Unequal egalitarianism: Does organizational structure create different perceptions of male versus female leadership abilities?

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate how organizational structure (i.e. centralized hierarchical vs decentralized egalitarian decision-making) can color leadership evaluations of equivalently positioned men and women independent of their actual leadership style. This study addresses three questions: Are men’s leadership abilities, in terms of competence, dominance and interpersonal skills, evaluated more positively than women when they lead a hierarchical company? Are men and women’s leadership abilities evaluated similarly when they lead an egalitarian company? Do organizational outcomes change these effects?

Design/methodology/approach

The research performs an eight-condition online vignette experiment on American community college students.

Findings

The findings suggest that organizational structure and outcomes influence how male versus female leaders are perceived. When leading a hierarchical company, male leaders not only gain more in perceived leadership ability when their company succeeds but are also less likely to lose legitimacy when their company fails. When leading successful egalitarian organizations, men and women’s leadership skills are thought to gain similar legitimacy, but when an egalitarian organization fails, perceptions of female leaders’ competence, status dominance and interpersonal skills drop more than those of men.

Research limitations/implications

This study’s generalizablity is limited given the sample of participants and the context of the industry utilized in the vignette.

Practical implications

This study suggests that women’s promotion into leadership can be impeded by the decision-making structure of the organizations they lead independent of their individual choice in management style. Women leaders face not only disadvantaged evaluations of their leadership abilities in hierarchical organizations but are also not unilaterally advantaged in egalitarian organizations.

Originality/value

This paper highlights the need to theoretically examine how organizational structures fundamentally embed gender stereotypes.

Citation

Chin, L.G. (2016), "Unequal egalitarianism: Does organizational structure create different perceptions of male versus female leadership abilities?", Gender in Management, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 19-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-10-2014-0093