Do women CEOs face greater threat of shareholder activism compared to male CEOs? A role congruity perspective.

Abstract

We examine the glass cliff proposition that female CEOs receive more scrutiny than male CEOs, by investigating whether CEO gender is related to threats from activist investors in public firms. Activist investors are extraorganizational stakeholders who, when dissatisfied with some aspect of the way the firm is being managed, seek to change the strategy or operations of the firm. Although some have argued that women will be viewed more favorably than men in top leadership positions (so-called "female leadership" advantage logic), we build on role congruity theory to hypothesize that female CEOs are significantly more likely than male CEOs to come under threat from activist investors. Results support our predictions, suggesting that female CEOs may face additional challenges not faced by male CEOs. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Metacritiques of Upper Echelons Theory: Verdicts and Recommendations for Future Research

“…Work has also begun to explore how diversity characteristics—such as gender—may moderate the established relationships between executive orientation and firm outcomes (e.g., Gupta, Han, Mortal, Silveri, & Turban, 2018; Hoobler, Masterson, Nkomo, & Michel, 2018; Zhang & Qu, 2015). For example, Dwivedi, Joshi, and Misangyi (2018) looked at how the characteristics of male CEOs shape their behaviors toward a female successor and, in turn, the new CEO’s success.…”

“…In particular, we proposed at the outset that the time was right for such an endeavor in the UET literature for two, interrelated reasons. The first concerns research trajectory—there has been a significant increase in UET research over the past decade (e.g., Gupta et al, 2018; Wowak et al, 2016), which has led the domain to simultaneously expand and become more specialized. The second reason was phenomenological.…”

Unnecessary Frills: Communality as a Nice (But Expendable) Trait in Leaders

“…It has been argued that stereotypically feminine traits like communality will define 21st century leaders, and women and men with these attributes will rule the future ( Gerzema and D’Antonio, 2013 ). However, despite the embracing of so-called feminine management, women continue to be highly underrepresented in top executive roles ( Catalyst, 2018 ), and bias against female leaders persists ( Eagly and Heilman, 2016 ; Gupta et al, 2018 ). We posit that one reason for this disparity is that, whereas communality is appreciated as a nice “add-on” for leaders, it is stereotypically masculine attributes related to agency, such as competence and assertiveness, that are valued as the defining qualities of the leader role, especially by men (who are often the gatekeepers to these roles).…”

Exploring Moderation Effects of Education and the Role of Personality Attribution in a Convergent Model of Successful Psychopathy

“…The logic of the aforementioned research presents several implications for successful psychopathy. From one viewpoint, it is reasonable to suggest that the concept may be a top-down process by which contemporary organisational-leadership structures with a predominantly male character (Gupta et al, 2018) are informed by an interaction effect of facial attribution and shifting situation requirements to enable aggressive, dominant, and possibly antisocial personalities (Grabo & Van Vugt, 2018;Spisak et al, 2012). At the same time, however, it may be that the superior cognitive empathy of successful psychopaths (Gao & Raine, 2010) makes them more able to perceive the affective states of others, and increases their sensitivity towards non-verbal cues of individuals' susceptibility to bullying or coercion (Book et al, 2013;Muñoz et al, 2011;Uzieblo et al, 2010).…”