Female CEOs as talent magnets?
The effect of CEO gender on company’s attractiveness
Froucke Strijker (12350478) Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Master’s Programme Communication Science
University of Amsterdam Supervisor: dhr. dr. J.W.M. Verhoeven
2 Abstract
The recruitment war for talent is going on, which means that organizations need to position themselves as attractive employers. For organizations it is not common to have a female CEO. Gender stereotypes can keep this male leadership dominance in place, associating men with competence and women with warmth. The CEO of a company is normally seen as the face of a company, therefore the CEO can influence a company’s attractiveness. This study will look into the effects of a CEO’s gender and whether a company manifests itself as warm or competent, on the attractiveness of the company. This leads to the following research question: ‘To what extent does the CEO’s gender and a company’s warmth or competence frame influence the attitude towards and the willingness to work for a company and how is this moderated by gender and opinion on gender equality?’ An online experiment was conducted participants (N = 160) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions (male/female CEO x competence/warmth frame). Participants had to indicate what their attitude towards the company was and their level of willingness to work for the company, as well as their opinion on gender equality. The results indicated that attitude towards a
company with female CEO was higher, especially for the group with moderate opinions on gender equality. Additionally, men with low or moderate opinions on gender equality preferred to work for a company with male CEO. Companies should carefully consider whether or not to use their CEOs in their online recruitment environment, as gender stereotypes are still active for certain men. Furthermore, a warm company evokes a more positive attitude, enhancing its company’s brand, whereas a competent company evokes greater willingness to work for, increasing its status as employer. Future research should be directed at differences between sectors and the implicit measurement of gender equality.
3 The Effect of CEO Gender on the Attractiveness of a Company.
For organizations, it is not common to have a female leader at the top of the organizational chain. Globally, 24% of senior positions were held by women in 2016. Furthermore, 33% of the businesses had no woman in any senior position at all (Grant Thornton, 2016). Regardless of the reasons for the gender difference at the top, possible consequences of female chief executive officers (CEOs) should not be overlooked, for instance higher earnings, lower risk and better performance (Spencer, Blazek & Orr, 2018). Negative consequences may be driven by gender stereotypes and attitudes on gender equality. Women are typically seen as less competent, but warmer than men (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, Xu & Devine, 2002), which could be a disadvantageof having a female CEO. However, men and women themselves associate their own gender with competence (Richeson & Ambady, 2001; Ebert, Steffens & Krott, 2014), which could mean that they prefer to work for a CEO with the same gender.
According to Elving, Westhoff, Meeusen and Schoonderbeek (2012), organizations are struggling to acquire the right personnel, the so called ‘war for talent’ is going on. For organizations it is important to be attractive for potential employees. Organizations use communication and frames to position themselves as attractive employers. Because the CEO of a company is often seen as an embodiment of the company (Fetscherin, 2015), usually being a spokesperson for the company, the gender of the CEO might affect the attractiveness of an organization for potential employees. This effect from a CEO’s gender on a company’s attractiveness has remained unexplored yet, although it is likely to exist because of the strong gender stereotypes. Additionally, this might differ between men and women. Furthermore, whether a company is seen as warm or as competent, might also influence its attractiveness, but this has also remained unexplored.
4 It is important to investigate both of these effects, because companies need to position themselves as attractive as possible in order to acquire the right personnel. To address these gaps in literature, this research will focus on how gender stereotypes and warmth and competence frame influence the attitude towards the company and the willingness to work there. This study will look into the effect of the CEO’s gender and competent or warm company frame on the attitude towards the company and the willingness to work for the company. Furthermore, possible moderation effects of the participant’s gender and his or her opinion on gender equality will be investigated. The company’s content on their job page will be taken into account as to look for different consequences of a warm or competent frame. This leads to the following research question: ‘To what extent does the CEO’s gender and a company’s warmth or competence frame influence the attitude towards and the willingness to work for a company and how is this moderated by gender and opinion on gender equality?’
Theoretical background The war for talent
The recruitment war for talent (Elving et al., 2012) can only be won by companies that are seen as attractive employers. This wanted talent can be quite
specific. For example, women are underrepresented in teams that operate at a high level, such as company’s boards. Mixed-gender teams, however, seem to perform better than male-dominated teams (Aidman, 2017). Therefore, it might be desirable to know how to attract, in this case, female employees, thereby increasing gender diversity.
The attractiveness of company as employer can be based on the instrumental-symbolic framework (Lievens & Highhouse, 2003). This framework divides a company’s attractiveness in two dimensions, the instrumental and the symbolic dimension. The instrumental dimension consists of objective attributes such as salary,
5 flexible working hours and secondary benefits. These attributes are important for
quickly establishing the attractiveness of a company. Contrarily, the symbolic dimension consists of subjective attributes such as prestige and a company’s level of innovation (Slaughter et al., 2001; Lievens & Highhouse, 2003).
Nowadays, one of the main tools for recruiting employees is social media and the Internet (Marler & Parry, 2016). There is a variety of ways in which this can be done, for example videos and animations in a company’s online recruitment
environment (Badger, Kaminsky & Behrend, 2013). In any case, companies should communicate information about the company like the company’s values and what it stands for, but also more objective cues such as the qualifications needed (Stone & Lukaszewski, 2005). The objective cues can be placed under the instrumental dimension. As for the symbolic dimension, important concepts could be warmth (cooperation) and competence (prestige).
Organizational attractiveness is not directly communicated, but people form an idea based on various sources such as websites, job advertisements, social media, employee stories, etc. (Dineen, Ash & Noe, 2002; Cober, Brown, Levy, Cober & Keeping, 2003). Being attractive as a company can influence career intentions and decisions about job choice (Gomes & Neves, 2011). Gomes and Neves (2011) even found that application intentions can be predicted by organizational attractiveness. Furthermore, attractiveness can positively affect the retention of employees (Helm, 2013), which is beneficial for companies because of the costs of recruitment.
Warmth versus competence
Organizational attractiveness is dependent on people’s needs. According to the self-determination theory, people have innate needs for relatedness, competence and
6 autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Flannery, 2017). Competence needs can be met in a
competent working environment, whereas relatedness needs can be met in a warm working environment. There is a warmth-competence tradeoff. Warmth is seen as friendliness and trustworthiness, whereas competence is seen as capability and assertiveness. Warmth is described as the intent one person or a group has towards oneself and ones groups (Fiske et al., 2002). When a group is warm, it is more likely to cooperate and there are low levels of competition. The warmth dimension is considered very important, because intent is known to predict behavior (Fiske, 2018). Competence goes one step further and is described as to what extent an individual can act upon his/her intent. In other words, the capability of a person or group. When one is high on competence, it is likely to be high in status and prestige.
Gender stereotypes
Fiske (2018) writes about the stereotype content model (SCM), with its two dimensions of warmth and competence. Men are typically associated with competence and women with warmth (Fiske et al., 2002). This is also applicable to CEOs of companies. A CEO, usually being the face and spokesperson of a company, can be negatively judged based on its gender. Consequently, because the CEO is a prominent member of the organization, this prejudice can be generalized to the entire company. When gender stereotypes lead to the CEO being seen as less competent, this can negatively affect the attractiveness of a company.
The ‘Ambivalent sexism theory’ (Glick & Fiske,1996; 2001) states that there are two types of sexism that are interrelated: hostile and benevolent sexism. Ambivalent sexism theory is based on the notion that a woman should be the primary caretaker. Benevolent sexism could be considered a positive approach, rewarding women who
7 adhere to their role, may it be as a mother or housewife. Hostile sexism, however, could be considered a negative approach and is focused at hostile behavior towards women who do not fit into the image of housewife. Those women behave in ways that are less traditional, for example an ambitious female CEO who is focused on her career. Furthermore, not only are women seen as less competent, they also should be less competent than men, keeping gender stereotypes in place (Ramos, Barreto, Ellemers, Moya & Ferreira, 2018).
A poor attitude towards the CEO and/or the company’s management could be an indication of a poor company in general. Men and women are portrayed differently in the media. There are patterns of (hidden) sexism in how both sexes are shown in print media (Matthews, 2007). Additionally, the focus of media coverage differs for men and women. Men’s appearances in the media are paired with achievements, whereas
women’s appearances in the media are paired with their looks or personal relationships (Ellemers, 2018). Furthermore, there is a so called ‘backlash’ on people who behave in a stereotype incongruent manner. This backlash, consisting of negative reactions and economic disadvantages, happens especially for women in the workplace who position themselves as competent and capable of leadership (Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 2001; Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs & Tamkins, 2004). If gender stereotypes are active, this could lead to negative reactions towards female CEOs, for having a function that is non-congruent with their gender. This would result in less positive reactions and a lower willingness to work for a female CEO, leading to the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1a: ‘When the company has a male CEO, this leads to a more positive attitude towards the company than when the company has a female CEO.’
Hypothesis 1b: ‘When the company has a male CEO, this leads to a higher willingness to work for the company than when the company has a male CEO.’
8 Gender effects
The use of gender stereotypes differs between men and women. The concept of warmth is ascribed to women by both genders and the concept of competence is
ascribed to one’s own gender, when measured in an implicit way (Richeson & Ambady, 2001; Ebert et al., 2014). This states that both men and women regard themselves as more competent than members of the opposite sex. People often expect that the CEO of a company can be seen as a representation/spokesperson for the entire company and its character (Warburton & Troester, 1997; Kerin & Barry, 1981; Öksüz & Ker Dincer, 2014, Fetscherin, 2015). If the CEO is a representation, then their gender can affect the attitude towards and willingness to work for the company.
Additionally, similarity between a person and the employees of a company is a good predictor of organizational attractiveness (Devendorf & Highhouse, 2008). If similarity is high, an organization will be a more attractive employer than when similarity is low. If this notion is taken one step further, it might be possible that the level of similarity between a person and the CEO of a company might predict to what extent a company is an attractive employer. Additional to the similarity hypothesis, potential employees rate companies that have similar traits as themselves higher on organizational attractiveness (Slaughter, Zickar, Highhouse, Mohr & Zedeck, 2004).
The similarity hypothesis as well as the between-gender differences in
stereotypes could lead to a bigger organizational attractiveness when the CEO’s gender matches a person’s gender. This could lead to women being more prone to work for a female CEO than a male CEO, and the opposite goes for men, because both men and women view their own gender as more competent. Furthermore the attitude towards the
9 company would be higher towards one’s own gender. This leads to the following
hypotheses:
Hypothesis 2a: ‘When the CEO is the same gender as the respondent, this leads to a more positive attitude towards the company.’
Hypothesis 2b: ‘When the CEO is the same gender as the respondent, this leads to a higher willingness to work for the company.’
Frame effects: warm versus competent
Warmth is considered a stereotypical feminine trait, and competence is
considered a stereotypical male trait (Fiske et al., 2002). Therefore, a possible match of CEO gender and frame is a female CEO with a warm company appearance and a male CEO with a competent company appearance. However, as described above, according to the self-determination theory, people’s have needs for warmth as well as competence. This could lead to a preferred combination of warmth and competence.
Therefore, a possible ‘mismatch’ between gender and frame could be creating more organizational attractiveness than consistency between gender and frame. In that case, a company might be seen as more complete, and the company’s attractiveness might be greater than with a ‘match’ between gender and frame. When the company frame does not match the gender stereotype (for example warmth frame with male CEO or competence frame with female CEO), this might positively affect the attractiveness because the company can be seen as warm as well as competent. This leads to the following hypotheses:
H3a: ‘When the company’s frame does not match the gender stereotype, this leads to a more positive attitude towards the company.’
10 H3b: ‘When the company’s frame does not match the gender stereotype, this
leads to a higher willingness to work for the company.’
Gender equality
Gender equality has not yet been achieved (World Economic Forum, 2013), even though steps have been made over the years. Women are being discriminated, as
indicated by the small amount of women in top leadership positions (Barreto, Ryan & Schmitt, 2009). Gender stereotypes are a great cause of this prejudice towards women, for women are regarded as incompetent to be in a leadership position (Heilman, 2012). People differ in their opinions about gender equality, which could explain differences in the way they react to job pages and vacancies. It is expected that in this study,
respondents who have positive opinions on gender equality, will barely be influenced by, or suppress any gender stereotypes. Because of the absence of stereotypes, the attitude towards and willingness to work for the company will be higher. Respondents with negative opinions on gender equality on the other hand, will be influenced by gender stereotypes. Therefore, the CEO’s gender might negatively affect the attitude towards and willingness to work for the company. This leads to the following hypotheses:
H4a: ‘When opinions on gender equality are positive, there will be no effect of CEO gender on attitude towards the company, when opinions on gender equality are negative, there will be.’
H4b: ‘When opinions on gender equality are positive, there will be no effect of CEO gender on willingness to work for the company, when opinions on gender equality are negative, there will be.’
11 Method
Design. An online experiment was conducted via Qualtrics, to measure the (interaction) effects of the CEO’s gender and the company’s frame. The research was conducted through a 2x2 experimental design. The independent variables were the CEO’s gender (male and female) and the company’s frame (warm and competent) on the screenshot of the company’s job page. The other two moderators, the participant’s gender and gender equality opinion, were measured in a questionnaire.
Pretest. An online pretest was conducted via Qualtrics in order to select which pictures should be used for the male and female CEO. Two pictures of a man and woman were selected, based on equal levels of attractiveness and trustworthiness, and both with a good credibility of being a CEO. Four photos of possible female CEOs were shown and four photos of possible male CEOs, selected through the Internet on their professional appearance (clothing and posture). These rights-free photos (creative commons) were in a professional or neutral environment, for example in an office or with a white background. All of the possible CEOs were facing the camera. A sample of 26 people (13 men and 13 women) rated these men and women on trustworthiness, attractiveness and credibility of being the CEO of a company. This was done on a five point Semantic Differential Scale, where 1 stood for ‘Unattractive’ and 5 for ‘Attractive’. Trustworthiness and credibility were measured in the same way. Two Paired-Samples T-Tests were conducted to check for differences between attractiveness and trustworthiness. The man and woman that were selected for the t-tests were the ones with the best matching means on attractiveness and trustworthiness. The first test showed that there was no significant difference on
trustworthiness between the woman and the man: p = .409, t(25) = 0.84. The second test showed that the woman (M = 2.88, SD = 0.82) was significantly more attractive than the man (M = 2.31, SD = 0.82), p = .019, t(25) = 2.51, d = .49. Because this was the closest
12 match possible based on the results, it was chosen to proceed with this man and woman, despite a moderate difference in attractiveness. Both the man (M = 3.92, SD = 0.84) and the woman (M = 3.54, SD = 0.81) had a good credibility of being a CEO. Pictures of the man and woman can be found in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The female and male CEO that were selected for the experiment.
Sample. The convenience sample consisted of 160 participants, of which 37.7% was male, and had an age range of 18-63 years (M = 29.99, SD = 10.92). The participants were recruited through the network of the researcher. The link to the experiment was shared through media (Facebook, Whatsapp etc.) and was asked to spread around. Every participant was randomly assigned to one of four conditions. One participant was removed from the dataset because the experiment was not completed in a serious manner, all questions were answered as ‘1’ and the respondent had an age of 12 years old. Only participants that had completed the entire survey were included in the analyses. To check whether respondents were randomly distributed to the four conditions based on age, a One-way ANOVA was conducted with ‘Age’ as dependent variable and ‘Experimental Condition’ (the four
conditions) as factor. There was no significant effect of condition on age, (F(3,154) = 0.405, p = .750), which indicated that the random allocation of participants to the conditions was successful. A Chi Squares Test confirmed that the random allocation of participants to
13 conditions was successful based on gender for ‘CEO Gender’ (χ2
(1) = 0.00, p = .973) and ‘Experimental Condition’ (CEO gender X Frame, χ2
(3) = 4.94, p = .176). However, participants were not randomly distributed based on gender on condition ‘Frame’ (χ2
(1) = 4.58, p = .032). There were significant more women in the ‘Competence Frame’ condition than there were men. When interpreting the results, this effect was taken into account.
Independent variables. In order to avoid possible effects of pre-experiment attitudes towards the company, an unknown company was chosen and it was not clear what kind of company it was, nor in what sector. The gender of the CEO was shown as a picture on a job page. It was shown as a testimonial that said: ‘Meet our CEO’, with the picture of the CEO below the quote. There were two possible pictures of the CEO, a man or a woman.
Moderators. The moderators were the company’s frame, participant’s gender (male/female) and his/her attitude towards gender equality. The company’s frame was
manipulated on their job page with vacancies. A short text was shown about the company and what it focused on: a more warm approach with words as ‘team spirit’, ‘cooperation’ and ‘team players’, or a more competent approach with words as ‘goals’, ‘targets’, ‘skilled’ (see Appendix A for the stimulus materials). Some of the focus words in the text were in bold, to stress some important words of that frame. Opinion on gender equality was measured using the Gender Equality scale from Sharma (2010), which is one of two dimensions on
Hofstede’s cultural factor ‘Masculinity-Femininity’ (Hofstede, 1980). The Gender Equality scale consisted of the following items: ‘It is ok for men to be emotional sometimes’, ‘Men do not have to be the sole bread winner in a family’, ‘Men can be as caring as women’, and ‘Women can be as ambitious as men’. The items were measured on a five point Likert Scale (strongly disagree – strongly agree). A factor analysis indicated there was just one component with an Eigenvalue higher than 1 (2.41), explaining 60.29% of the variance. The new
14 variable, ‘Overall equality’, was reliable with a Cronbach’s Alpha of .75 (M = 4.39, SD = 0.57).
Dependent variables. The dependent variables were the willingness to work for the company and the attitude towards the company. Both of these variables were based on the measures of the study of Feldman, Bearden and Hardesty (2006), and can be found in
Appendix B. The variable ‘Attitude towards the company’ consisted of five items that needed to be answered on a five point Semantic Differential Scale. Participants had to say to what extent they thought the company was dependable, honest, reliable, sincere and trustworthy, where 1 stood for ‘Undependable’ and 5 for ‘Dependable’. The other four items were
measured in the same manner. A factor analysis indicated that there was one component with an Eigenvalue higher than 1 (3.32), explaining 66,42% of the variance. The variable was also proven reliable with a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.87 (M = 3.51, SD = 0.80). The variable
‘Willingness to work for the company’ consisted of five items, which were measured on a five point Semantic Differential Scale. One example of an item was ‘How likely would you be to contact the company for more information?’ where 1 stood for ‘Extremely likely’ and 5 for ‘Extremely unlikely’. A factor analysis indicated there was one component with an Eigenvalue higher than 1 (3.74), explaining 74,86% of the variance. The scale was proven reliable with a Cronbach’s Alpha of .92 (M = 3.46, SD = 1.01).
Procedure. First, participants were asked to give informed consent. Then, participants were told: ‘Imagine you currently have a job that you're satisfied with, but you are starting to look what other possibilities you might have in the job market. Look at the following
screenshot of a company's job page while imagining you are considering applying for a job at this company. Afterwards, some questions about the page will be asked.’ After participants had seen the job page, they were asked what the gender of the CEO was (male/female) and what the focus of the text was (warmth/competence). Then, questions about their attitude
15 towards the company and willingness to work for the company were asked, followed by questions about their opinions on gender equality. Lastly, demographic characteristics were acquired (e.g. age and gender). Chi Squares Tests were conducted to find out whether the CEO gender manipulation and the frame manipulation were successful. The first test indicated that there were significant differences between the participants in different CEO gender conditions (χ2 (1) = 155.03, p <.001). Furthermore, there were significant differences between participants in the different text frame conditions (χ2 (1) = 99.70, p <.001). From this it can be concluded that both manipulations were successful. The entire experiment can be found in appendix C.
Analysis. A one-way ANOVA was performed in order to check whether participants were randomly allocated to conditions based on their age and gender. Independent T-Tests, one-way ANOVAs and Linear Regression analyses were performed in order to examine the main and interaction effects of the CEO’s gender, opinions on gender equality and the company’s frame on the willingness to work for the company and the attitude towards the company.
Results
In order to test the hypotheses 1a and 1b, the main effect of the CEO’s gender on attitude towards the company and willingness to work for the company, two Independent Samples T-tests were conducted. The first test indicated a significant effect of CEO gender on attitude towards the company, t(157) = -2.10, p = .038, where the attitude towards a company with female CEO was higher (M = 3.65, SD = 0.85) than with a male CEO (M = 3.38, SD = 7.43). This was however contrary to the hypothesis, so hypothesis 1a should be rejected. The second test made clear that there was no significant difference between willingness to work for a female CEO (M = 3.32, SD = 0.98) and willingness to work for a
16 male CEO (M = 3.59, SD = 1.01), t(157) = 1.69, p = .093. This was not in line with
hypothesis 1b, therefore it should be rejected.
To analyze hypotheses 2a and 2b, the effect of CEO gender on attitude towards the company and willingness to work for the company with the respondents own gender as moderator, two one-way ANOVAs were conducted. There was no significant interaction effect from the CEO’s gender and own gender on attitude towards the company (F(1,154) = 0.41, p = .523, η2 = .00). Furthermore, there was no significant interaction effect from CEO’s gender and own gender on willingness to work for the company (F(1,154) = 1.03, p = .311, η2
= .00). Both hypotheses should be rejected.
Hypotheses 3a and 3b addressed the effect of CEO gender on both attitude towards and willingness to work for the company, and how this was moderated by the frame the participants had seen (warmth frame or competence frame). This was tested through two one-way ANOVAs. There was no significant interaction effect from CEO gender and frame on attitude towards the company (F(1,155) = 0.06, p = .814, η2 = .00). There was a significant effect of frame on attitude towards the company, F(1,155) = 7.78, p = .006, η2 = .05, where attitude was higher for the warmth frame (M = 3.69, SD = 0.77) than for the competence frame (M = 3.34, SD = 0.81). There was also no significant interaction effect from CEO gender and frame on willingness to work for the company (F(1,155) = 0.81, p = .368, η2 = .01). There was a significant effect of frame on willingness to work for the company,
F(1,155) = 18.98, p < .001, η2 = .11, where willingness was higher for the competence frame (M = 3.77, SD = 0.88) than for the warmth frame (M = 3.12, SD = 1.03). Because there were no significant interaction effects, both hypotheses should be rejected. However, the two main effects of frame were taken into account in interpreting the results.
Hypotheses 4a and 4b predicted that for respondents with positive opinions on gender equality, CEO gender would have no effect on attitude towards and willingness to work for
17 the company, but for respondents with negative opinions on gender equality, CEO gender would have an effect on attitude towards and willingness to work for the company. In order to test these hypotheses, two linear regression analyses were conducted with the interaction of CEO gender and overall equality opinion as predictor for attitude and willingness. A new variable (interaction) was constructed where both these variables were multiplied. There was no significant interaction effect of CEO gender and equality opinion as predictor for attitude towards the company (F(3, 155) = 2.51, p = .061). Furthermore, there was no significant interaction effect of CEO gender and equality opinion as predictor for willingness to work for the company (F(3,155) = 1.45, p = .230). After performing these analyses, it was concluded that both hypotheses 4a and 4b should be rejected. Some additional analyses were performed, to check for non-linear patterns. The variable ‘overall equality’ was split into three
percentiles based on sample size and equality scores, and six one-way ANOVAs were performed. Distributions and descriptive statistics of the three percentiles can be found in Table 1.
Table 1
Distributions, Means and Standard Deviations of Equality Percentiles Equality Range Gender
Percentile 1 (n = 48) 2.50 – 4.00 46.8% male Percentile 2 (n = 68) 4.00 – 4.75 36.8% male Percentile 3 (n = 43) 5 30.2% male
Results of the ANOVAs can be found in Table 2. No significant effects of CEO gender on attitude towards the company were found for gender equality percentiles 1 and 3. However in percentile 2, the group of people with moderate opinions on gender equality,
18 attitude towards the company with a female CEO (M = 3.83, SD = 0.88) was significant higher than the attitude towards the company with a male CEO (M = 3.38, SD = 0.75). No significant effects of CEO gender were found for the three gender equality percentiles on willingness to work for the company. The results for attitude towards the company are visualized in Figure 2. Only for people with moderate gender equality opinions, the attitude towards a company with female CEO was more positive.
Table 2
ANOVA Results for Hypotheses 4a and 4b
Attitude Willingness
df F p η2 F p η2
Percentile 1 1, 46 0.08 .776 .002 0.21 .653 .004 Percentile 2 1, 66 5.16 .026 .073 2.62 .137 .033 Percentile 3 1, 41 0.01 .914 .000 0.91 .346 .022
19 Figure 2. Attitude towards the company with male or female CEO for the gender equality percentiles (1 = low, 2 = moderate, 3 = high).
Table 3
Gender Distributions for the Gender Quality Percentiles
Male Female Total
Percentile 1 – Low 22 (46.8%) 25 (53.2%) 47 Percentile 2 – Moderate 25 (36.8%) 43 (63.2%) 68 Percentile 3 – High 13 (30.2%) 30 (69.8%) 43
As can be seen in Table 3, there are some gender distribution differences between the three gender equality percentiles. As the gender equality percentiles increase, the relative amount of men in the percentile decreases. Particularly women value gender equality, which explains why they are overrepresented in percentile two and three. Women’s opinion on
20 gender equality (M = 4.47, SD = 0.53) was significantly higher than men’s opinion on gender equality (M = 4.28, SD = 0.61), t(156) = -2.08, p = .039. Because of these differences, some additional analyses were performed to check for gender effects on attitude and willingness. Independent T-Tests were performed to check the effects in the three percentiles of CEO gender on willingness and attitude of both men and women separately. Men in both percentile 1 (t(20) = 2.43, p = .025) and 2 (t(23) = 1269, p = .013), the low and moderate equality
percentiles, were significantly less willing to work for a company with a female CEO (M = 3.10, SD = 0.69; M = 3.13, SD = 0.84, respectively) than one with a male CEO (M = 3.84, SD = 0.69; M = 3.95, SD = 0.86, respectively). For the women in the three percentiles, no
significant differences were found for willingness and attitude. Results of the analyses can be found in Appendix D. In conclusion, men who are less positive about gender equality (from the low and moderate gender equality groups) are significantly less willing to work for a company with a female CEO, as visualized in Figure 3.
21 Figure 3. Willingness to work for the company for the men in the three gender equality
percentiles.
Discussion
This study was aimed at finding out to what extent the CEO’s gender affects a company’s attractiveness as an employer. Attractiveness was measured by means of attitude towards the company and willingness to work for the company. Some interesting findings came to light when performing analyses, that can help to answer the following research question: ‘To what extent does the CEO’s gender and a company’s warmth or competence frame influence the attitude towards and the willingness to work for a company and how is this moderated by gender and opinions on gender equality?’
First of all, the study shows that a female CEO evoked a more positive attitude than a male CEO, as opposed to the expectations. Based on gender stereotypes literature (Fiske et al., 2002; Ramos et al., 2018), it was expected that women would be seen as
22 less competent to lead a company, resulting in a less favorable attitude towards a
company with female leader. One possible explanation for this finding was that the female CEO was seen as more attractive than the male CEO. Attractiveness of the CEO can be seen as related to the attractiveness of the company, for example when the CEO is seen as the embodiment, or the face of the company (Fetscherin, 2015). This notion might explain why in this study, the company with female CEO is regarded as the more attractive company. Regarding the willingness to work for the company, it made no difference what gender the company’s CEO had. It was thought that, given the negative backlash towards women who behave in a stereotype incongruent manner (Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 2001; Heilman et al., 2004), willingness would be higher for a company with a male CEO. However, it might be considered a positive finding and even a reason to put more women in senior positions and creating more gender equality and diversity in teams, which could lead to increased performance (Aidman, 2017).
No differences were found between men and women regarding the attractiveness of a company and willingness to work for the company with female or male CEO. It was thought, given the fact that men and women associate their own gender with competence (Richeson & Ambady, 2001; Ebert et al., 2014), that organizational attractiveness might be greater when the respondent had the same gender as the CEO. However, competence might not be the main concept on which people base an organization’s attractiveness. Furthermore, according to the similarity-attract literature (Byrne, 1997; Slaughter et al., 2004; Devendorf & Highhouse, 2008), people are drawn to people that are more alike themselves. Given the fact that your gender is a great part of your identity, it was expected that women would be more positive towards a company with a female CEO, and that men would be more positive towards a company with a male CEO. The similarity-attract hypothesis might have been taken too broad in this perspective: ‘just’ the same gender might not be similar enough. It is possible
23 that similarity is measured in more detailed terms such as age, attractiveness, style etcetera. Another possibility is that people were more focused on the positioning of the company and had that in mind when answering the questions, instead of the CEO’s gender. This thought is supported by significant effects of frame on attitude and willingness. Competence evoked higher willingness, and warmth evoked a more positive attitude. That would mean that the CEO’s gender would be less relevant, or that people did not have a preference for the CEO’s gender. Either way, the findings indicate that men and women are equally willing to work for female and male CEOs. In terms of recruitment this means that for attracting a specific gender, the company’s CEO has no influence. So for example, a female CEO cannot explicitly be regarded a talent magnet for female employees.
In this study there was no indication for a combined effect of CEO gender and company frame on the attractiveness of a company as employer. It was thought that a frame that did not match with the CEO gender stereotype (men with competence, women with warmth) would enhance the attitude towards and willingness to work for the company. However, there was no interaction effect of frame and CEO gender as was expected based on a notion of completeness. This ‘completeness’ of a company could only be achieved when a company was seen as competent as well as warm, based on the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Flannery, 2018). The findings can be explained in different ways. It must be taken into account that there were more women in the ‘competent frame’ condition than there were men. Therefore, results may have been influenced by gender. As briefly mentioned above, the frame of the company alone did influence the attitude and willingness. A warmth frame evoked a more positive attitude towards the company, and a competence frame evoked a higher willingness to work for the company. Attitude and willingness could have been more influenced by the frame than the CEO gender, or a combination.
24 and woman + warmth), processes automatically and more quickly than inconsistent
information (Macrae, Milne & Bodenhousen, 1994; Blair & Banaji, 1996). This quick processing may lead to a greater recognition and support of one’s own thoughts, resulting in greater positivity towards the company (Bastian & Haslam, 2010). In that case, a gender plus frame match could have possibly ruled out any ‘completeness effects’, as derived from the self-determination theory. In conclusion, a company should think carefully about what it focuses on: warmth, competence, or both, and how this is communicated. Companies that position themselves as warm, will enhance their brand reputation, whereas companies that position themselves as competent, will be more likely to attract employees.
Because of existing stereotypes towards men and women (Glick & Fiske, 2000; Fiske et al., 2001), opinion on gender equality was measured in the survey. It was expected that people that were low in gender equality, would be high in stereotypes and therefore less positive towards and less willing to work for a company with female CEO, and vice versa. However, results indicated there were no effects of gender equality on willingness and attitude. To further check for gender equality results, three gender equality groups were created (low, moderate and high). It was found that people in the moderate gender equality group had a more positive attitude towards the company with a female CEO. It is possible that the people in this group feel that having woman at the top of the organizational chain is a good thing in a men’s world. Another explanation is that people in this group are less aware of gender stereotypes, and therefore base their attitude on the appearance of the CEO. The female CEO was seen as more attractive than the male CEO, which could contribute to this finding. For people in the low and high gender equality groups, no such effects were found. For people in the high gender equality group, this can be explained by the possibility of them (actively) suppressing gender stereotypes. Therefore, they do not have a preference for a CEO, based on its gender. For people in the low gender equality group, the fact that the
25 woman was seen as more attractive than the man, could have cancelled out their stereotypical preference for a male CEO, as women are judged on their appearance (Heflick, Goldenberg, Cooper & Puvia, 2011).
There were no differences between the groups on willingness to work for the company, which could indicate that people do not care whether they work for a company with female or male CEO. Another explanation is that the frame was more dominant in choosing whether the company was an attractive employer. More analyses revealed that the men from the low and moderate gender equality groups preferred to work for a company with male CEO, than one with female CEO. For the low group this finding makes sense, they are low on gender equality, therefore probably higher on stereotypes (Rudman, 1998; Rudman & Glick, 2001; Heilman et al., 2004). However, the moderate group is quite high on gender equality, but despite that is still less willing to work for a female CEO. This could indicate social desirability bias in answering gender equality for the moderate group. No such effects were found for men in the high gender equality group, or for the women in the three gender equality groups. This finding means that men who value the more traditional gender roles, prefer to work for a male CEO over a female CEO and engage in benevolent sexism (REF). This could indicate that they do not feel comfortable with a woman in a higher position than themselves, which is consistent with literature (Richeson & Ambady, 2001). In practice, this means that a female CEO might not be a talent magnet for male applicants, especially males that are lower in gender equality opinions. Companies might chose to actively create more gender diversity in their teams and boards. In doing so, this might diminish gender
stereotypes by making it more common to put women in top positions.
26 For this study, a job page was used without any information available about what kind of company it was. For example, the size of the company, number of employees, and the sector in which the company operates was unknown to the respondents. This fictious company was chosen in order to avoid any opinion about the company based on anything other than the frame and the CEO. In other words, to make the results as reliable as possible. However, normally when a potential employee visits a company’s job page, it is clear in what sector the company operates, what function the employee applies to, and some more general information about the company might be available. A potential employee ranks the
attractiveness of a company also on these objective notions (Stone & Lukaszewski, 2005), as in the instrumental-symbolic framework (Lievens & Highhouse, 2003). Therefore, the findings might not be applicable to the entire population, as this information shall probably influence organizational attractiveness. It is logical to assume that in different sectors, different gender equality opinions exist among potential employees.
Furthermore, gender equality opinion was measured in an explicit way. The mean gender equality in this study was very high, which could have been caused by social desirability. It might have been better to measure gender equality on an implicit basis, for example through an Implicit Association Test (IAT). An example of an IAT within this topic was done by Ebert et al. (2014), who combined the words men and women with warm and competent. Another limitation is the small size of the gender equality groups. This gives the results not enough power to generalize it to the population. What could have affected the results as well is the fact that the woman was regarded more attractive than the man. It is possible that the CEOs were mostly judged based on their looks, apart from their gender. This makes it hard to generalize the findings to the population.
Further research should be directed at finding out to what extent gender equality opinions and gender stereotypes differ between sectors, and what this means for a company.
27 If differences between sectors exist, companies in different sectors can adapt to this in order to enhance their organizational attractiveness as employers. Additionally, the effects of how a company positions itself could differ between sectors. For example, a company operating in the IT sector might be an attractive employer when focusing on competence, whereas a company in the health sector might be more attractive when focusing on warmth.
Also, a future study could measure two extra concepts in its experiment. A first addition would be whether the respondents think that a CEO is a representative of the company, to be sure that the company is judged at least partly on its CEO and not just its positioning. A second addition could be the question to what extent the respondents find themselves similar to the CEO on the picture. In doing so, the concept of similarity can be measured and analyzed as well.
Conclusion
This study uncovered and confirmed some highly relevant aspects in the world of (online) recruitment. The research question will be answered in parts. The CEO’s gender does influence the attractiveness of a company (female CEO means more attractive), but that is mostly for people who have a moderate gender equality opinion. The CEO’s gender also influences someone’s willingness to work for a company (male CEO is higher willingness), but that was limited to men who are low or moderate on gender equality. This indicates that, for this group of men, patterns of sexism towards women still exist. As seen in this study, women value gender equality more than men. This makes sense, considering they are the sex that has to deal with the biggest disadvantages, for example the glass ceiling (Barreto et al., 2009).
Additionally, the way a company positions itself is important. If a company wants to attract new employees, it should focus on competence. If a company wants to brand itself in a
28 positive way, it should focus on warmth. However, because this study focused more on the symbolic dimension, the effects of adding an instrumental dimension with information about the company and vacancy remain unexplored. Such information however is seen as an important source on which people rate an organization’s attractiveness (Stone &
Lukaszewski, 2005). Furthermore, adding the instrumental dimension could positively affect the attractiveness of a company as employer, because the instrumental-symbolic framework is then complete (Lievens & Highhouse, 2003). Also, differences between sectors were not yet investigated, but these might contribute to being one step closer to winning the war for talent.
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34 Appendices
36 Appendix B.
Measures of DV’s as used in the research of Feldman, Bearden and Hardesty (2006). Attitude Toward the Ad
1. My attitude toward the job advertisement was: Bad 1 2 3 4 5 Good
2. The job advertisement was: Unpleasant 1 2 3 4 5 Pleasant
3. My attitude toward the job advertisement was: Unfavorable 1 2 3 4 5 Favorable
Attitude Toward the Company The company is . . . Undependable ________________________________ Dependable Dishonest____________________________________ Honest Reliable_____________________________________ Unreliable Insincere____________________________________ Sincere Trustworthy__________________________________ Untrustworthy
Likelihood of Pursuing Application Process Further
1. How likely would you be to contact the company for more information about the job being offered?
2. How likely would you be to ask for a job application?
3. How likely would you be to complete the job application process?
4. How likely is it that you will actually receive a job offer from this company? 5. How likely would you be to accept the job if it were offered to you?
37 Appendix C. Entire survey in Qualtrics.
Introduction: Dear participants,
In this survey, you will be shown a job page of a company with some text about the company and a picture of its CEO. Afterwards, some questions will be asked about your attitude towards this company.
There are no right or wrong answers, I am only interested in your opinion. You will be shown some text and instructions, please read this carefully.
First, you will be asked to give informed consent, which means that you agree to take part in the study and that the researcher can use your answers.
Informed consent:
An informed consent is required in order to continue the survey.
I hereby declare that I have read about the nature and method of the research, and that it is clear to me what this study is about, as described in the invitation for and introduction to the study.
I voluntarily consent to participate in this study. I understand that I can withdraw from the study at any time I want. My anonymity will be guaranteed, even if the research results are to be made public.
I understand the text that is presented to me above and I agree to participate in this study Background information:
Imagine you currently have a job that you're satisfied with, but you are starting to look what other possibilities you might have in the job market. Look at the following screenshot of a company's job page while imagining you are considering applying for a job at this company. Afterwards, some questions about the page will be asked.
Image of CEO + text
What was the sole focus of the text about the company? 1. Teamwork
2. Competence
What was the gender of the CEO? 1. Male
2. Female
38 The company is (1-5): Undependable ________________________________ Dependable Dishonest____________________________________ Honest Reliable_____________________________________ Unreliable Insincere____________________________________ Sincere Trustworthy__________________________________ Untrustworthy
Willingness to work for the company (1-5)
1. How likely would you be to contact the company for more information about the job being offered?
2. How likely would you be to ask for a job application?
3. How likely would you be to complete the job application process?
4. How likely is it that you will actually receive a job offer from this company? 5. How likely would you be to accept the job if it were offered to you?
Gender equality
1. It is ok for men to be emotional sometimes
2. Men do not have to be the sole bread winner in a family 3. Men can be as caring as women
4. Women can be as ambitious as men
What is your gender? 1. Male
2. Female
39 Appendix D. T-test results for the additional analyses for hypothesis 4a and 4b.
Attitude Willingness df t p t p Percentile 1 – women 23 0.32 .756 -0.75 .460 Percentile 1 – men 20 -0.64 .531 2.42 .025 Percentile 2 – women 41 -1.85 .071 0.31 .760 Percentile 2 – men 23 -1.28 .214 2.69 .013 Percentile 3 – women 28 -1.21 .238 1.80 .082 Percentile 3 – men 11 1.67 .124 -1.08 .303
