| Women's Ways: The Impact of Organizational Status in the Organization on Women's Management Styles |
| | Foster-Johnson, Lynn | Amos Tuck School of Business/Dartmouth College | foster-johnson@dartmouth.edu | (603) 646-1945 |
| | Davidson, Martin N. | U. of Virginia | mdav@virginia.edu | (804)-924-4483 |
| | We examined the degree to which differences in women's conflict styles
can be attributed to organizational structure rather than gender.
Differential use of competing strategies was clearly linked to
organizational status, while status differences in the use of
accommodation, collaboration, avoidance, and compromise
were less strong. Managers and women with more education
preferred to compete in conflict encounters, using avoidance
and collaboration much less as a strategy to resolve conflicts.
Older women, non-managers, and women with only a high school
education used accommodating and compromising strategies to resolve
conflicts, rather than competition. These differences in conflict
management styles that can be attributed to organizational structure
contradict a gender-centered model of conflict management. |
| | Keywords: Women ; conflict management styles; organizaitonal status |
| An Exploratory Study of Leadership Style Among Women and Men in the Political Arena |
| | Tucker, Mary L. | Ohio U. | tuckerm1@ohiou.edu | (740)-593-2044 |
| | McCarthy, Anne M. | Colorado State U. | mccarthy@lamar.colostate.edu | (970)-491-6876 |
| | Jones, Colleen | U. of Nebraska | cjones@cbamail.unl.edu | (402)-472-3001 |
| | Shiarella, Ann Harris | Colorado State U. | anns@lamar.colostate.edu | (970)-491-6002 |
| | Today's volatile political arena calls for strong leadership. As technology increases information sharing, Americans are becoming more vocal in government affairs as a whole and with their legislators, in particular. Legislators are now expected to be transformational leaders who envision the future needs of constituents and are capable of negotiating, mediating, and championing these causes in an effective and credible manner. The old way of directing others is being replaced by empowering others. This paper reviews the literature on transformational leadership and how it relates to gender differences, leading to an exploratory study of the leadership styles among women and men in state legislatures as well as the relationship between leadership style and perceptions of extra effort, effectiveness, and satisfaction.
According to a canonical correlation analysis, two dimensions explain the data. The first variate indicates that leaders who describe their style as transformational perceive high extra effort on the part of their followers. This finding is compatible with previous leadership research. The second variate shows that men had more positive perceptions of effectiveness and satisfaction with their leadership style than women had. This fits with research that women in male-dominated careers show less self-confidence and attribute their success to external rather than internal factors. Implications for future research include verifying the contradictory findings in this study that female transformational leaders are not satisfied with their leadership style and do they see themselves as effective. |
| | Keywords: transformational leadership; gender differences; canonical correlation |
| Examining Gender Differences in Intuitive Decision Making in the Workplace: An Exploratory Investigation |
| | Burke, Lisa A. | Louisiana State U. in Shreveport | burkela@juno.com | 318-797-5017 |
| | Miller, Monica | U. of Dayton | monica.miller@juno.com | (614) 836-3478 |
| | Intuitive decision making is increasingly being viewed as a viable managerial decision tool in today’s complex and competitive landscape. However, a general lack of consensus in the management literature exists as to what intuition is, along with various unfounded generalizations about who uses it (i.e., women or men). Therefore, in this paper, we present results from a recent exploratory investigation that attempted to elucidate the topic of intuition, using interviews of 51 experienced professionals. Specifically, in our effort to guide future research, we report: 1) how this sample of seasoned practitioners defined intuition, and 2) our results regarding gender differences in the use of intuitive decision making at work. In terms of the latter, we selectively highlight participant comments regarding: women’s use of intuition in work versus non-work settings, reasons women may negate intuition in workplace decision making, and insights as to why men may invoke their intuition at work. Finally, based upon the results of the present study, implications for both research and practice are discussed. |
| | Keywords: intuitive decision making; gender differences; women's intuition |