Pub Date : 2023-06-05DOI: 10.1177/00187267231174700
Rieneke Slager, Jean‐Pascal Gond, E. Sjöström
We examine how the authority of investors to speak about climate change with corporations is established. Leveraging the ‘communication as constitutive of organisations’ (CCO) perspective, we analyse who speaks on behalf of whom (or what) in shareholder engagement on corporate carbon emissions. Based on access to private dialogues between an engager acting on behalf of a pool of investors with 20 utility corporations, we identify how three authoritative personae—that of diplomat, advocate, and coach—convey climate change concerns. We find that the mirroring of these authoritative personae by corporations may lead to deliberation, evasion, or rejection of the suggested courses of action. We theorise how relational authority is communicatively constituted in shareholder engagement through a process of mirroring and switching between authoritative personae. Our framework contributes to the study of CCO and relational authority by highlighting how meta-figures are used by external actors in an attempt to author appropriate corporate actions. We discuss the implications of our framework for the role of shareholder engagement in current attempts at greening financial capitalism.
{"title":"Mirroring and switching authoritative personae: A ventriloquial analysis of shareholder engagement on carbon emissions","authors":"Rieneke Slager, Jean‐Pascal Gond, E. Sjöström","doi":"10.1177/00187267231174700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231174700","url":null,"abstract":"We examine how the authority of investors to speak about climate change with corporations is established. Leveraging the ‘communication as constitutive of organisations’ (CCO) perspective, we analyse who speaks on behalf of whom (or what) in shareholder engagement on corporate carbon emissions. Based on access to private dialogues between an engager acting on behalf of a pool of investors with 20 utility corporations, we identify how three authoritative personae—that of diplomat, advocate, and coach—convey climate change concerns. We find that the mirroring of these authoritative personae by corporations may lead to deliberation, evasion, or rejection of the suggested courses of action. We theorise how relational authority is communicatively constituted in shareholder engagement through a process of mirroring and switching between authoritative personae. Our framework contributes to the study of CCO and relational authority by highlighting how meta-figures are used by external actors in an attempt to author appropriate corporate actions. We discuss the implications of our framework for the role of shareholder engagement in current attempts at greening financial capitalism.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47282870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/00187267221083274
Sanela Smolović Jones
How does corruption adopt gendered guises and how do women combat it in practice? Theorizing from the basis of a 30-month ethnography within a women’s non-governmental organization (NGO), the article proposes gaslighting as a way of interpreting gendered corruption, owing to its elusive but pernicious nature. Gaslighting is posited as the deployment of tactics to make women doubt their sanity and as a means of securing personal advantage. Gaslighting triggers embodied forms of struggle, and the article offers the notion of dispelling as denoting the persistent, patient and reiterative counter-practice of NGO practitioners to assert democratic norms of liberty and equality. The article provides rich empirical insight both into how corruption is enacted through the citing of patriarchal norms and how such norms are contested through the bodies of practitioners. These insights are important at a time when governments globally claim gender equality while undermining it in practice.
{"title":"Gaslighting and dispelling: Experiences of non-governmental organization workers in navigating gendered corruption","authors":"Sanela Smolović Jones","doi":"10.1177/00187267221083274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267221083274","url":null,"abstract":"How does corruption adopt gendered guises and how do women combat it in practice? Theorizing from the basis of a 30-month ethnography within a women’s non-governmental organization (NGO), the article proposes gaslighting as a way of interpreting gendered corruption, owing to its elusive but pernicious nature. Gaslighting is posited as the deployment of tactics to make women doubt their sanity and as a means of securing personal advantage. Gaslighting triggers embodied forms of struggle, and the article offers the notion of dispelling as denoting the persistent, patient and reiterative counter-practice of NGO practitioners to assert democratic norms of liberty and equality. The article provides rich empirical insight both into how corruption is enacted through the citing of patriarchal norms and how such norms are contested through the bodies of practitioners. These insights are important at a time when governments globally claim gender equality while undermining it in practice.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139371826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-30DOI: 10.1177/00187267231170170
Linh-Chi Vo, Mary C Lavissière, Alexandre Lavissière, Jose M Alcaraz
How do key cultural aspects of individualism/collectivism and gender egalitarianism shape the decision making of female managers from developing regions when handling major work–family conflicts (WFC)? We address this question by drawing on a qualitative study of 50 female managers from developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa who work in one particular male-dominated industry. We examine the major WFC incidents experienced by our study participants through the theoretical lens of work–life shock events outlined by Crawford et al. We contribute to the episodic approach to WFC research by shedding light on important aspects of the sociocultural role of extended families and the collectivistic values prevalent in developing regions, as well as on pervasive (low) gender egalitarian norms. The accounts of our female managers reveal how major events are perceived and how women use multifaceted methods to handle them, allowing us to propose a decision-making framework and associated cues with three broad types of decision making: (1) self-directed—choosing work; (2) consultative—choosing work; and (3) consultative—choosing family. Alongside this, we offer revealing insights into how the abovementioned cultural aspects help to shape the logic of consequences (through which people assess the impact of alternative actions) and the logic of appropriateness (through which people act according to their identity), thereby influencing WFC decision making during major episodes of conflict.
{"title":"“Commit professional suicide or take up my pilgrim’s staff again?”: A cultural examination of how female managers resolve shock events in developing regions","authors":"Linh-Chi Vo, Mary C Lavissière, Alexandre Lavissière, Jose M Alcaraz","doi":"10.1177/00187267231170170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231170170","url":null,"abstract":"How do key cultural aspects of individualism/collectivism and gender egalitarianism shape the decision making of female managers from developing regions when handling major work–family conflicts (WFC)? We address this question by drawing on a qualitative study of 50 female managers from developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa who work in one particular male-dominated industry. We examine the major WFC incidents experienced by our study participants through the theoretical lens of work–life shock events outlined by Crawford et al. We contribute to the episodic approach to WFC research by shedding light on important aspects of the sociocultural role of extended families and the collectivistic values prevalent in developing regions, as well as on pervasive (low) gender egalitarian norms. The accounts of our female managers reveal how major events are perceived and how women use multifaceted methods to handle them, allowing us to propose a decision-making framework and associated cues with three broad types of decision making: (1) self-directed—choosing work; (2) consultative—choosing work; and (3) consultative—choosing family. Alongside this, we offer revealing insights into how the abovementioned cultural aspects help to shape the logic of consequences (through which people assess the impact of alternative actions) and the logic of appropriateness (through which people act according to their identity), thereby influencing WFC decision making during major episodes of conflict.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135643191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-09DOI: 10.1177/00187267231170175
Bao Cheng, Gongxing Guo, Jian Tian, Yurou Kong
Ingratiation is an impression management tactic used by those who seek to obtain the favor of others. Previous studies mainly examine the role of ingratiation from the initiator’s perspective, ignoring observers’ reactions when they are confronted with their peers’ ingratiating behaviors. Drawing on social comparison theory, this study employs a third-party framework to explain the pathways between observed ingratiation and ostracism and analyzes data from a time-lagged survey and two scenario-based experiments in the Chinese context. Observed ingratiation triggers third-party employees’ ostracism of flatterers by arousing a sense of future status threats. Moreover, when observers’ goals are competitive with those of ingratiators, the adverse effects of observed ingratiation are exacerbated, whereas their leader–member exchange social comparison (LMXSC) buffers its unfavorable effects. These findings advance ingratiation studies by extending the research perspective from that of initiator–target dyads to third-party employees and unveiling a vital mediator (future status threats) and two essential opposite moderators (competitive goals and LMXSC) in the internal mechanism underlying the observed ingratiation–ostracism link. Further, although ingratiation may induce benefits for ingratiators, managers must recognize that it can be destructive for third-party employees.
{"title":"‘I disdain the company of flatterers!’: How and when observed ingratiation predicts employees’ ostracism toward their ingratiating colleagues","authors":"Bao Cheng, Gongxing Guo, Jian Tian, Yurou Kong","doi":"10.1177/00187267231170175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231170175","url":null,"abstract":"Ingratiation is an impression management tactic used by those who seek to obtain the favor of others. Previous studies mainly examine the role of ingratiation from the initiator’s perspective, ignoring observers’ reactions when they are confronted with their peers’ ingratiating behaviors. Drawing on social comparison theory, this study employs a third-party framework to explain the pathways between observed ingratiation and ostracism and analyzes data from a time-lagged survey and two scenario-based experiments in the Chinese context. Observed ingratiation triggers third-party employees’ ostracism of flatterers by arousing a sense of future status threats. Moreover, when observers’ goals are competitive with those of ingratiators, the adverse effects of observed ingratiation are exacerbated, whereas their leader–member exchange social comparison (LMXSC) buffers its unfavorable effects. These findings advance ingratiation studies by extending the research perspective from that of initiator–target dyads to third-party employees and unveiling a vital mediator (future status threats) and two essential opposite moderators (competitive goals and LMXSC) in the internal mechanism underlying the observed ingratiation–ostracism link. Further, although ingratiation may induce benefits for ingratiators, managers must recognize that it can be destructive for third-party employees.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47077208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-27DOI: 10.1177/00187267231169143
M. Jarrett, R. Vince
This article examines the role of strategic leadership groups in radical organisational change. Previous research has focused on how ‘heroic’ individual leaders guide change. In contrast, we argue that strategic leadership groups are indispensable to understanding and supporting radical organisational change. Building on a longitudinal study in a global European company, our research identifies four phases of ‘negotiated order’ that shape group and organisational responses to change. Our findings reveal that strategic leadership groups help manage emotions and understand the shifting authority relations that inevitably arise during periods of change. Drawing upon the psychoanalytic concept of ‘projective identification’, we develop a theoretical framework for understanding the tensions of change. The model shows how emotional coalitions that develop in strategic leadership groups afford a source of political and psychological containment against the anxieties of radical organisational change. These formations offer transitional spaces for change, providing opportunities for progress. The advantage of this new perspective on radical change is that it helps to move the organisation beyond periods of ambivalence and conflict, with positive implications for leadership practice.
{"title":"Mitigating anxiety: The role of strategic leadership groups during radical organisational change","authors":"M. Jarrett, R. Vince","doi":"10.1177/00187267231169143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231169143","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the role of strategic leadership groups in radical organisational change. Previous research has focused on how ‘heroic’ individual leaders guide change. In contrast, we argue that strategic leadership groups are indispensable to understanding and supporting radical organisational change. Building on a longitudinal study in a global European company, our research identifies four phases of ‘negotiated order’ that shape group and organisational responses to change. Our findings reveal that strategic leadership groups help manage emotions and understand the shifting authority relations that inevitably arise during periods of change. Drawing upon the psychoanalytic concept of ‘projective identification’, we develop a theoretical framework for understanding the tensions of change. The model shows how emotional coalitions that develop in strategic leadership groups afford a source of political and psychological containment against the anxieties of radical organisational change. These formations offer transitional spaces for change, providing opportunities for progress. The advantage of this new perspective on radical change is that it helps to move the organisation beyond periods of ambivalence and conflict, with positive implications for leadership practice.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48166783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-25DOI: 10.1177/00187267231163040
Muhammad Imran Rasheed, Zahid Hameed, Puneet Kaur, A. Dhir
This research explores the association of ethical leadership with employee service innovation behavior through a moderated mediation model. Theorizing on uncertainty reduction theory, we explore psychological ownership and creative self-efficacy as the underlying psychological mechanisms in the association between ethical leadership and employee service innovation behavior while considering the moderating role of sleep quality. We tested our theoretical model in two studies involving hospitality sector employees in the United States. Study 1 employed a three-wave (two-week period) time-lagged design (N = 237), and Study 2 used a two-wave (four-week period) survey design (N = 313). The findings suggest that workers’ psychological ownership and creative self-efficacy mediate the association between ethical leadership and employee service innovation behavior. In addition, sleep quality functions as an important boundary condition of the association between creative self-efficacy and service innovation behavior. Our research has important implications for understanding the impact of ethical leadership on important employee outcomes while considering the boundary condition role of employee sleep quality. The limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.
{"title":"Too sleepy to be innovative? Ethical leadership and employee service innovation behavior: A dual-path model moderated by sleep quality","authors":"Muhammad Imran Rasheed, Zahid Hameed, Puneet Kaur, A. Dhir","doi":"10.1177/00187267231163040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231163040","url":null,"abstract":"This research explores the association of ethical leadership with employee service innovation behavior through a moderated mediation model. Theorizing on uncertainty reduction theory, we explore psychological ownership and creative self-efficacy as the underlying psychological mechanisms in the association between ethical leadership and employee service innovation behavior while considering the moderating role of sleep quality. We tested our theoretical model in two studies involving hospitality sector employees in the United States. Study 1 employed a three-wave (two-week period) time-lagged design (N = 237), and Study 2 used a two-wave (four-week period) survey design (N = 313). The findings suggest that workers’ psychological ownership and creative self-efficacy mediate the association between ethical leadership and employee service innovation behavior. In addition, sleep quality functions as an important boundary condition of the association between creative self-efficacy and service innovation behavior. Our research has important implications for understanding the impact of ethical leadership on important employee outcomes while considering the boundary condition role of employee sleep quality. The limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45183738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-10DOI: 10.1177/00187267231164867
While there may be no difference in terms of the love, care, and bond shared between parent and child, relationships created through adoption are often viewed less favorably in our society compared with those that possess a biological tie. Integrating minority stress and family systems theories, we seek to better understand working adoptive parents’ experiences and how the perceived stigma of being an adoptive parent negatively impacts a variety of work and family outcomes. Using a sample of 501 couples that adopted a child, we find that work–family conflict mediates the relationship between perceived adoption stigma and primary effects (i.e. job satisfaction and depression) as well as spillover effects (i.e. family satisfaction and parent–child bonding) for the job incumbent. Further, we find that the employee’s perceived adoption stigma also has crossover effects to their spouse, negatively impacting the spouse’s depression, family satisfaction, and parent–child bonding. Implications for theory and practice, limitations, and future research are discussed.
{"title":"Welcome to parenthood!? An examination of the far-reaching effects of perceived adoption stigma in the workplace","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/00187267231164867","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231164867","url":null,"abstract":"While there may be no difference in terms of the love, care, and bond shared between parent and child, relationships created through adoption are often viewed less favorably in our society compared with those that possess a biological tie. Integrating minority stress and family systems theories, we seek to better understand working adoptive parents’ experiences and how the perceived stigma of being an adoptive parent negatively impacts a variety of work and family outcomes. Using a sample of 501 couples that adopted a child, we find that work–family conflict mediates the relationship between perceived adoption stigma and primary effects (i.e. job satisfaction and depression) as well as spillover effects (i.e. family satisfaction and parent–child bonding) for the job incumbent. Further, we find that the employee’s perceived adoption stigma also has crossover effects to their spouse, negatively impacting the spouse’s depression, family satisfaction, and parent–child bonding. Implications for theory and practice, limitations, and future research are discussed.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44940555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-10DOI: 10.1177/00187267231161195
Małgorzata Smulowitz, Stephen J Smulowitz
How does female board membership affect firm stakeholder strategy? With the large increase in pressure to add more women to boards, it is especially important to understand how they influence firm strategy. Moreover, despite the growing importance of firm stakeholder strategy, key stakeholders continue to criticize firms for failing to keep their commitments. Here, we expect that owing to their long-term nature, consistency is particularly important for stakeholder investments, and that owing to their greater interest in stakeholder issues and their effect on board monitoring, female board members can be a key driver of stakeholder strategy consistency. Specifically, we develop and test hypotheses that increasing architectural complexity and uncertainty make stakeholder investments more difficult or costly, leading to a reduction in such investments. However, female board membership increases firm stakeholder consistency and counteracts these negative effects. Using a sample of 1755 S&P 1500 firms for the period 2000–2013, we provide robust support for our hypotheses.
{"title":"Female board membership and stakeholder strategy: Consistency under complexity and uncertainty","authors":"Małgorzata Smulowitz, Stephen J Smulowitz","doi":"10.1177/00187267231161195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231161195","url":null,"abstract":"How does female board membership affect firm stakeholder strategy? With the large increase in pressure to add more women to boards, it is especially important to understand how they influence firm strategy. Moreover, despite the growing importance of firm stakeholder strategy, key stakeholders continue to criticize firms for failing to keep their commitments. Here, we expect that owing to their long-term nature, consistency is particularly important for stakeholder investments, and that owing to their greater interest in stakeholder issues and their effect on board monitoring, female board members can be a key driver of stakeholder strategy consistency. Specifically, we develop and test hypotheses that increasing architectural complexity and uncertainty make stakeholder investments more difficult or costly, leading to a reduction in such investments. However, female board membership increases firm stakeholder consistency and counteracts these negative effects. Using a sample of 1755 S&P 1500 firms for the period 2000–2013, we provide robust support for our hypotheses.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48502656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-03DOI: 10.1177/00187267231165885
Qianlin Zhu, E. Martinescu, B. Beersma, Feng juan Wei
How does being the target of negative supervisor gossip influence the functioning of targeted employees? We draw on feedback intervention theory to examine the beneficial and detrimental effects of negative supervisor gossip on targets’ feedback seeking behavior (FSB). Results from an online scenario study ( N = 731) and a multi-wave field study ( N = 249) showed that being the target of negative supervisor gossip led to high task reflexivity, which promoted FSB, but also led to high negative affect, which inhibited FSB. Furthermore, targets’ implicit theory of ability moderated the indirect relationships between negative supervisor gossip and FSB. Specifically, negative supervisor gossip stimulated task reflexivity and FSB especially when targets had a strong incremental theory. In contrast, negative supervisor gossip increased negative affect and stifled FSB especially when targets had a strong entity theory. Our findings indicate that negative supervisor gossip is a double-edged sword for targets’ engagement in FSB, thus providing a balanced view of its effects. We provide guidance for supervisors to better deliver and for employees to better receive different forms of feedback.
{"title":"The double-edged sword of negative supervisor gossip: When and why negative supervisor gossip promotes versus inhibits feedback seeking behavior among gossip targets","authors":"Qianlin Zhu, E. Martinescu, B. Beersma, Feng juan Wei","doi":"10.1177/00187267231165885","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231165885","url":null,"abstract":"How does being the target of negative supervisor gossip influence the functioning of targeted employees? We draw on feedback intervention theory to examine the beneficial and detrimental effects of negative supervisor gossip on targets’ feedback seeking behavior (FSB). Results from an online scenario study ( N = 731) and a multi-wave field study ( N = 249) showed that being the target of negative supervisor gossip led to high task reflexivity, which promoted FSB, but also led to high negative affect, which inhibited FSB. Furthermore, targets’ implicit theory of ability moderated the indirect relationships between negative supervisor gossip and FSB. Specifically, negative supervisor gossip stimulated task reflexivity and FSB especially when targets had a strong incremental theory. In contrast, negative supervisor gossip increased negative affect and stifled FSB especially when targets had a strong entity theory. Our findings indicate that negative supervisor gossip is a double-edged sword for targets’ engagement in FSB, thus providing a balanced view of its effects. We provide guidance for supervisors to better deliver and for employees to better receive different forms of feedback.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43106654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-02DOI: 10.1177/00187267231161426
R. Kark, Ruth Blatt, Varda Wiesel
Why do women receive equal or better performance ratings than men in managerial assessment centers even when they are structured in ways that systematically disadvantage them? This study provides the first attempt to understand this managerial assessment center gender paradox using in-depth interviews with managerial assessment center evaluators for a large semi-military governmental organization. The study revealed that the managerial assessment center was a gendered environment in which organizational practices, language used, and the underlying logic establish and reinforce men as assertive or protectors and women as weak and in need of protection. In accordance with the managerial assessment center gender paradox, women were successful at the managerial assessment center despite systemic bias against them. Interpretive analysis revealed that women candidates generate discomfort that evaluators alleviate by increased attention to the extent to which they conform to gender ideology. We coin the term ‘benevolence effect’ to describe evaluators’ tendency to over-valuate and advance women candidates who conform to traditional stereotypes of white femininity. The benevolence effect paradoxically contributes to the preservation and perpetuation of the sexual binary and the idealization of the abstract manager as male-bodied in the organization, even as it contributes to the promotion of women.
{"title":"A woman’s got to be what a woman’s got to be? How managerial assessment centers perpetuate gender inequality","authors":"R. Kark, Ruth Blatt, Varda Wiesel","doi":"10.1177/00187267231161426","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267231161426","url":null,"abstract":"Why do women receive equal or better performance ratings than men in managerial assessment centers even when they are structured in ways that systematically disadvantage them? This study provides the first attempt to understand this managerial assessment center gender paradox using in-depth interviews with managerial assessment center evaluators for a large semi-military governmental organization. The study revealed that the managerial assessment center was a gendered environment in which organizational practices, language used, and the underlying logic establish and reinforce men as assertive or protectors and women as weak and in need of protection. In accordance with the managerial assessment center gender paradox, women were successful at the managerial assessment center despite systemic bias against them. Interpretive analysis revealed that women candidates generate discomfort that evaluators alleviate by increased attention to the extent to which they conform to gender ideology. We coin the term ‘benevolence effect’ to describe evaluators’ tendency to over-valuate and advance women candidates who conform to traditional stereotypes of white femininity. The benevolence effect paradoxically contributes to the preservation and perpetuation of the sexual binary and the idealization of the abstract manager as male-bodied in the organization, even as it contributes to the promotion of women.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47622934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}