Examining Early Perceptions of Leaders and Entitativity in a Shared Leading Situation with a Focus on Gender

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Caudill, L. (2022). Examining Early Perceptions of Leaders and Entitativity in a Shared Leading Situation with a Focus on Gender. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

As organizations become increasingly team-based and less hierarchical, the leader (and follower) role could stretch within groups and be shared by all group members. When faced with gender-diverse groups, members or observers of the group may have difficulty perceiving women as leaders (and men as followers), especially when members that are men are engaged in leader-like behaviors. The current study examines the relationships among gender status beliefs, gender implicit biases, and leader and follower perceptions. I integrate entitativity into these relationships to investigate the possibility of a moderating effect. I attempt to provide an explanation for why members in gender-diverse groups may initially perceive women as leaders and men as followers. To test my hypotheses, I used a survey design with a manipulated moderator in which data were collected from 175 participants over two time points. Generally, results do not support the theoretical arguments included, however, entitativity was found to be a significant moderator in the relationship between gender implicit biases and perceptions of follower claiming of men. Managers interested in shared leading processes may want to increase the entitativity of their groups or highlight the high levels of entitativity, especially if group members are susceptible to strong associations between man and leader.

Details
Author

Caudill, Leann

Title

Examining Early Perceptions of Leaders and Entitativity in a Shared Leading Situation with a Focus on Gender

Physical Description

1 online resource (104 pages) : PDF

Date

2022

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

As organizations become increasingly team-based and less hierarchical, the leader (and follower) role could stretch within groups and be shared by all group members. When faced with gender-diverse groups, members or observers of the group may have difficulty perceiving women as leaders (and men as followers), especially when members that are men are engaged in leader-like behaviors. The current study examines the relationships among gender status beliefs, gender implicit biases, and leader and follower perceptions. I integrate entitativity into these relationships to investigate the possibility of a moderating effect. I attempt to provide an explanation for why members in gender-diverse groups may initially perceive women as leaders and men as followers. To test my hypotheses, I used a survey design with a manipulated moderator in which data were collected from 175 participants over two time points. Generally, results do not support the theoretical arguments included, however, entitativity was found to be a significant moderator in the relationship between gender implicit biases and perceptions of follower claiming of men. Managers interested in shared leading processes may want to increase the entitativity of their groups or highlight the high levels of entitativity, especially if group members are susceptible to strong associations between man and leader.

Genre

doctoral dissertations

Subjects--Topics

Psychobiology
Sociology
Management

Degree

Ph.D.

Keywords

Entitativity
Gender
Implicit Biases
Shared Leadership
Status Beliefs

Subject Area

Organizational Science

Advisor(s)

Blanchard, Anita

Degree Note

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2022.

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Caudill_uncc_0694D_13228

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:3118