Under which conditions does it appear and how can it be reduced?
Q UEEN BEE BEHAVIOR : A WOMEN ’ S FIGHT
Master thesis, Msc Human Resource Management August 2010
GONDA DE GROOT Student number: 1492918
Phone: +31 6 44658728 E-mail: gondadegroot@gmail.com
Supervision: Dr F. Rink Co-assessor: Dr. F. Walter
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... 2
INTRODUCTION ... 3
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS ... 4
QUEEN BEE BEHAVIOR ... 4
Gender and queen bee behavior ... 4
THE MEDIATING ROLE OF FEMALE STEREOTYPING ... 5
THE MODERATING ROLE OF ORGANIZATION CULTURE (MASCULINE VS. FEMININE) ... 6
Organization culture and female stereotyping ... 6
THE MODERATING ROLE OF MENTORING ... 8
Mentoring and queen bee behavior ... 8
METHOD ... 9
PROCEDURE AND RESPONDENTS. ... 9
CENTRAL INDEPENDENT VARIABLE ... 10
MODERATION VARIABLES ... 10
DEPENDENT MEASURES... 10
CONTROL VARIABLE ... 11
ANALYSIS ... 11
RESULTS ... 11
CONTROL VARIABLES ... 11
CORRELATION ANALYSIS ... 12
HYPOTHESIS TESTING ... 12
Queen bee effect ... 12
The mediating role of female stereotyping ... 13
The moderating role of organizational culture ... 13
The moderating role of a mentoring system ... 14
DISCUSSION... 14
FINDINGS ... 14
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS ... 16
LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ... 17
CONCLUSION... 18
REFERENCES ... 19
APPENDIX 1 ... 22
QUESTIONNAIRE ... 22
ABSTRACT
For years and years, research has been done to understand the causes behind the low number of women in management positions. Displaying queen bee behavior by female managers can be a reason. Aim of current field study is to explore under what conditions the queen bee effect appears and how the impact of this effect can be reduced. An online questionnaire was filled out by 244 managers (male and female) from various international and national organizations, acting in public and private sector. The results reveal queen bee behavior exists and that female stereotyping is in some way related to queen bee behavior but is not the sole cause. The most important finding was that within masculine organizations, female stereotyping increased by male and female colleagues. Contrary to the expectations, there was no significant result yielded for mentoring of female managers. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Keywords: Diversity, Gender, Women, Queen Bee Effect, Female Stereotyping, Mentoring,
Masculine/Feminine Culture
INTRODUCTION
Women in many fields continue to be underrepresented in senior positions despite the fact that they make up nearly half of the workforce and count for more than the half of new university graduates in the EU. Within the largest companies of Europe today, only one out of 10 board members is a woman and only 3% of those companies have women in a key position according to this report about women in senior positions (European Commission, 2010). The Dutch Female Board index shows that in the Netherlands, only 5,2% of female managers are in board positions (Lückerath-Rovers, 2007). Despite the fact that women still face many barriers at the work place (see the glass ceiling, Wrigley, 2002), an increasing body of evidence shows that gender diversity is actually beneficial for organizations, increasing their profitability immensely (European Commission, 2010). For this reason, politicians and managers are still debating how to change the situation and increase the position of women To ensure a minimum number of women in the boards of directors of large companies, the government has even officially installed a quota and developed the “Talent to the Top”
initiative, which has so far committed 142 Dutch organizations to reach several important diversity targets within the next five years.
There are many reasons why women are still for a large part working at the middle management level, ranging from gender stereotypes, family related barriers, and relatively recently, women being appointed to particularly risky situations that set them up for failure (the so called glass cliff positions; see Ryan & Haslam, 2007; Stockdale & Bhattacharya, 2009). For instance, many people hold the stereotypical believe that women are not able to obtain a top management position and are less motivated than men to pursue a career because they are the primary caretaker at home. It is difficult for women to change these relatively stable but distorted views, and as such, to progress in their career. Yet, it is also important to note that more recently, researchers have found evidence that women themselves also unintentionally perpetuate in this system. As a female executive vice-president of a fortune 500 company puts it (Mainiero, 1994): ‘The glass ceiling is of our own making, if there is one at all. We have to keep banging our heads on the glass ceiling and eventually it will shatter—
or our heads will.’ Moreover, several studies have now shown that those women who do
reach a top level position are generally unhelpful to other more junior women, presumably
because of her desire to remain unique in the organization and because of her fear for
competition (Ellemers, Van den Heuvel, De Gilder, Maass & Bonvini, 2004; Mainiero, 1994;
Staines, Travis & Jayaratne, 1974). This effect is called the ‘Queen Bee Effect’ (Ellemers et al., 2004; Staines et al., 1974). The aim of this current field study is to explore under what conditions the queen bee effect appears and how the impact of this effect can be reduced. This study therefore examines if female stereotyping can be a cause for queen bee behavior. In addition, this study will examine whether the culture in which women work will affect female stereotyping and queen bee behavior. Finally, I will examine the use of a mentor as a way to resolve this behavior.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS
Queen bee behavior
In the past, researchers usually explained the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions by the traditional argument that men are perpetrators of gender discrimination and that women are their victims (De Groot, 2008). However, Ellemers et al.
(2004) showed us that women themselves play a crucial role in maintaining their position at a relatively low level within organizations, as they tend to see each other as rivals (Mavin, 2008; Ellemers et al., 2004). These successful women cause the stereotyping of other women and in this way diminish their chances to become successful (Staines, Tavris & Jayaratne, 1974) A comparable scenario is the ‘Cinderella complex’, which means that all the ugly sisters fight amongst themselves to try to undermine their potentially successful sister (Mitchell, 2003). The Cinderella complex as well as the queen bee effect show that women can harm each other in order to become the best and to be the only one in the top of the organization.
Gender and queen bee behavior
Queen bee behavior is considered typical female by nature. As Mavin (2006) states:
“There is no male equivalent of the Queen Bee. 'Bad behavior' from men in senior roles is
often expected, accepted or ignored — reinforcing the assumed rightful place of men as
bosses, regardless of behaviors. Men who do not support each other in the career stakes are
not blamed by other men’. Indeed, in and outside work, men and women differ from each
other in many ways. In a work context, men generally tend to be more focused on gaining
status than women, while women strive more for interesting and meaningful work than men
do (Laff, 2008). As men have a more traditional view of the women’s role in society they do not see them as rivals, or compete with them for job openings. Those females who do reach a senior managerial position need to exhibit male assertiveness characteristics in order to meet the expectations in their role (Warning & Buchanan, 2009). As a result, senior women often find themselves competing against other females in order to maintain their scarce (top) position, and therefore behave negatively towards them, rather than supportive (Warning &
Buchanan, 2009). The first goal of this research is to replicate the queen bee effect in a field setting. Therefore, my first hypothesis will be:
Hypothesis 1: Female managers display higher levels of queen bee behavior towards their
junior female colleagues than male managers.
The mediating role of female stereotyping
Although the queen bee effect has been established by several studies now, it is still relatively unclear what key factor drives the effect. In this study, I will examine the role of female stereotyping. Stereotypes are relatively stable beliefs about others based on their category or group membership (Haslam & Turner, 1992). Stereotypical views are usually based on diffuse cues rather than factual experiences and therefore tend to lead to oversimplified conceptions of these others and reality (Williams, De la Cruz & Hintze, 1989).
A prominent characteristic needed for leadership is assertiveness (Frank, 1993) and the stereotype of women is that they are less competent leaders, but relatively warm and cooperative (Heilman, 2001). Even though these characteristics may seem sympathic and positive for women, they also cause people to believe that women are not suited for jobs in male dominant professions or leadership positions that require assertiveness (Lemkau, 1979).
Some women therefore developed assertiveness in order to meet the expectations of their
leadership role (Warning & Buchanan, 2009; Lemkau, 1979; Diekman & Eagly, 1999). A
negative side effect of this behavior is that those women in top management positions are
more likely to stereotype other women than men do (Ellemers et al., 2004). As these women
no longer see themselves as typical female, they disassociate themselves from feminity and
view themselves as exceptional, while at the same time, they strongly believe that all other
women still possess these typical female features (soft, cooperative etc). My second
hypothesis therefore is that this explains why female managers consequently display queen
bee behavior towards more junior women.
Hypothesis 2: The attribution of stereotypical female traits to junior female colleagues
mediates the relationship between the gender of managers and the extent to which these managers display queen bee behavior.
The moderating role of organization culture (masculine vs. feminine)
Previous paragraphs showed that more stereotyping leads to more queen bee behavior from senior female managers towards their fellow females. In the next section, I will argue that the culture of an organization can influence the degree of female stereotyping by female managers.
Organization culture and female stereotyping
Characteristics and consequences of a male-dominated organizational culture has been investigated for many years and the overall conclusion, drawn from this literature, is that a male-dominated culture consists of organizations whose norms and believes are more frequently adhered by men than by women (Van Vianen & Fischer, 2002). Male-dominated cultures consist of communication forms, approaches to the self, conflict styles, leadership images which are stereotypically masculine. Deduced from previous literature the feminine organization culture consists of organizations whose norms and believes are more adhered by women than by men. The difference between these cultures is described by Van Vianen &
Fischer (2002): ‘The masculine dimension can be summarized as the promotion of independence, autonomy, hierarchical relations, competition, task-orientation, and the establishment of status and authority; whereas femininity is described as the promotion of a relational self, maintaining balance in life activities, participation, and collaboration within the organization’
The masculinity of an organization can be determined by three factors consisting of
the proportion of men employed in the company, the type of tasks required and the
characteristics to perform the work; more than 80% of workers are men, high risk tasks and
characteristics like authority and dominance are signs of a masculine culture (Moore, 1999). I
argue that in a masculine culture women are more stereotyped since women in such
organizations face the problem that their feminity is exceptional and noticeable. As a result, it
is relatively easy for people to attribute their behavior to female stereotypes (Warning &
Buchanan, 2009). On the other hand, if they act in the way that is needed for the job others may call their behavior unfeminine (Moore, 1999).
Men in masculine organizations have predominantly male colleagues; they rarely even worked with women. Their picture of women is created by the fact what they hear and know about women; they are not willing to work full time or do not aspire heights and like to do many other interesting and exciting activities beside work (Simms, 2010). Men’s thoughts about these attitudes are different from the reality. They think that it reflects women’s intelligence, education, passion or commitment to their jobs, but it does not (Simms, 2010).
Their idea is stereotypically female, but women that succeed and compete in a masculine world are different from that stereotype. Aspiring women are usually the only ones in that masculine culture and exceptions are few pulling down men’s traditional stereotypical view of women. The same applies to women in a masculine culture; they also reflect their knowings of ‘normal women’ who do not survive in such a setting, since they are solely in that position and hold a stereotypical view. Prejudices as incompetent from both male colleagues and female managers lead to stereotyping in a masculine culture (Gilbert, 2003). Research from Larwood (1985) showed that female executives in a ‘men’s world’ feeling stereotyped and experience prejudices from co-workers of both sexes. Therefore I argue:
Hypothesis 3: Masculine organization culture moderates the relationship between the
gender of managers and the extent to which these managers attribute stereotypical female traits to female colleagues.
To clarify the relationships this study will present, an overview of the first part of my study is
presented in figure 1.
Figure 1
Overview of the researched variables of the first part
The moderating role of mentoring
As described above queen bee behavior has a negative impact on the behavior of women in business. To reduce this undesirable behavior mentoring will play an important role which will be pulled out below.
Mentoring and queen bee behavior
In Greek mythology Mentor was the servant of Ulysses to whom the king entrusted the care and training of his son. Nowadays a mentor indicates primary a sponsor who argues another’s case to senior management (Clawson, 1985). Mentors also act as teachers and advisors to their protégé (Apospori, Nikandrou & Panayotopoulou, 2006). Protégés for example get information about how to ‘behave’ in a variety of professional settings, get a perspective of long term career planning and they also learn how to build a circle of contacts both inside and outside their institution (Olson & Ashton-Jones, 1992). Organizations have therefore used mentoring as a training and developmental tool for managers and professionals (Apospori et al., 2006). Although mentoring is associated with positive career outcomes for both men and women, certain relationships are particularly important for women’s career success, who face more difficulties building up a network on their own (Ramaswami, Dreher, Bretz & Wiethoff, 2010). O’Reilly (2008) The need for women who display queen bee behavior to have a mentor is clearly indicated. A mentor generally is a guide and role model
Gender Female Stereotyping Queen bee behavior
Organizational Culture (Masculine vs. Feminine)
in how to behave. Mentors can be an example in reducing queen bee behavior to women in leadership positions. Senior female managers need a mentor to evaluate their fellow female colleagues more positively. I further argue that having a mentor can be especially beneficial for women when their mentor is also female. Research has shown that male mentors are again more focused on career advancements and strategic behavior (Ramaswami et al., 2010) while female mentors provide more psychosocial support like counselling, acceptance and building up friendship with other colleagues than male mentors (Ortiz-Walters, 2009). When offering women who tend to display queen bee behavior a female mentor, they can learn how to accept other women instead of seeing them as a threat and competitors. Therefore the following hypothesis is stated:
Hypothesis 4: Having a (female)mentor moderates the relationship between the
gender of managers and the extent to which these female managers evaluate their fellow female colleagues negatively
METHOD
Procedure and Respondents.
I approached approximately 1500 female and male managers who were a member of one of the following networks; alumni from the Nyenrode University, “Talent naar de Top”,
“Women Inc”, “LEAP”, “Opportunity in bedrijf” and LinkedIn (an online networking tool).
These managers worked in the public as well as the private sector, and in national and international organizations. They received an e-mail which briefly introduced my study, and presented a link to the online survey. This survey guaranteed anonymity, and took approximately 20 minutes to fill in. In return for their participants, respondents could receive a short management report summarizing the main findings of the study.
A total of 244 managers finally filled in the questionnaire, resulting in response rate of 16% which is reasonable including the fact that managers did participate and the questionnaire was sent by mail, whereby it is more difficult to get a high response rate.
Seventy percent of the respondents was male (N = 170 vs. N = 74 females). On average, the managers were M = 46, SD = 10.47 years of age (ranging from 22 to 69 years), and worked M
= 37.16, SD = 8.28 working hours per week, which is considered full time in the Netherlands.
Of all respondents, 79% indicated that they occupied a top level management position. The remaining 16% worked at the intermediate management level. In the top management category, 25% of the managers was female. There were more female managers in the intermediate category (50%). Finally, 79 % of the managers reported to have children.
Central Independent Variable
The gender of the respondents was our central independent measure, and obtained by one open question: ‘What is your gender?’ (1 = Male or 2 = Female)
Moderation Variables
Mentoring. We used one question adapted from Ryan and Haslam (2007) measuring whether participants received a mentor during their career; ”I use a mentor at work, or did in the past”. The gender of the mentor was also checked with 1 question; “In case you have (had) a mentor, what is the gender of this person”. Both questions could be answered with 1 = Yes or 2 = No.
Organizational culture. To measure whether the respondents worked in a relatively masculine vs. feminine organizational culture, we asked them to indicate the percentage of women in top management positions within their organization (1 = 0-20%, 2 = 21-40%, 3=
41-60%, 4 = 61-80%, 5= 81-100%). To divide these percentages in masculine and feminine culture, we redistributed these categories into Masculine (1 = 0- 20% women), Feminine (2 = 20-100% women; see Moore, 1999).
Dependent Measures
Female stereotyping. The extent to which respondents believed that their female colleagues possessed stereotypical female traits was measured with four stereotypical female characteristics; communicative, cooperative, socialible and sympathetic, α = .80 (Ryan &
Haslam, 2007). Ratings were obtained on 7-point Likert scales (1 = Not at All to 7 = Very Much).
Queen bee behavior. Queen bee behavior towards fellow female colleagues was
measured with 10 items (Ellemers, 2004), e.g.; ”To what extent do you agree with the
following statement? The typical female colleague does not like to get ahead at work”, and
“She does not try to perform better than her colleagues”, α = .91. All questions were again asked on a 7 point Likert scale (1 = Not at All to 7 = Very Much). For an overview of all questionnaire items, see Appendix 1 (page 22).
Control Variable
Finally, we used ‘Position’ as control variable, since it is indicated that women who have been individually successful in obtaining high positions endorse more female stereotypes and tend to oppose the upward mobility of women more so than women who are still in more junior positions (De Groot, 2008). This means that females in higher positions might display higher levels of queen bee behavior towards their junior female colleagues.
Position was measured on a scale from 1 = Very junior to 5 = Very senior.
Analysis
The mediation analysis was completed by using the four steps of Baron and Kenny (1986) to indicate whether or not this mediation is significant.
RESULTS
Control variables
We first checked whether position affected feminine stereotyping and queen bee
behavior. As expected, female managers have less senior positions, M = 3.86, SD = .76 than
male managers do, M = 4.04, SD = .94. Yet, a series of one-way ANOVAs showed that
position did not influence stereotyping and queen bee behavior, respectively F (4, 239) = .61,
p = ns and F (4, 239) = 1.11, p = ns. Importantly, I included position in all analyses reported
below. The results show that this variable did not yield significant effects and did not
influence any of my central hypotheses. Thus, position does not affect the relations of my
hypothesis.
Correlation analysis
Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations and correlations between position, gender, using a mentor, gender of the mentor, queen bee behavior, female stereotyping and culture (masculine vs. feminine).
Table 1
Means, standard deviations and correlations of the variables
Correlations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Position 3,98 ,89
2. Gender 1,30 ,46 -,09
3. Use of mentor 1,41 ,49 ,08 -,12
4. Gender of mentor 1,20 ,42 -,14 ,19* ,04 5. Queen bee behavior 3,96 ,99 ,05 ,14* -,14* ,05
6. Female stereotyping 5,14 ,78 ,03 -,05 -,11 -,01 ,15*
7. Culture 1,38 ,49 ,01 ,13* ,06 ,15 ,07 -,07
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) Hypothesis testing
Queen bee effect
A one way ANOVA with gender of the senior managers as independent variable, the queen bee behavior as dependent variable confirmed our first hypothesis, and showed that overall, senior female managers evaluated their junior female colleagues more negatively, M
= 4.18, SD = .99 than senior male managers did, M = 3.87, SD = .98. F (1, 240) = 7.05, p =
.01, n2 = .03.
The mediating role of female stereotyping
The four mediation steps of Baron & Kenny (1986) were used to test our hypothesis that female stereotyping would mediate the relationship between gender and queen bee behavior. In every analysis, seniority was integrated in the calculation as covariate or as first step in the regression. As shown in the correlation table, seniority was not significantly correlated with any of the other variables; we can also conclude that seniority does not yield any significant evidence for all analysis below. Step 1 consists of establishing whether gender at all affects queen bee behavior. This is indeed the case (see above). In step 2, one needs to show that gender also affects the predicted mediator; female stereotyping. However, the correlation table already showed that these two variables are not significantly correlated.
Indeed, the results of a second ANOVA of gender on this female stereotyping did not yield significant results, F(1,242) <1, p = ns. Importantly though, we did found evidence for step 3.
That is, female stereotyping was significantly correlated to queen bee behavior, and a simple regression analysis confirmed that female stereotyping was an important predictor, just like gender, β = .14, SE = .08, t = 2.25, p = .03. I finally performed step 4, and tested whether the effect of gender on queen bee behavior was significantly reduced when both gender and female stereotyping were entered in a regression analysis simultaneously. Yet, gender remained significant, illustrating that there is no mediation relationship present between gender, female stereotyping and queen bee behavior. By contrast, gender and female stereotyping independently affect my central dependent variable.
The moderating role of organizational culture
Hypothesis 3 predicted that the organizational culture would play an important role in
how senior female managers view their fellow female colleagues, whereas it would not for
men. I therefore first conducted a one way ANOVA with organizational culture (masculine
vs. feminine) and gender as the independent variables and stereotypical feminine traits of
fellow female colleagues as the dependent variable. It did not show significant results (F(1,
240) <1, p = ns), whereas performing a similar test using only women as independent
variable, the results yielded a significant effect, F (1, 70) = 5.15, p = .03, n2 = .07. In a
masculine organization (with only 0 – 20% female workers), senior female managers believe
more strongly that their junior female colleagues possess stereotypical feminine traits, M =
5.27, SD = .77 than senior female managers do in a feminine organization, M = 4.86, SD =
.73. To further test whether or not organizational culture has a direct effect on queen bee
behavior, I performed a second one way ANOVA. This test yielded no evidence for the direct effect F (1, 71) = 1.91, p = ns.
The moderating role of a mentoring system
I hypothesized in hypothesis 4 that having a (female) mentor would reduce the queen bee effect. However, contrary to what was expected, the correlation table shows no relationship between the gender of the mentor and queen bee behavior. The correlation between having a mentor and queen bee behavior was only marginal significant, and a one way ANOVA indeed did not show any significant effect in the relation of having a mentor and queen bee behavior; F (1, 71) <1, p = ns. Thus, contrary to what I had predicted, in this study, a mentoring system did not lead female workers to evaluate their fellow female colleagues more positively.
DISCUSSION
Findings
The goal of this study was to examine under what conditions the queen bee effect appears and how the impact of this effect can be reduced. Queen bee behavior is often displayed by senior women who find themselves often competing against other females in order to maintain their scarce (top) position, and therefore behave negatively towards them, rather than supportive (Warning & Buchanan, 2008). This study examined if female stereotyping could be a cause for queen bee behavior. In addition, I also investigated whether the culture in which women work would affect female stereotyping and queen bee behavior.
Finally, I examined the use of a mentor as a way to resolve this behavior.
The present study provides evidence that queen bee behavior is indeed displayed by
female senior managers to their fellow female colleagues. Based on previous findings, it was
expected that female stereotyping could explain queen bee behavior, but my results have not
generated evidence for this relation. However, queen bee behavior and female stereotyping
are related to each other since these variables showed a significant correlation. I will discuss it
in a deeper sense below. Based on previous empirical findings, I furthermore expected that
culture (masculine or feminine) would moderate the relation between gender and stereotyping
as well as queen bee behavior. The results of my study revealed a significant result concerning the moderating variable culture (masculine or feminine) in relation with female stereotyping, indicating that females are more stereotyped by both men and women in a masculine culture rather than in a feminine culture. There was, however, no direct moderated relationship between culture and queen bee behavior found. Finally, in contrast with my expectations, mentoring turned out not to be a solution to the queen bee problem among my respondents. The present study partly supports my hypotheses, indicating the existence of queen bee behavior. Moreover, I find that female stereotyping is in some way related to queen bee behavior but is not the sole cause of this behavior. Thereafter, stereotyping is affected by the culture in which women work.
Stereotyping and the women’s working culture could not totally explain queen bee behavior. This finding suggests that there are more important factors and conditions that possibly cause this effect. Indeed, previous work has shown that isolation or low identification with fellow females also plays a crucial role. Females in higher positions oftentimes feel isolated from other females (Viallon & Martinot, 2009), since they are the only who deviate from the collective work-life balance norm. While being the only woman in a male-dominated field may give a sense of pride, it can thus also create a lonely existence.
Especially when these women work in a male-dominated environment. They then also suffer from discrimination, domineering, and aggressive behavior (Özbilgin & Woodward, 2004).
Women who generally do not identify with their own gender (i.e. fellow females) are also more likely to display queen bee behavior. Derks (2007) explained that low identifiers do not want to be seen as members of the low status group (like women). Instead, they prefer to be approached as unique individuals. This need can be explained by the social identity theory (Tjafel, 1982), arguing that members of a disadvantaged group can strive for higher outcomes by improving their personal performance rather than the performance of the collective (e.g. pursuing personal career goals vs. collective action; Derks, Van Laar &
Ellemers, 2009). By improving their personal performance women increase the chance that they are no longer treated as a low status group member (Derks, 2007).
As mentioned before, in this study, mentoring could not resolve the queen bee effect. An explanation for this finding could be that most female managers are mentored by males.
Females in management positions suffer from a shortage of female mentors due to a shortage
of women occupying high organizational ranks (Ragins & Cotton, 1991), and the fact that
many senior women do not feel comfortable enough in their positions to be effective as mentors as they are still fighting for their own survival (Gallese, 1993). Perhaps, if more female mentors would be involved, mentoring might have significant effects in reducing queen bee behavior. Then, female managers can use their female mentors as a role model (Fitt
& Newton, 1981), whereas they cannot in the case of male mentors. Apart from looking at the effect of a female mentoring system, one could also examine whether female networks would impact positively on queen bee behavior. As senior women often are isolated, or isolate themselves from female colleagues, the development of internal or external female networks could be a solution to their problem (or change their behavior). Especially in male-dominated hierarchies, including women in mixed internal networks can lead to inclusion instead of isolation (Metz, 2009). Male and female networks are different; male networks are task- focused while female networks are focused on trust and close, personal relationships (Gallese, 1993). Thus, a female network is expected to offer trust to queen bees and they will probably share their problems easier with their colleagues and subsequently help junior women to overcome these problems also.
The results of this study show that a masculine culture is related to female stereotyping.
When women are in minority position (as is the case in a masculine organization culture) they perceive a higher level of discrimination compared to men (Viallon & Martinot, 2009). One obvious solution to alter stereotyping and queen bee behavior then is to increase the number of women in our work force. Since women more often work part-time than men (Tijdens, 2002), they need to be encouraged by their managers to work more hours and to aim for higher positions. This will help the development of a more feminine culture within organizations.
Practical implications
The results of my study imply that queen bee behavior exists in a wide range of organizations. My first suggestion for these organizations is to be vigilant for women in high positions who display queen bee behavior. By their negative behavior towards junior colleagues they will create a ‘glass ceiling’ themselves, which in turn may provide an unattractive image to junior females leading to less women in management positions. The organization needs to be alert and prevent this negative behavior through creating networks.
Another suggestion would be to develop a female leadership training. Such a training could
be an appropriate method with which female managers can realise how they can positively treat other females on their way up. It can also give support to the women who bear a lot of discrimination, domineering and aggressive behavior (Özbilgin & Woodward, 2004).
Moreover, to reduce stereotyping by both women and men, diversity trainings could give the desired outcome. Companies should facilitate diversity trainings for men and women to reduce prejudices against each other and to enhance discussion and understanding about their expectations, especially for those in high management positions. Attracting a diversity advisor may help to focus more on the differences between men and women and it keeps the discussion going. Then, more time is reserved to improve the situation that makes females feel more valued and less stereotyped in the organization.
Limitations and suggestions for further research
A limitation of this study is the small amount of women that participated in current research in comparison to the larger amount of men. This made it difficult to perform the analysis in the hypothesis concerning mentoring. There was only one question about mentoring formulated and included in the questionnaire. I would suggest for further research to increase the amount of questions about mentoring in the questionnaire i.e. about the kind of mentoring women received or why they received mentoring, as it may provide valuable additional information. Furthermore, the gender of the mentor may have an impact on female managers, something that was not found in my research due to the small amount of women that had a (female) mentor. Since mentors are usually males, also female managers have mostly male mentors, it would be valuable to find out more about the relationship between male mentors and female managers which display queen bee behavior. Queen bee behavior includes some male characteristics (i.e. assertiveness), that could be a reason for negative behavior towards female colleagues by queen bees.
Another suggestion for future research is to get information from both female
managers, the possible queen bees, and the junior female colleagues to understand if the
fellow female colleagues stereotype female managers or the other way around. Female
employees could expect a feminine attitude of the female manager. However, as women in
higher positions have to act according to the expectations derived from her leadership role she
probably cannot meet the expectations of her junior female colleagues (Warning & Buchanan,
2008; Lemkau, 1979; Diekman & Eagly, 2000). Fellow females may describe this as queen
bee behavior, but from the female managers’ point of view they are obliged to behave in that way due to their position. Perhaps this is a dissonance between expectations of both groups.
More research is needed to find out who is stereotyping who and in what way.
Conclusion
First of all, this study has shown that queen bee behavior does exist in higher
management positions. Present study also generated insights into the role of female
stereotyping. I have shown that in a masculine organizational culture female stereotyping
does exist more than in a feminine organization culture. Moreover, in order to solve the queen
bee problem mentoring was not the appropriate solution. Instead, organizations should likely
develop networks, women leadership trainings and diversity trainings to make sure that
women are less discriminated and stereotyped, and more importantly; receive less negative
behavior by other women. Ultimately, the amount of women in management positions is
expected to increase.
REFERENCES
Apospori, E., Nikandrou, I. & Panayotopoulou, L. (2006). Mentoring and women’s career advancement in Greece. Human Resource Development International. 9(4): 509- 527.
Baron, R.S. & Kenny, D.A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 51: 1173-1182.
Clawson, J.G. (1985). Is mentoring necessary? Training & Development Journal. 39(4): 36- 39.
Derks, B. (2007). Social identity threat and performance motivation: the interplay between ingroup and outgroup domains. www.openaccess.leidenuniv.nl. 117-135
Derks, B., Van Laar, C. & Ellemers, N. (2009). Working for the self or working for the group:
How self- versus group affirmation affects collective behavior in low-status groups.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 96 (1): 183-202.
Diekman, A.B. & Eagly, A.H. (1999). Stereotypes as dynamic constructs: women and men of the past, present and future. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 26: 1171.
Ellemers, N., van den Heuvel, H., de Gilder, D., Maass, A. & Bonvini, A. (2004). The underrepresentation of women in science: Differential commitment or the queen bee syndrome? British Journal of Social Psychology. 43: 315-338.
European Commission, Directorate-General for employment, social affairs and equal opportunities. (2010). More women in senior positions: key to economic stability and growth. Retrieved from http://www.eubusiness.com/topics/employment/women senior.10/.
Fitt, L.W. & Newton, D.A. (1981). When the mentor is a man and the protegee a woman.
Harvard Business Review. 59 (2): 56-60.
Frank, M.S. (1993). The essence of leadership. Public Personnel Management. 22(3): 381- 389.
Gallese, L.R. (1993). Do women make poor mentors? Across the Board. 30(6): 23.
Gilbert, J. (2003). Lonely at the top. Sales & Marketing Management. 155 (7).
Groot de, K. (2008). Queen bee or not queen bee, that is the question? Increasing insight into
factors that bring about the Queen Bee syndrome. Unpublished master thesis. Leiden
University, Leiden.
Haslam, S.A. & Turner, J.C. (1992). Context-dependent variation in social stereotyping 2:
The relationship between frame of reference, self-categorization and accentuation.
European Journal of Social Psychology. 22: 251-277.
Heilman, M.E. (2001). Description and prescription: how gender stereotypes prevent women’s ascent up the organizational ladder. Journal of Social Issues. 57(4): 657- 674.
Knight, M.A. (1992). The queen bee syndrome-has it really disappeared? Journal of Nursing Administration. 22(2): 8.
Laff, M. (2008). Gender Imbalance. T+D Intelligence. 62 (7): 18.
Larwood, L. (1985). Tracking stress in women managers. PsycCritiques. 30(2): 118-119.
Lemkau, J.P. (1979). Personality and background characteristics of women in male- dominated occupations: A review. Psychology of Women Quarterly. 4 (2): 221-240.
Lückerath-Rovers, M. (2007). De Nederlands ‘Female Board Index’ 2007. Erasmus instituut toezicht & compliance. Erasmus University, the Netherlands.
Mainiero, L.A. (1994). On breaking the glass ceiling: the political seasoning of powerful women executives. Organizational Dynamics. 22(4): 4-20.
Mavin, S. (2006). Venus envy: sisters are ruining it for themselves. Personnel Today. 13.
Mavin, S. (2008). Queen bees, wannabees and afraid to bees: no more ‘best enemies’ for women in management? British Journal of Management. 19(1): 75-84.
Metz, E. (2009). Organisational factors, social factors, and women’s advancement. Applied psychology: an international review. 58(2): 193-213.
Mitchell, L. (2003). Feminist leadership in the private sector-Somewhere out there?
Unpublished manuscript, Department of labour studies, University of Waikato.
Moore, D. (1999). Gender traits and identities in a ‘masculine’organization: the Israeli police force. The Journal of Social Psychology. 139 (1): 49-68.
Olson, G.A. & Ashton-Johns, E. (1992). Doing gender: (En)Gendering academic mentoring.
Journal of Education. 174(3): 114.
O’Reilly, N. (2008). Women helping women: How mentoring can help your business.
Business Credit. 110(3): 56-57.
Ortiz-Walters, R. (2009). Mentorship collaborations: A longitudinal examination of the association with job performance and gender. Journal of Business & Economic Studies. 15(1): 26-47.
Özbilgin, M.F. & Woodward, D. (2004). ‘Belonging’and ‘Otherness’: sex equality in banking
in Turkey and Britain. Gender, Work and Organization. 11(6): 668-688
Ramaswami, A., Dreher, G., Bretz, R. & Wiethoff, C. (2010). Gender, mentoring, and career success: the importance of organizational context. Personnel Psychology. 63(2): 385- 405.
Ragins, B.R. & Cotton, J.L. (1991). Easier said than done: gender differences in perceived barriers to gaining a mentor. Academy of management Journal. 34(4): 939-951.
Ryan, M.K. & Haslam, S.A. (2007). The glass cliff: exploring the dynamics surrounding the appointment of women to precarious leadership positions. Academy of Management Review. 32(2): 549-572.
Simms, J. (2010). Glass ceiling? Give us all a break. Director. 63(5): 23.
Staines, G., Tavris, C. & Jayaratne, T.E. (1974). The queen bee syndrome. Psychology Today.
7: 55-60.
Stockdale, M.S.& Bhattacharya, G. (2009). Sexual harassment and the glass ceiling. In M.
Barretto, M.K. Ryan & M.T. Schmitt (Eds.), The glass ceiling in the 21
stcentury:
Understanding barriers to gender equality. (p171-199) Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Tajfel, H. (1982). Social psychology of intergroup relations. Annual review of psychology.
33: 39.
Tijdens, K.G. (2002). Gender roles and labor use strategies: women’s part-time work in the European Union. Feminist Economics. 8(1): 71-99.
Viallon, M. & Martinot, D. (2009). The effects of solo status on women’s and men’s success:
The moderating role of the performance context. European Journal of Psychology of Education – EJPE (Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada). 24(2): 191-205.
Vianen van, A.E.M. & Fischer, A.H. (2002). Illuminating the glass ceiling: the role of organizational culture preferences. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 75: 315-337.
Warning, R. & Buchanan, F.R. (2009). An exploration of unspoken bias: women who work for women. Gender in Management: An International Journal. 24(2): 131-145.
Williams, R.N., De la Cruz, X. & Hintze, W.J. (1989). The stereotypical nature of stereotyping. Journal of Social Psychology. 129 (3): 397.
Wrigley, B.J. (2002). Glass ceiling? What glass ceiling? A qualitive study of how women
view the glass ceiling in public relations and communications management. Journal
of Public Relations Research. 14 (1): 27-55.
APPENDIX 1
QUESTIONNAIRE
Welcome to this questionnaire about motivation, leadership qualities and the attitude of your colleagues from your perspective.
Please note:
- This questionnaire focuses on your own opinion about your work and thus has an individual approach. Please fill out this question personal experiences, and not the experience of others.
- All information you provide will be made anonymous and handled with confidentiality.
- It is crucial for the successful completion of this research that you answer all questions.
Even if you are in doubt about your answer. To fill out this questionnaire will take about 15 minutes of your time.
- Please read the instructions to the various parts of this questionnaire carefully. Please note: the answer categories may differ.
- There are no correct or incorrect answers. Please indicate what you think is the best fitting answer.
If you have any questions while filling out the questionnaire, please contact me via:
gondadegroot@gmail.com. I am willing to answer all your questions. The results of this
