DOES A CRISIS ALWAYS REQUIRE COMMUNAL LEADERSHIP? An empirical research on leadership preferences in times of crisis

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An empirical research on leadership preferences in times of crisis

Master Thesis, MSc. Human Resource Management, University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

July 2, 2012

REGINA WOLF Student number: 2008475

Tuinbouwstraat 87A,

9717 JD Groningen, the Netherlands tel: +31 (0)611431540

e-mail: r.wolf.1@student.rug.nl

Supervisor / university: Dr. F.A. Rink Second Supervisor / university: Dr. F. Walter

Acknowledgment: I especially would like to thank Floor Rink for the pleasant collaboration on my master thesis, her advice and insightful feedback on all my draft versions. I would also like to express gratitude towards my family and friends for their endless encouragement and support throughout the whole process of writing my thesis. A special thank you goes to Phu Nguyen for putting my questionnaire online, and to Niina Berg for proof-reading my thesis. An appreciation is also given to my second supervisor, Frank Walter, for taking his time to evaluate the study at the end.

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Abstract

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Executive Summary

This study outlines the findings of an empirical research that examined what kind of stereotypical leader characteristics people find important under different organizational conflict situations. It also addresses whether or not a new leader is accepted under those circumstances. It highlights the fact that there is more to leadership in times of crisis than just the preference of women over men, known as the glass cliff. More specifically, inter- and intragroup sources of threat determine the preferred gender stereotypes and the perceived acceptance of a leader – regardless of the type of cultural threat. Interestingly, I found that the gender of a leader does not per se play a role when it comes to perceived acceptance during difficult times – neither do communal traits. People believe that a leader who is assertive, competitive and even aggressive is well equipped in solving an external crisis. In an internal crisis however, a leader who possesses such agentic characteristics is seen as a less favorable candidate. Those without or with low power in an organization are the only ones who wish for a leader representing communion; in contrast, those with a high degree of power in an organization favor an agentic leader.

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4 “We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage

to raise our sons more like our daughters.” – Gloria Steinem

“I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.' 'What do you fear, lady?' he asked.

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Introduction

In the 21st century women are still underrepresented in higher managerial positions globally (Eagly & Sczesny, 2009). Women’s representation in the Fortune 500 leadership positions accounts in 2011 for 14.1% of executive officer positions and for 16.1% of the board seats in the US (Catalyst, 2011). The EU is facing similar problems as presented in the EU’s new gender equality strategy (29th March, 2011) which showed that only 1 out of 10 board members of the largest publicly listed organizations is a woman (European Commission, 2011). According to Vivianne Reding, vice-president of the European Commission, the only significant increase in gender balanced company boards that has been seen in the last decade, was brought about by a quota law (Reding, 2011). Thus, it is understandable why many researchers and practitioners are interested in the upward mobility of women as well as the circumstances that will lead to more diversity at the top of an organization.

Despite these discouraging figures, the number of females in top positions is slightly increasing, especially since the financial crisis starting in 2008. Best examples of females who were all elected during tough times in previously male-led organizations and even male-led countries are the appointment of Carly Fiorina as the CEO of Hewlett Packard (Azad, 2011), Lynn Elsenhans as CEO of the oil company Sunoco as well as Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir as prime minister of Iceland (Jarrett, 2010). Lynn Elsenhans was appointed in 2008 as the first female CEO of Sunoco, just after fuel demand was sinking (Kullman, 2011) and the company’s shares had halved in value (Jarrett, 2010). She in fact made Sunoco the first major oil company to close 3 oil refineries. This raised the concern of many investors who were afraid of the impact on the company’s long term strategy, although her actions turned out to prescient (Kullman, 2011). She managed to make Sunoco profitable again after initially suffering from losses. Nevertheless, as of March 1, 2012 Brian MacDonald is the new CEO of Sunoco presumably because the company aims to focus on its high-return logistics and retail businesses (RTTNews, 2012).

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6 effective leaders, causing them to be, paradoxically, relatively overrepresented in top positions that are very precarious and that have a high likelihood of failure (Ryan & Haslam, 2005). Consequently the main question of this paper is: Under which circumstances of crisis do leadership roles ask for more agentic traits and when for more communal traits?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a crisis and threat on leadership preferences. While plenty of research is done in this field, not much research has been conducted about whether the kind of crisis matters for the preference of a female or a male leader. This study is meant to gain a deeper insight into this specific topic by examining different types of threats and different types of culture crises. That is, this research aims to identify if the source of crisis, whether it is internal or external, can be associated with different stereotypes and therefore, can lead to a certain preference for agentic or communal leadership traits. The central prediction is that a crisis shifts beliefs about effective leader roles only under some circumstances – leading to the preference for a female leader – but not under all conditions.

Theoretical Background

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7 people performing “sex-typical social roles” (Eagly & Karau, 2002), for example men as breadwinners and typical leaders (high status roles) and women as homemakers and friendly colleagues (low status roles). Descriptive norms or stereotypes result in the belief that men and women have typical traits and behaviors that vary from each other (Diekman & Eagly, 2000). Male vs. female leadership in times of crisis

The key concept of social role theory is that the sexes have either agentic or communal characteristics (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Agentic attributes can be described as having a mainly “assertive, controlling and confident tendency” (Eagly & Karau, 2002) such as aggressive, dominant, forceful and self-confident. In contrast, communal characteristics can be described as being mainly concerned with the welfare of other people such as affectionate, helpful, kind, sensitive and sympathetic. Men are more likely to have agentic attributes while women have more strongly communal characteristics (Diekman & Eagly, 2000). Moreover, Schein (1973) presented a Descriptive Index consisting of various adjectives and attributes to male middle line managers and asked them to indicate if each of the characteristics either described (a) women in general, (b) men in general, or (c) successful middle managers. She found out that “successful middle managers are perceived to possess characteristics, attitudes, and temperaments more commonly ascribed to men in general than to women in general” (Schein 1973). She replicated the study in 1975 with female middle managers and confirmed her previous hypothesis (Schein, 1975). She called this association between managerial attributes and male attributes “think manager-think male” (Ryan, Haslam, Hersby and Bongiorno, 2011).

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8 attitude are controlled for (Ryan et al., 2011). Thus, women seem to be in a “lose-lose” situation as they are either not seen as a suitable leader or a “proper” woman.

However, the dominance of women executives seems to be slightly increasing which comes along with changing desired preferences for certain leadership styles (Mano-Negrin & Sheaffer, 2004). Brown et al. (2011) argue that leadership roles - asking for more communal instead of agentic characteristics - tend to prefer women over men as leaders who are generally ascribed to have more communal traits. Importantly, there can be a change in preferences observed under conditions of threat or crisis (Brown et al., 2011). Consequently in a crisis situation, individuals tend to prefer leaders who embody a new course of leadership in the organization. This finding relates to the so called glass cliff effect which argues that women are more likely to rise to organizational leadership positions in times of crisis than in times of success. Men on the other hand, are more likely to achieve those positions in times of stability and prosperity (Bruckmüller & Branscombe, 2010). The findings of Ryan and Haslam (2005) indicate that women are appointed to board of directors after the share price of the organization decreased. A stable financial performance of the organization leads to men being more likely appointed to those positions. This shows that during difficult times women are the preferred leaders (Ryan & Haslem, 2005).

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9 They also propose that the current-day female stereotype is different from how women were viewed upon in the past, while the current-day male stereotype is static in such a way that men nowadays are not believed to differ a lot from men in the past (Diekman & Eagly, 2000).

Source of threat

However, does the source of the organizational threat also play a role? Spisak and Van Vugt (2008) concluded that these preferences for male and female characteristics might be due to different group contexts. They conclude that an external (intergroup) threat requires a male leader since they have predominantly agentic qualities (e.g., assertive, competitive) which are needed to successfully manage external conflicts (Eagly, Koenig, Mitchell & Ristikari, 2011). In structures that foster negative goal interdependencies between an organization and external parties, the organization feels threatened, and puts more effort into maintaining the supremacy of its identity and culture over those of the others. The pervasiveness of “us against them” mentality generates powerful intergroup competition (Van Oostrum & Rabbie, 1995) which can lead to aggressive outgroup behavior (Steinel, Van Kleef, Van Knippenberg, Hogg, Homan & Moffitt, 2010). According to Van Vugt, De Cremer and Janssen (2007) there is some evidence that “men’s behaviors and cognitions are more intergroup oriented than women’s” (Van Vugt et al., 2007), which they refer to as the male-warrior hypothesis. Men do engage more in intergroup aggression and conflicts since their perceived (reproductive) benefits often outweigh the costs (Van Vugt et al., 2007), as the “spoils of an intergroup victory enhance their mating opportunities substantially” (Spisak & Van Vugt, 2008).

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10 and “that male warriors have more sexual partners and greater status within their community than other men do” (Van Vugt et al., 2007). Thus, men will engage more often and even more successfully in intergroup rivalry.

Influence of organizational culture

Importantly though, other researchers (e.g. Ryan & Haslam, 2007; Brown et al., 2011) suggest that leadership preferences are situational induced meaning that not only do “evaluations of leadership effectiveness vary across situations but also that perceptions of what it means to be a good leader are dynamic and context dependent” (Ryan et al., 2011). Based on the research on Schein (1973, 1975) they state that what is needed and expected from a leader during times of stability is very different from what is required of a leader in times of crisis and threat. This means that organizational culture will also play an important role. Schein (1990) defines organizational culture as “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems that has worked well enough to be considered valid and is passed on to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems”. According to Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov (2010, p.140) societal as well as organizational cultures can be categorized in masculinity and femininity. They argue a culture is masculine “when emotional gender roles are clearly distinct: men are supposed to be assertive, tough and focused on materia l success, whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender and concerned with the quality of life” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p.140). On the opposite they define a culture as feminine “when emotional gender roles overlap: both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender and concerned with the quality of life” (Hofstede et al., 2010). Goals and values concerned with assertiveness and competition (e.g. earnings, advancement, title and respect) are found in especially masculine cultures, whereas a concern for relationships and the living environment (friendly working climate, cooperation and nurturance) tend dominate female cultures (Cartwright & Gale, 1995).

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11 destructive. However, mental programs can determine which reactions are likely and understandable given an individual’s history because their sources deeply root within the social environments one grew up in (e.g. family, neighborhood, school and workplace). Culture is at least partly shared by individuals within the same social environment, but it can differ a lot from those in another social environment (Hofstede et al., 2010). Therefore, in a more feminine culture conflicts are handled differently than in a masculine culture only on the basis of what individuals learned in their social environment.

For example, Vaiman, Sigurjonsson and Davidsson (2011) argue that Iceland has a feminine culture (i.e. adopting communal traits) that puts a strong emphasis on freedom, group decision making and social welfare - Iceland’s welfare system is very generous. “Iceland’s compact size, relative isolation, and cultural characteristics allegedly helped to create an environment where people knew each other” (Vaiman et al., 2011). Unfortunately though, the interconnectedness between individuals and the societal characteristics of the country in the end turned out to be an important contributor to its financial crisis (Vaiman et al., 2011). Interestingly, when the economy of Iceland collapsed, the inhabitants of the country chose a female leader to solve its issues. Thus in a communal crisis, people seem to favor female leadership, particularly when the previous leader was male. Arguably, but never tested, a female leader is then expected to focus on healing the community and to express nurturing and helping behavior (Bruckmüller & Branscombe, 2010).

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12 Hypothesis 1: The type of cultural crisis has an influence on the change in leadership preferences regardless of the source of threat. People prefer a male leader in an agentic crisis, regardless of whether this crisis is internal or external. And, people will prefer a female leader in a communal crisis, internal or external.

Hypothesis 2: The type of cultural crisis (agentic vs. communal) influences gendered leader stereotypes, independently of the origin of the crisis (internal vs. external).

Hypothesis 3: Gendered leader stereotypes have a positive effect on a change in leadership preference.

Methods

Design and Participants

The scenario study was designed in English and applied a 2 (source of the crisis: internal vs. external) by 2 (type of crisis: agentic vs. communal) by 2 (Gender: male vs. female) between subjects design. A total of 160 participants were randomly allocated to one of eight conditions by an online-questionnaire-software, resulting in 20 respondents per scenario. Publicity for this research was generated through links on social media websites such as facebook and linkedIn as well as advertising it on several online forums dedicated to HR and psychological research and on an online marketplace called mturk.com. Only for mturk.com incentives were used. Male participants comprised 53.8 percent and females 46.3 percent (86 male and 74 female) of the sample. Participants were predominantly between 25 and 34 years old (43.8 %), had a Bachelor’s degree (43.1%) and worked in private organizations (43.8%). The majority of the sample had between two to five years work experience (28.1%) and a total annual household income between 10,000 to 29,000 Euros (28.8%).

Experimental Procedure

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13 a job description for that position. After answering some general questions about the crisis situation and the leadership position described in the assigned scenario and job description, participants were presented with the particular candidate, either a woman or a man, the dependent measures, the control variables, manipulation checks and some demographics.

Manipulation of Leader Gender

The gender of the candidate was manipulated by providing a picture of a man or a woman to the participants, providing them with the same description of his or her educational background as well as work experience. It was presented to the participants after they answered some questions about the characteristics needed to perform the job well (i.e. mediators).

Manipulation of Threat and Culture Crisis

Threat was manipulated by stating in the newspaper article that the organization was threatened either by an external takeover or internal resistance towards changes. To indicate the type of crisis at hand, the threat was either described as assertive, stoical and aggressive or as intuitive, tactical and clever. Participants were presented with two questions to check the manipulations. Firstly, they were asked to indicate on a scale from 1 (Bankruptcy) to 10 (Highly successful) whether they thought that the organization has difficult times ahead of it. Secondly, the respondents had to choose between two statements that best describes the situation Jefferson’s is facing – either characterized by dominance and aggressiveness or lack of warmth and caring. Dependent Measures

Gendered leader stereotypes. Right after the threat and culture crisis manipulations but prior to receiving the candidate profile (which was either male or female), I measured the proposed mediators: gendered leader stereotypes (1 = not true to 7 = totally true). Participants were asked to indicate what characteristics a possible new Strategic Manager of Jefferson needs to possess in order to deal effectively with the crisis (see Rink, Ryan & Stoker, in press). The items were divided by agentic (10 items, α = 0.83) and communal traits (10 items, α = .89).

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14 effectiveness (e.g. will be able to make changes; α = .90) and obtained on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very strong).

Control Variables

The measures were controlled for gender participant, gender identification and power. The gender identification scale (α = .77) consisted of 15 items and described the attitudes towards the roles of women in society that different people have. The scale – developed by Spence, Helmreich and Stapp (1973) – ranges on a 5-point Likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A high score indicates a pro-feminist, egalitarian attitude, whereas a low score indicates a traditional, conservative attitude – except for the items with an asterisk where the scale is reversed. Gender participant and power were each measured with a single item. Participants were asked to indicate their gender and the level at which they were a leader (i.e. no, lower management, middle management, higher management; Lammers, Stoker & Stapel, 2009).

Results

Manipulation Checks

As intended, the threat manipulation was successful. Participants rightfully indicated that Jefferson’s position, which is currently the first in the market, was weakened due to the internal or external threat (M = 5.89, SD = 1.69). In the second manipulation 95.8 percent of the participants correctly identified that the agentic condition was characterized by aggressiveness and dominance (M = 1.04, SD = .20). However, only 27 percent correctly stated that the communal culture crisis was characterized by a lack of warmth and caring (M = 1.27, SD = .45) indicating that the last manipulation check did not work.

Participants were indeed aware that the leadership position at Jefferson’s was challenging (M = 5.58, SD = 1.10) and a difficult package (M = 4.59, SD = 1.50), but they also assessed the position that the applicant is taking over as a healthy pressure (M = 4.89, SD = 1.28) that could be a good step for the future career (M = 5.08, SD = 1.14).

Dependent Measures

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15 Gender participant only yielded a significant main effect for the measure leader acceptance (F (1, 159) = 6.05, p = .02), with women rating a leader more positively (M = 5.08, SD = 1.02) than men (M = 4.65, SD = 1.07). Yet, no main effects with any other dependent measure (lowest p value = .37) nor interaction effects with any of the experimental factors emerged. Gender identification and power yielded significant main effects on all dependent measures, but no interaction effects with any of the experimental factors. The control variables remained included in all subsequent analyses.

Gendered Leader Stereotypes. As for the mediators, I only obtained a main effect for threat on the agentic traits (F (1, 159) = 8.84, p < .01). In line with Van Vugt and colleagues (2007), it was found that in an external crisis agentic traits were more favored by respondents than in the internal threat condition (external: M = 5.89, SD = .68; internal: M = 5.52, SD = .73). Interestingly, there were no main or interaction effects on communal traits. Respondents indicated that in the external as well as internal threat condition communal traits were equally needed (p = .56). And importantly, contrasting my hypothesis, there was also no main effect of culture crisis on these gender stereotypes (agentic: p = .89; communal p = .27), nor did culture crisis interact with threat to influence the mediators.

Change in Leadership Preferences. It was found that the gender of the applicant and the type of crisis did not influence the degree of leader acceptance of a leader. Only the source of threat (internal vs. external) had a main effect on acceptance (F (1, 159) = 2.63, p = .03). In an external crisis the job applicant was perceived to be slightly more accepted as a leader (M = 5.09, SD = .92).than in the internal threat condition (M = 4.82, SD = 1.16).

As for leader effectiveness, there were no significant effects on any of the factors. Note however, that in the external threat condition, participants did show a slight preference for the male applicant (M = 5.49, SD = .93) over the female candidate (M = 5.26, SD = .84), while in the internal threat condition the preference was reversed (female: M = 5.33, SD = .93; male: M = 5.16, SD = 1.08). However, this interaction pattern did not yield significance.

Supplementary Analyses

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16 between gender and power (F (1, 75) = 7.90, p = .01). The respondents who had no or little power (Lower to middle management) preferred a leader with communal traits regardless the gender of the leader (male: M = 4.70, SD = 1.24; female: M = 4.76, SD = .97). For those with more power (top management), a male leader with agentic traits was preferred (F (1, 55) = 2.80, p = .001; male: M = 5.75, SD = .65; female: M = 5.56, SD = .79).

Simple Mediation

Because there were no effects found on leader effectiveness, it was excluded from further analysis. And, as there was a significant main effect for threat on the gendered leadership stereotypes and leader acceptance only, bootstrapping was used to test the simple meditational models (Preacher & Hayes, 2004; Preacher, Rucker, & Hayes, 2007; Model 4) where the agentic traits would act as a mediator in the relationship between threat and leader acceptance, while controlling for communal traits. In these analyses, mediation was significant if the 95% Bias Corrected and accelerated confidence intervals for the indirect effect did not include 0 (Preacher & Hayes, 2004; Preacher et al., 2007). Results were based on 1000 bootstrapped samples. In the first equation, threat was entered together with the control variable communal traits. Both were significant predictors of the proposed mediator – agentic traits (B = -.47, SE = .15, t = -3.17, p < .01 for threat and B = .31, SE = .08, t = 3.82, p < .01 for communal traits). In the second analysis threat was entered together with the proposed mediator (i.e. agentic traits) and the control variable (i.e. communal traits) to predict leader acceptance. Not only threat, but also agentic traits yielded significance (threat: B = -.10, SE = .14, t = -.70, p = .04; agentic traits: B = .46, SE = .07, t = 6.29, p < .01). Further testing revealed that there is not only a direct effect of threat on leader acceptance but also an indirect effect of agentic traits mediating the relationship between threat and leader acceptance (B = -.22, Boot SE = .07, Boot LLCI = -.37, Boot ULCI = -.10). Because zero was not in the 95% confidence interval, the indirect effect was significantly different from zero at p < .05 (two tailed).

Discussion

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17 choice for solving the crisis. In addition, there is a clear indication that leaders who possess more subtle characteristics such as friendliness and sensitiveness are, on average, less favored in neither intergroup nor intragroup conflicts. Supplementary analyses did nuance this finding, showing that, this effect was primarily found under power holders, not under those without power. Note however, that often the power holders determine who will become a new leader, not subordinates.

More generally, the most consistent finding in my thesis research is that when the organization finds itself in a situation dominated by intergroup rivalry, a new leader is expected to behave in agentic ways – at least, this will make it easier for him or her to get accepted by subordinates. In an organization that suffers from internal frictions, a new leader faces more difficulties in getting overall approval and respect by employees, regardless of the traits he or she possesses.

Theoretical Implications

This research is contributing to the existing literature by examining whether different types and sources of crises lead to changes in leadership preferences – measured by leader acceptance and leader effectiveness, indicating no influence on the last measure. Rink and colleagues (in press) identified both measures as different constructs. It can be argued that leader acceptance relies more on sympathy (i.e. soft measure), whereas leader effectiveness measures perceived performance (i.e. hard measure). Gedney (1999) discovered that there is no explicit relationship between gender and leader effectiveness as there seem to be many attributes found in both men and women that can make leadership effective.

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18 between employees and managers, it is harder for a new leader to facilitate acceptance in intragroup conflict situations.

Van Vugt and colleagues (2007) look at their findings from an evolutionary gender perspective. However, I discovered that it is not the gender per se that determines leader preferences, rather, the gendered leadership traits that a new leader is expected to possess affect people’s willingness to accept a new leader. Therefore, it seems more appropriate to take the social role point of view into account. Gendered stereotypes are seen as a development from role-bound activities, and the traits favored by these roles become stereotypical for each sex and facilitate its typical activities (Diekman & Eagly, 2000). In recent years the roles of men and women have become more similar as women’s participation in the paid work force increased (Diekman & Eagly, 2000). This could imply a slight shift of women’s attributes from communion towards agency because women’s domestic responsibilities are nowadays more often combined with their employment relationships.

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19 Chun, Ashkanasy & Ahlstrom, 2012), resulting in a disruption of harmony and cohesion which thus, threatens an organization’s success and can, in the long term, even make it vulnerable to environmental influences (e.g. hostile takeovers; De Cremer & Van Vugt, 2002). Consequently, there is a need for intragroup peacekeeping which can be achieved by looking for specific attributes when selecting a leader (Saad, 2011). Again, cultural crisis does not overrule internal threat. However, a group’s culture is included in the forces for selection of a new leader (Saad, 2011).

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20 Limitations and Future Directions

By using a scenario study it was possible to compare the eight different crisis situations, allowing a systematic evaluation of gendered leadership stereotypes. Thus, a prediction of respondents’ leadership preferences in times of crises was obtained – all else being equal. However, this research does not examine what kind of preferences would become salient when respondents are placed in a real crisis situation, nor does it give insight into how far people are stereotyping once they face an actual conflict. People may be more inclined to stereotype when they are in an actual stressful situation. Also, I acknowledge as a limitation the use of a relatively simply worded scenario study to model what is obviously a complex issue consisting of many variables and underlying psychological mechanisms. Furthermore, the sample of participants does not only exist of a workforce, but also a student population. Students may have not enough work experience to adequately assess a crisis situation. Therefore in future, researchers are advised to evaluate this issue among actual leaders in organizational settings. A field or longitudinal study is particularly useful to obtain first-hand behavioral information and examine changes over a longer period.

In addition, I have to acknowledge that the manipulation check regarding the type of crisis only worked for the agentic cultural crisis, indicating that the description of the communal culture crisis situation has flaws. The description of the communal culture crisis (i.e. intuitive, tactical, and clever) may be too neutral and does not properly match the manipulation check (i.e. lack of warmth) because the majority of participants categorized it as an agentic culture crisis. Wojciszke, Baryla, Parzuchowski, Szymkow and Abele (2011) even used clever to describe agency. Consequently, researchers would be advised to describe the communal cultural crisis with more classical attributes, such as emotional, family oriented, in need for security and cooperative (Runge et al., 1981), that are in line with the manipulation check and the dependent variables.

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21 Cohen, 2006). For example, Madera, Hebel and Martin (2009) discovered that letters of recommendation are often written differently for males and femals as they contained gender-stereotypical words and phrases, describing women with communal and men with agentic attributes. Their results indicated a negative relationship between communion and hiring decisions. Indeed, communal characteristics still remain higher for women than in men, but agentic characteristics are increasing for both genders and thus, the difference between males and females is shrinking. According to Abele (2003), influences of role enactment on gender stereotypes are more consistent for agentic than for communal traits. Abele (2003) argues that many studies show an increasing assertiveness of women in the last 20 years, but only few studies found the same dynamic character for communion. Generally, communal traits are associated with family roles rather than occupational roles. Additionally, Abele (2003) discovered that agentic traits contribute to career success and are tied to occupational roles which leads her to the conclusion that agency is more important than communion when it comes to a thriving career. Therefore, a subtle discriminating attitude towards the expectancy of communion and agency should – in future research - be regarded as a possible moderator.

Practical Implications and Conclusions

Taken together, it can be said that women are not simply preferred over men during crisis, but that also other factors are taken into account, such as the source of a threat. Much more important than the gender of a leader are the traits that he or she possesses. As a result, those – together with the source of threat – determine whether or not a leader receives acceptance within an organization. An important practical implication for organizations is to assess a crisis situation thoroughly and also determine whether the new leader has the attributes that are needed to overcome a conflict.

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28

Appendix I

TABLE 1

ANOVA - Tests of Between-Subjects Effects for Threat, Culture crisis and Gender leader on Leader acceptance

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29 TABLE 2

ANOVA - Tests of Between-Subjects Effects for

Threat, Culture crisis and Gender leader on Leader effectiveness

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30 TABLE 3

ANOVA - Tests of Between-Subjects Effects for Threat and Culture crisis on Agentic traits

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31 TABLE 4

ANOVA - Tests of Between-Subjects Effects for Threat and Culture crisis on Communal traits

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32 TABLE 5

Threat, Gender leader and Power (lower & middle managers) on Agentic traits

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33 TABLE 6

Threat, Gender leader and Power (lower & middle managers) on Communal traits

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34 TABLE 7

Bootstrap – Simple Mediation (Model 4) Agentic traits on the relationship between Threat and Leader acceptance

- Outcome: Agentic Traits -

Source B SE t p Communal traits .31 .08 3.82 .00 Gender participant .03 .15 .21 .83 Gender identification .57 .13 4.57 .00 Power .05 .06 .78 .44 Threat -.47 .15 -3.17 .00 N = 160 TABLE 8

- Outcome: Leader acceptance –

Source B SE t p Communal traits .19 .08 2.42 .02 Gender participant -.38 .13 -2.80 .01 Gender identification -.39 .12 -3.25 .00 Power .17 .06 2.97 .00 Threat -.10 .14 -.70 .04 Agentic traits .46 .07 6.29 .00 N = 160 TABLE 9

- Direct Effect -

Effect SE t p

-.10 .14 -.70 .04

N = 160

TABLE 10

- Indirect Effect -

Source Effect Boot SE Boot LLCI p

Agentic traits -.22 .14 -.37 -.10

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35 Source of crisis - internal - external Salient gender stereotype Culture crisis - agentic - communal Change in leadership preferences

Appendix II

FIGURE 1

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36

Appendix III

Scenario 1

JEFFERSON’S IS THREATENED BY AN EXTERNAL TAKE OVER: HOW TO COMPETE WITH THE “ASSERTIVE” KARTERS?

AMSTERDAM: Jefferson’s was found not even 10 years ago, and has since this time become a high-flyer. Jefferson’s has grown to an internationally recognized organization. The growth of the company has led to Jefferson’s being the number 1 in Office Supplies.

However, it seems that Jefferson’s will possibly go down because of this success. The fast growth has made Jefferson’s vulnerable, and the company is dealing with a possibly threatening take over.

The second in the market, Karters, wants to make an offer on Jefferson’s. Karters’ is a fast growing competitor, and has according to experts the following management culture: “Assertive, stoical, and aggressive”. Jefferson’s needs to watch out for “This new kid on the block”, and needs to make sure that Karters does not get too much in their territory. J eff er s on’s is at the moment looking for a new Strategic Manager.

Scenario 2

JEFFERSON’S IS THREATENED BY AN EXTERNAL TAKE OVER: HOW TO COMPETE WITH THE “CLEVER” KARTERS ?

However, it seems that Jefferson’s will possibly go down because of this success. The fast growth has made Jefferson’s vulnerable, and the company is dealing with a possibly threatening take over.

The second in the market, Karters, wants to make an offer on Jefferson’s. Karters’ is a fast growing competitor, and has according to experts the following management culture: “Intuitive, tactical, and clever”. Jefferson’s needs to watch out for “This new kid on the block”, and needs to make sure that Karters does not get too much in their territory. J eff er s on’s is at the moment looking for a new Strategic Manager.

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37 Scenario 3

JEFFERSON’S IS THREATENED BY INTERNAL CHANGES:

HOW TO DEAL WITH AN “ASSERTIVE” ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE?

However, it seems that Jefferson’s will possibly go down because of this success. The fast growth has made Jefferson’s vulnerable, and the company is dealing with internal changes in order to stand up against the recent expansion.

A couple of departments need to merge and the middle management is going to be restructured. This is going to be difficult task because the company and the employees can be described as: “Assertive, stoical, and aggressive”. Jefferson’s needs to watch out when developing a new organizational culture, and take care that everyone stays satisfied. J eff er s on’s is at the moment looking for a new Strategic Manager.

Scenario 4

JEFFERSON’S IS THREATENED BY INTERNAL CHANGES: HOW TO DEAL WITH A “CLEVER” ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE?

AMSTERDAM: Jefferson’s was found not even 10 years ago, and has since this time become a high-flyer. Jefferson’s has grown to an internationally recognized organization. The growth of the company has led to Jefferson’s being the number 1 in Office Supplies. However, it seems that Jefferson’s will possibly go down because of this success. The fast growth has made Jefferson’s vulnerable, and the company is dealing with internal changes in order to stand up against the recent expansion.

A couple of departments need to merge and the middle management is going to be restructured. This is going to be difficult task because the company and the employees can be described as: “Intuitive, tactical and

clever”. Jefferson’s needs to watch out when

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Function: Strategic Manager Position: Permanent

Location: Amsterdam Wage: Excellent working

conditions conditions

Jefferson’s is a very large manufacturer and distributor of Office Supplies, with a worldwide recognition. The company has annual sales figures of more than 500 million, offices in more than 20 countries, and 5400 employees.

The company is at this moment in a crucial development phase, and additionally wants to hire a Strategic Manager to support the Management Team.

Function:

• Leadership skills and management experience

• Development of a new strategic financial plan for the Board of Directors

• As a member of the manager he/she needs to make an important contribution to the operational developments within Jefferson’s

Requirements:

• Inspiring professional with management potential

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39 CV: Mark Janssen

MARK JANSSEN– CURRICULUM VITAE

Mark Janssen has filled several national and international senior management positions in the areas of consultancy and finance. Currently, he is the Head of the Strategy department at a bank. Mr. Janssen did his MBA at the Rotterdam Business School, and is a member of the consulting commission of the European Market Association. Recently, he has published some studies about corporate policy.

Background information

Name: Mark. S. JANSSEN

Place of residence: Amsterdam, Netherlands Date of birth: March 1, 1963

Nationality: Dutch

Education

1986-1991 University of Groningen, Business Administration 2002 – 2004 Rotterdam Business School, MBA

Work experience

2005 – today Rabobank: Head of Department

2000 – 2004 Boston Consulting Group: Senior Consultant

1994-1999 Deutsche Bank: Senior Manager

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40 CV: Suzanne Janssen

SUZANNE JANSSEN– CURRICULUM VITAE

Suzanne Janssen has filled several national and international senior

management positions in the areas of consultancy and finance. Currently, she is the Head of the Strategy department at a bank. Ms. Janssen did her MBA at the Rotterdam Business School, and is a member of the consulting

commission of the European Market Association. Recently, she has published some studies about corporate policy.