Managers' gender role attitudes: a country institutional profile approach

Abstract

In this paper, we use the country institutional profile to investigate how selected cognitive, normative, and regulative aspects of various countries relate to traditional gender role attitudes of managers from these countries. Our cross-level analyses, using hierarchical linear modeling, control for a number of individual characteristics (i.e., age, education, gender, and social class). Results support our hypotheses that managers' traditional gender role attitudes relate positively to nation-level uncertainty avoidance and power distance. Moreover, the results support our predictions that gender egalitarian normative institutions, degree of regulation, and degree of educational development are negatively related to managers' traditional gender role attitudes. However, results reject our hypotheses regarding nation-level religiosity, assertiveness, and masculinity, not showing the proposed relationship with managers' traditional gender role attitudes. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Journal of International Business Studies (2008) 39, 795–813. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400384

Where Are All the Women? Institutional Context and the Prevalence of Women on the Corporate Board of Directors

“…National institutions such as a country's regulatory environment, the influence of national culture and the role played by such factors as religion and education systems have not been extensively scrutinised in the literature on female corporate board participation, despite widespread recognition in the broader managerial and corporate governance literature that institutional context is important for a range of business outcomes (Parboteeah et al, 2008, Cullen et al, 2004Spencer and Gomez, 2004;Munir 2002).…”

“…Comparative research has risen in popularity since its inception in the 1950s, and is now a recognised and widely employed research approach, particularly in the social sciences (Hantrais, 1999;Elder, 1976). Political science and sociology, in particular, have used comparative research of this kind to great effect, and the last two decades have seen a similar rise in the use of cross-national research in management studies (Schollhammer, 1969;Cheng, 1982;Peng et al, 1991;Baxter andKane, 1995, Pedersen andThomsen, 1997;Cullen et al, 2004;Parboteeah et al, 2008). Cross-national research has also been used in corporate governance research to understand such matters as variations in CEO remuneration (Otten and Heugens, 2008;Tosi and Greckhamer, 2004), hostile takeovers and shareholder protection (Schneper and Guilén, 2004) and ownership concentration and firm performance (Gedajlovic and Shapiro, 1998).…”

“…To that end, cross-national studies in the scholarly management literature have offered generalised views on national culture and impact on CEOs' management styles (Peterson, 1972), of national cultural identity (Hofstede, 1983), the impact of culture and social institutions on condoning unethical managerial behaviour (Cullen et al, 2004), and institutional influences on managerial gender perceptions (Parboteeah et al, 2008).…”

“…Religious beliefs are still a pervasive force in shaping perceptions of gender and often define what is perceived to be right, wrong and acceptable behaviour for a given society (Parboteeah et al, 2008). The manifestation of national religious faith has many facets and implications for social life.…”

Global Social Tolerance Index and multi-method country rankings sensitivity

“…Granting women equal rights to men is a longstanding global issue (Adler, 2002;Bullough, Kroeck, Newburry, Kundu, & Lowe, 2012;Parboteeah, Hoegl, & Cullen, 2008). For example, women were not allowed to vote until 1920 in the US, 1944in France, 1947in Mexico, 1971in Switzerland, 2006 in the UAE, and December 2015 in Saudi Arabia (although many other gender-based restrictions remain).…”