In female supervisors male subordinates trust!? An experiment on supervisor and subordinate gender and the perceptions of tight control

Abstract

Little attention has been directed towards the role of gender in the supervisor-subordinate dyad that is the very fundament of management control. We argue that gender roles and the roles implied in the supervisor-subordinate relationship are powerful concepts that need to be incorporated in research to better understand the reactions and perceptions of management controls. The article contributes to this line of research by developing and testing hypotheses related to gender differences in supervisor-subordinate dyads and the resulting perceptions of evaluation fairness and trust in management under a tight control regime. In a vignette experiment where only the name of the supervisor was changed to a typical female or male name for female and male subordinates (respondents)(2 × 2), we find that female (male) subordinates demonstrate more negative (positive) attitudes towards evaluation fairness and that male subordinates with a female supervisor put more trust in management than males with a male supervisor and females with a female supervisor.

How centrality bias in subjective evaluation affects positive and negative employee work behavior: a real-effort task experiment

“…During the experiment, students are assigned as employees whose duties do not require basic experience or professional judgment to provide decisions or action trends (Farrell et al , 2008). The students represent groups that almost enter the workforce and immediately experience real situations such as those found in experiments (Johansson and Wennblom, 2017).…”

If managers feel safe, budget control becomes enabling. Evidence from a large local government organization in Sweden

“…The safeness of the psychological climate (SafeClimate) of the individual is modeled as a reflective-reflective HOC reflected by the two LOCs: Trust in management (ManTrust) and Fairness perceptions of the budgeting context (Fairness). ManTrust is measured with four items capturing the perceived trustworthiness of management in terms of its goodwill, integrity and benevolence (See Read, 1962;Mayer et al, 1995 for conceptual underpinnings andHartmann andSlapni car, 2009;Johansson and Wennblom, 2017 for empirical applications in control research). Fairness is measured with two items asking for the perceived procedural fairness (see Colquitt, 2001) of the budgeting context (Hartmann and Slapni car, 2012;Johansson and Wennblom, 2017).…”

“…ManTrust is measured with four items capturing the perceived trustworthiness of management in terms of its goodwill, integrity and benevolence (See Read, 1962;Mayer et al, 1995 for conceptual underpinnings andHartmann andSlapni car, 2009;Johansson and Wennblom, 2017 for empirical applications in control research). Fairness is measured with two items asking for the perceived procedural fairness (see Colquitt, 2001) of the budgeting context (Hartmann and Slapni car, 2012;Johansson and Wennblom, 2017). It focuses on the wider budget control process and context in which the budget control system is embedded (see enabling perceptions of the budget control design above).…”