of decoupling that has penetrated into ever more fundamental arenas of corporate governance, and (ii) at least some characteristics of corporate purpose may render it even more vulnerable to symbolic management and decoupling than CSR. I conclude that although the corporate purpose movement carries a substantial, downside risk of symbolic management and decoupling, it nonetheless has upside potential to improve corporate social performance, and that academic researchers have a key role to play in realizing that potential. I suggest several research strategies for detecting the presence and extent of symbolic decoupling of corporate purpose.
History: This paper has been accepted for the Strategy Science Special Issue on Corporate Purpose.
We use the resource‐based theory and leadership categorization theory to develop hypotheses about ethnic minority CEO turnover. Using survival analysis, we test the hypotheses and find that, as a group, ethnic minority CEOs at U.S. firms experience only about half of the risk of turnover at any time as do non‐ethnic minority CEOs. However, the risk is not spread evenly across ethnic minority subgroups. Asian and Hispanic CEOs experience lower risk of turnover than non‐ethnic minority CEOs. Black CEOs of U.S. firms do not share this reduced risk of turnover. We find that the resource‐based theory is consistent with the turnover experience of Asian and Hispanic ethnic minority CEOs, but that it is not useful for explaining Black CEO turnover. Some implications of our findings are: 1.) in research, all minorities should not be treated as a single homogenous group, and 2.) in practice, it may be useful to increase CEO social capital to lengthen tenure.
The paper aims to understand the factors hindering and facilitating women's access to top management teams (TMTs) and boards of directors. It provides a systematic review of extant scholarly work on the antecedents of TMT and board gender diversity. Reviewing and integrating research from over 200 journal publications, I develop an integrative review of the antecedents of gender diversity for two types of research contexts—TMT and board—at three levels: person centered, situation centered, and social‐system centered. I also identify knowledge gaps and suggest areas for future research. This comprehensive review of extant research simultaneously considers antecedents of TMT gender diversity and board gender diversity, providing insights into divergent trends of TMT and board gender diversity while highlighting understudied areas. Hopefully, the review will inspire more research to advance knowledge of the antecedents of TMT and board gender diversity, areas that have received relatively little attention compared with extensive research on the consequences of gender diversity. Gender diversity in corporate leadership is a topic of great interest. The growth in board gender diversity is unprecedented, but growth in TMT gender diversity has been stagnant. I offer a synthesis of extant literature to understand the social, situational, and individual drivers of TMT and board gender diversity, providing valuable insights for policymakers, investors, executives, and directors who seek to improve corporate leadership gender diversity.
The existing literature has highlighted the importance of entrepreneurs' status for corporate decisions over social issues. However, our understanding of the differential effects of entrepreneurs' multiple statuses on corporate environmental actions remains limited. This study draws upon status research and upper echelons theory and empirically explores how two types of entrepreneurs' status affect corporate environmental actions in different ways. We collected data from 11,339 Chinese private enterprises through six rounds of a large-scale national survey from 2006 to 2016. The ordinary least squares regression and robustness analyses were employed to test our research model and hypotheses. The empirical results show that while entrepreneurs' political status positively affects corporate environmental actions, economic status has a U-shaped relationship with corporate environmental actions. Furthermore, we find that firm size can strengthen the effect of political status and weaken the effect of economic status on corporate environmental actions. These findings reveal the complex effects of entrepreneurs' status on corporate environmental actions.
Research Summary
This study examines how incumbent director reactions to media coverage of the #MeToo movement have impacted the evaluation of prospective corporate directors. We argue that heightened intergroup anxiety related to male–female interactions leads incumbents to seize on social attributes that bolster category‐based trust in the reliability of prospective directors' interpersonal behavior. We predict that in response to #MeToo coverage, incumbents evaluate board candidates more positively when they share demographic characteristics or have prior social connections, and these effects are strengthened when incumbents socially identify with the firm. Empirical analyses using a longitudinal survey of evaluations of director candidates support these predictions. Our findings suggest how social movements can produce unintended consequences by inadvertently triggering psychological processes that partially offset the anticipated benefits of the movement.
Managerial Summary
Increased coverage of #MeToo has heightened concerns among board members about male–female interactions on the board. Our study finds that as #MeToo coverage increases, incumbent directors evaluate potential board candidates more positively to the extent that they share demographic characteristics, including gender, race, functional background, education and age, or when they are connected through the social network of board appointments. These effects are especially pronounced for incumbents who psychologically identify with the firm, meaning that their self‐concept is aligned with features of the organization. Our study suggests how psychological reactions of corporate directors to #MeToo may inadvertently reduce board diversity and overall board effectiveness, and we call for research‐based interventions to correct this unfortunate side effect of a critically important social justice movement.
While behavioural diffusion is highly significant in behaviouristics, the relevant management studies remain limited, particularly for the extra-role of helping behaviour in project-based organisation. The helping behaviour diffusion mechanism could profoundly impact teamwork and project teams’ performance improvement. Therefore, this research aims to promote helping behaviour in project teams by exploring helping behavioural diffusion based on dynamic behavioural analyses and simulations. This research set up the Agent-based Modelling to simulate the helping behaviour diffusion, and considered influential factors, including team task characteristics, team size, and incentive system. Then, this research conducted simulation experiments in Netlogo and found that an increase in task dependence and cooperative spillover effect can promote the spread of helping behaviour, while an increase in team size, profit-sharing coefficient, and individual fixed income could inhibit such diffusion. The research provides new insights into cultivating a mutual helping culture within project teams.
The influence of CEOs’ early life experiences on their strategic decisions has attracted considerable research attention. However, existing studies have limited understanding of its influence on firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. In this study, based on imprinting and upper echelons theories, we propose that CEOs who have experienced famine during their childhood are more likely to make a high level of philanthropic donations. Furthermore, we investigated boundary conditions that facilitate or impede the relationship between CEOs’ childhood famine experience and philanthropic donations based on the resource dependence view. We tested our theoretical model using the sample of publicly listed firms in China. By conducting difference-in-differences analyses, we found that CEOs who experienced famine in childhood between 7 and 11 years old tend to increase their firms’ donation level, and this positive relationship is amplified when the firm is relatively large and weakened when the CEO is female. Implications and limitations also are discussed.
Null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST) has been debated extensively but always successfully defended. The technical merits of NHST are not disputed in this article. The widespread misuse of NHST has created a human factors problem that this article intends to ameliorate. This article describes an integrated, alternative inferential confidence interval approach to testing for statistical difference, equivalence, and indeterminacy that is algebraically equivalent to standard NHST procedures and therefore exacts the same evidential standard. The combined numeric and graphic tests of statistical difference, equivalence, and indeterminacy are designed to avoid common interpretive problems associated with NHST procedures. Multiple comparisons, power, sample size, test reliability, effect size, and cause–effect ratio are discussed. A section on the proper interpretation of confidence intervals is followed by a decision rule summary and caveats.
Two experiments tested the idea that empathy-induced helping is due to self–other merging. To manipulate empathy, half of the participants in each experiment received instructions to remain objective while hearing about a young woman in need (low-empathy condition), and half received instructions to imagine her feelings (high-empathy condition). To check generality of the empathy–helping relationship, half in each empathy condition learned that the young woman was a student at their university (shared group membership), and half learned that she was a student at a rival university (unshared group membership). Self-reported empathy for and willingness to help the young woman were assessed, and 3 measures of self–other merging were taken. In each experiment, an empathy–helping relationship was found, unqualified by group membership, that could not be accounted for by any of the merging measures.
This study advances a recategorization perspective to explain how an increasing number of directors have successfully obtained major board appointments and played important roles on boards despite their demographic differences from incumbent directors. We theorize and show that existing directors tend to select a demographically different new director who can be recategorized as an in-group member based on his or her similarities to them on other shared demographic characteristics. We further explain how a new director's prior social ties to existing directors strengthen this recategorization process and posit that recategorization increases demographically different directors' tenures and likelihood of becoming board committee members and chairs. Results from analyses of Fortune 500 boards from 1994 to 2006 provide strong support for our theory. This study suggests that increased board diversity on some demographic characteristics is associated with reduced diversity on others. It also suggests that some demographic characteristics, such as gender and ethnicity, would be more salient during the recategorization process than other characteristics. As a result, female and ethnic minority directors would need to be more similar to incumbents along shared dimensions than other demographically different directors (such as a young director) for them to be recategorized into the in-group.
Approaches related to inference-based processing (e.g., romance-of-leadership theory) would suggest that black leaders are evaluated positively after success. In contrast, approaches related to recognition-based processing (e.g., leader categorization theory) would suggest that, because of stereotyping, black leaders are evaluated negatively regardless of their performance. To reconcile this discrepancy, we predicted that evaluators would engage in goal-based stereotyping by perceiving that black leaders-and not white leaders-fail because of negative leader-based attributes and succeed because of positive nonleader attributes (i.e., compensatory stereotypes). Multilevel analyses of archival data in the context of college football in the United States supported our predictions.
The literature on transformational and transactional leadership suggests integrating the leader-memher exchange (LMX) approach with research on mentoring. Using LISREL VII confirmatory factor analysis. and 183 managerial dyads, we show LMX and mentoring to be empirically distinct from the supervisors' perspective hut not from the sub-ordinates'. LMX and mentoring each also accounted for meaningful incremental variance over the other with respect to rated performance, salary progress, and promotion rate. Implications are briefly discussed.
Empathy features a tension between automaticity and context dependency. On the one hand, people often take on each other's internal states reflexively and outside of awareness. On the other hand, empathy shifts with characteristics of empathizers and situations. These 2 characteristics of empathy can be reconciled by acknowledging the key role of motivation in driving people to avoid or approach engagement with others' emotions. In particular, at least 3 phenomena-suffering, material costs, and interference with competition-motivate people to avoid empathy, and at least 3 phenomena-positive affect, affiliation, and social desirability-motivate them to approach empathy. Would-be empathizers carry out these motives through regulatory strategies including situation selection, attentional modulation, and appraisal, which alter the course of empathic episodes. Interdisciplinary evidence highlights the motivated nature of empathy, and a motivated model holds wide-ranging implications for basic theory, models of psychiatric illness, and intervention efforts to maximize empathy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
People often experience anxiety in the workplace. Across 6 studies, we show that anxiety, both induced and measured, can lead to self-interested unethical behavior. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that compared with individuals in a neutral state, anxious individuals are more willing (a) to participate in unethical actions in hypothetical scenarios and (b) to engage in more cheating to make money in situations that require truthful self-reports. In Studies 3 and 4, we explore the psychological mechanism underlying unethical behaviors when experiencing anxiety. We suggest and find that anxiety increases threat perception, which, in turn, results in self-interested unethical behaviors. Study 5 shows that, relative to participants in the neutral condition, anxious individuals find their own unethical actions to be less problematic than similar actions of others. In Study 6, data from subordinate-supervisor dyads demonstrate that experienced anxiety at work is positively related with experienced threat and unethical behavior. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Although theory suggests individuals are more willing to incur a personal cost to benefit ingroup members, compared to outgroup members, there is inconsistent evidence in support of this perspective. Applying meta-analytic techniques, we harness a relatively recent explosion of research on intergroup discrimination in cooperative decision making to address several fundamental unresolved issues. First, summarizing evidence across studies, we find a small to medium effect size indicating that people are more cooperative with ingroup, compared to outgroup, members (d = 0.32). Second, we forward and test predictions about the conditions that moderate ingroup favoritism from 2 influential perspectives: a social identity approach and a bounded generalized reciprocity perspective. Although we find evidence for a slight tendency for ingroup favoritism through categorization with no mutual interdependence between group members (e.g., dictator games; d = 0.19), situations that contain interdependence result in stronger ingroup favoritism (e.g., social dilemmas; d = 0.42). We also find that ingroup favoritism is stronger when there is common (vs. unilateral) knowledge of group membership, and stronger during simultaneous (vs. sequential) exchanges. Third, we find support for the hypothesis that intergroup discrimination in cooperation is the result of ingroup favoritism rather than outgroup derogation. Finally, we test for additional moderators of ingroup favoritism, such as the percentage of men in the sample, experimental versus natural groups, and the country of participants. We discuss the implications of these findings for theoretical perspectives on ingroup favoritism, address implications for the methodologies used to study this phenomenon, and suggest directions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
This article reviews evidence that manhood is seen as a precarious social status that is both difficult to achieve and tenuously held. Compared with womanhood, which is typically viewed as resulting from a natural, permanent, and biological developmental transition, manhood must be earned and maintained through publicly verifiable actions. Because of this, men experience more anxiety over their gender status than women do, particularly when gender status is uncertain or challenged. This can motivate a variety of risky and maladaptive behaviors, as well as the avoidance of behaviors that might otherwise prove adaptive and beneficial. We review research on the implications of men's precarious gender status across the domains of risk-taking, aggression, stress and mental health, and work–life balance. We further consider how work on precarious manhood differs from, and can add to, work on individual differences in men's gender role conflict. In summary, the precarious manhood hypothesis can integrate and explain a wide range of male behaviors and phenomena related to the male gender role. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
In this paper, we examine the relationship between an organization's proportion of female managers and the number of new management jobs initially filled by women versus men. We draw on theories of job differentiation, job change, and organizational demography to develop theory and predictions about this relationship and whether the relationship differs for jobs filled by female versus male managers. Using data on a sample of New York City advertising agencies over a 13-year period, we find that the number of newly created jobs first filled by women increases with an agency's proportion of female managers. In contrast, the effect of the proportion of female managers on the number of new management jobs filled by men is positive initially but plateaus and turns negative. In showing these influences on job creation, we highlight the dynamic and socially influenced nature of jobs themselves: new jobs are created regularly in firms not merely as a response to technical and administrative imperatives. The results also point to another job-related process that differs between women and men and that could potentially aggravate, mitigate, or alleviate inequality: the creation of jobs. Thus this research contributes to literatures on demography, the organization of work, and inequality.
The article discusses organizational theory in the context of chief executive officers' identification with the firm and the effect of organizational commitment on agency costs. The hypothesis is that an executive whose self identity is strongly connected to the company's identity or corporate image are motivated to reduce agency costs for the firm and its stakeholders. Corporate governance, self-interest and motivation in chief executive officers, unrelated corporate diversification, and the use of management controls are also discussed.
In spite of strong indications that CEO organizational identification can be beneficial for the firm, its determinants have not received prior research attention. In this paper, we provide and test a theoretical framework of antecedents of CEO organizational identification that draws on both the organizational identification literature and on the literature that pertains to the unique role, power, visibility, and control structures of the CEO position. Our theory and supportive results suggest that CEO organizational identification will be enhanced by organizational differentiation, firm-specific CEO esteem-relevant feedback, CEO vested interest in the firm, and CEO control over the firm.
This study contributes to the literature on women and minorities in corporate leadership by developing theory that can help to explain the persistent underrepresentation of women and minorities among those who are seen as members of the "corporate elite" because they hold multiple corporate board seats. Our conceptual framework suggests how disadvantages in the receipt of mentoring regarding prevailing norms in the corporate elite are negatively affecting the ability of women and minorities to secure multiple board appointments. Our theory explains why women and minority first-time directors receive comparatively less mentoring regarding a core norm in the corporate elite that outside directors should avoid exercising independent control over firm strategy. Our theory also explains why lower levels of mentoring result in women and racial minority first-time directors receiving relatively fewer appointments to other boards. This study also contributes to the corporate leadership literature by explaining how fundamental intergroup biases are negatively impacting the demographic diversity of the corporate elite. This article further highlights a specific social mechanism that undermines efforts to move toward more meritocratic outcomes in corporate leadership whereby those who are relatively qualified will have greater success in rising to the highest-level positions in the corporate world.
This book integrates and assesses the vast and rapidly growing literature on strategic leadership, which is the study of top executives and their effects on organizations. The basic premise is that, in order to understand why organizations do the things they do, or perform the way they do, we need to comprehend deeply the people at the top-their experiences, abilities, values, social connections, aspirations, and other human features. The actions-or inactions-of a relatively small number of key people at the apex of an organization can dramatically affect organizational outcomes. The scope of strategic leadership includes individual executives, especially chief executive officers (CEOs), groups of executives (top management teams, or TMTs), and governing bodies (particularly boards of directors). Accordingly, the book addresses an array of topics regarding CEOs (e.g., values, personality, motives, demography, succession, and compensation); TMTs (including composition, processes, and dynamics); and boards of directors (why boards look and behave the way they do, and the consequences of board profiles and behaviors). The book synthesizes what is known about strategic leadership and indicates new research directions.
This study contributes to the corporate governance literature by demonstrating how greater board of director control of management at a given firm can have unanticipated adverse effects on the leadership of-other-companies. We specifically show that greater board control reduces affected CEOs' willingness to provide various forms of strategic help (e.g., advice on strategic issues) to other CEOs, making it more difficult for other-company CEOs to access assistance on strategic matters that would otherwise enhance their firms' performance. Our theory and results indicate that these effects are mediated by CEOs' reduced social identification with the "corporate elite."
This study examines factors influencing CEOs' willingness to provide social support to fellow CEOs who are experiencing significant personal problems (e.g., marital difficulties) and the benefits of support for CEOs who receive it. Our theoretical model suggests that CEOs who are more strongly identified with the corporate elite provide more support to fellow CEOs and that CEOs who receive more support engage more frequently in important leadership behaviors and are ultimately more effective as corporate leaders. Analyses of our unique data set, which includes survey responses from a large sample of CEOs, provide consistent support for our theory.
Across three studies, we investigate men's reactions to women in superior roles. Drawing from precarious manhood theory, we hypothesize that when a woman occupies a superior organizational role, men in subordinate positions experience threat, which leads them to behave more assertively toward her and advocate for themselves. In Studies 1 and 2, we demonstrate that men feel more threatened (relative to women) by women in superior roles (relative to men in superior roles) and, as a result, engage in more assertive behaviors toward these women. In Study 3, we investigate a boundary condition to this effect and demonstrate that a woman in a superior role who displays qualities associated with administrative agency (e.g., directness, proactivity) rather than ambitious agency (e.g., self-promotion, power-seeking) elicits less assertive behavior from men. We conclude by discussing implications as well as directions for future research.
© 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
Women are increasing in number among corporations' boards of directors, yet their representation is far from uniform across firms. In this study, we adopted a resource dependence theory lens to identify organizational predictors of women on boards. We tested our hypotheses using panel data from the 1,000 U.S. firms that were largest in terms of sales between 1990 and 2003. We found that organizational size, industry type, firm diversification strategy, and network effects (linkages to other boards with women directors) significantly impact the likelihood of female representation on boards of directors.
This article contributes to the social networks literature by examining how corporate governance factors influence CEOs' external advice-seeking behaviors. We incorporate insights from social networks research into an agency theory perspective to predict, and demonstrate empirically, that governance factors recommended by agency theory increase CEOs' tendencies to seek out advice contacts who are likely to offer perspectives on strategic issues that differ from their own; these advice-seeking behaviors ultimately enhance firm performance. Accordingly, this article also contributes to the corporate governance literature by describing how and why CEOs' advice networks mediate the effects of governance factors on firm performance.
Research on human capital as a source of competitive advantage has focused largely on firm employees. In this article, we argue that outside directors' general human capital can also be a source of competitive advantage. Firm performance is likely to benefit from directors' human capital-that is, their prior experience and education-because such human capital is likely to make them more effective at monitoring management and providing advice. Drawing on insights from research on individuals' cognitive limitations, we further argue that the extent to which the firm is able to benefit from this human capital can be severely limited by the demands for information processing that directors face from their other board positions. Consequently, we find that the benefit of directors' human capital is contingent upon the information processing load placed upon them from their other board appointments. We find support for our hypotheses using data on over 5,700 directors from 650 firms sampled from the Fortune 1000. This study extends the nascent literature on board human capital by showing that in addition to specific expertise in relevant areas, directors' general human capital can also help firms create competitive advantage. The theory developed in this article also contributes to the literature on strategic human capital by incorporating the concept of information processing demands, suggesting that not only do such demands leave limited cognitive capacity for directors to focus on the focal firm but also that they can severely diminish the beneficial effects of directors' general human capital.
This study examines social discrimination in the attributions that top executives make about the performance of other firms with minority CEOs in their communications with journalists. Drawing from the literatures on intergroup relations and status competition, our theory suggests how out-group biases and negative forms of envy toward higher-status minority CEOs may increase the propensity for white male CEOs to make negative or internal attributions for the low performance of the minority CEOs' firms. We also examine how CEOs' internal attributions in conversations with journalists increase the tendency for those journalists to attribute performance to internal causes in reporting on the minority CEOs' firms. We consider how the gender and race of journalists could moderate the influence of CEOs' performance attributions on journalists' reports, such that female or racial minority journalists would be less easily persuaded by white male CEOs' internal attributions for the low performance of firms with female or racial minority CEOs, and thus less prone to issuing negative statements about the CEOs' leadership. Empirical analyses based on original survey data from a large sample of CEOs and journalists provided strong support for our hypotheses. We discuss implications of the findings for theory and research on social discrimination in the corporate elite and social psychological determinants of corporate leader reputation.
Data from qualitative field studies of 22 cross-race (African-American and white) supportive work relationships between pairs of junior and senior people are used to examine how people's strategies for dealing with the issue of race affect the kind of relationship that develops between the two and whether the senior person becomes merely a sponsor for the protege, providing him or her with career support such as advocacy for promotions, feedback, and coaching, or whether the senior person becomes a mentor, offering psychosocial support and friendship along with instrumental career support. The study showed that the parties' preferred strategy for dealing with racial difference-either denying and suppressing it or discussing it openly-and whether both parties preferred the same strategy influenced the kind of relationship that developed. Only when the parties preferred the same strategy did the more supportive mentor-protege relationship develop. The paper provides a model of how racial dynamics affect cross-race developmental relationships.
This study examines the impact of female board representation on firm-level strategic behavior within the domain of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). We build on social identity theory to predict that greater female representation on a firm's board will be negatively associated with both the number of acquisitions the firm engages in and, conditional on doing a deal, acquisition size. Using a comprehensive, multi-year sample of U.S. public firms, we find strong support for our hypotheses. We demonstrate the robustness of our findings through the use of a difference-in-differences analysis on a sub-sample of firms that experienced exogenous changes in board gender composition as a result of director deaths.
We predict that the media reports on female CEOs as a coherent group, whereas male CEOs are treated as individuals by the media. We also suggest that the resulting investors' perceptions of group entitativity of female‐led firms may not only influence the succession event–performance relationship at the focal firm, but may also have a significant effect on the value of other female‐led companies. Results of a text analysis and an event study of appointments of female CEOs to Fortune 1000 firms provide support for these predictions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
To develop further insight into antecedents of the CEO’s psychological orientation toward the firm, we investigate what might lead CEOs to identify with their firms. Although research suggests that CEO organizational identification can be quite consequential for the firm, little research attention has been paid to its determinants. To predict how the special context of the CEO position might lead to identification, we consider a set of motives that members have for identifying with their organizations and consider how unique features of the CEO position might be relevant to those motives. Our theory and supportive findings help explain how the context of the CEO position, including variables often conceptualized as control mechanisms in agency theory research, can have important effects on subsequent CEO organizational identification.
This research investigates the relationship between virtual employees' degree of physical isolation and their perceived respect in the organization. Respect is an identity-based status perception that reflects the extent to which one is included and valued as a member of the organization. We hypothesize that the degree of physical isolation is negatively associated with virtual employees' perceived respect and that this relationship explains the lower organizational identification among more physically isolated virtual employees. In two field studies using survey methods, we find that perceived respect is negatively associated with the degree of physical isolation, and respect mediates the relationship between physical isolation and organizational identification. These effects hold for shorter- and longer-tenured employees alike. Our research contributes to the virtual work literature by drawing attention to physical isolation and the important but neglected role of status perceptions in shaping virtual employees' organizational identification. We also contribute to the literature on perceived respect by demonstrating how respect is affected by the physical context of work.