Feminization Unveiled: Management Qualities in Contemporary Writings

Exploring the Dynamics of Incongruent Beliefs about Women and Leaders

“…Despite participant's projections that task-oriented traits and in particular person-oriented traits would become more important for leadership roles, participant's ascriptions of feminine traits to leaders remained stable. Although the projected change in leadership demands in this study reflects management experts' emphasis on a more androgynous blend of attributes -that is relevance of both task-oriented and person-oriented traits -(e.g., Fondas, 1997;Rastetter, 2001; see also and change, see Kashima, Woolcock, & Kashima, 2000). This might be the reason why we Exploring the Dynamics -19 did not find evidence showing that change in leadership demands mediated the effect of year on feminine traits ascribed to leaders in the present study (see Hypothesis 2b).…”

Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders.

“…Similarly, continuous quality improvement theorists and practitioners (e.g., Deming, 1986;Juran, 1988) emphasize the importance of building cooperation rather than competition, developing teamwork skills, building long-term relationships with suppliers, empowering all employees to make decisions that can improve the quality of their work, and removing sources of fear and intimidation from the workplace (see the review by Hackman & Wageman, 1995). Confirming that current expert opinion on desirable modes of management features behaviors considered to be feminine is Fondas's (1997) textual analysis of mass-market books exemplifying contemporary advice on management. In addition, several researchers have explicitly advocated a shift to a more feminine style of leadership.…”

25 Years On: Reflecting on the Past and Looking to the Future in Gender and Management Research

“…Some work within this perspective has focused on female difference as an asset -inverting the value given to difference in the management context. This 'feminization of management' thesis (Fondas, 1997) has highlighted women's strengths and their 'special contribution' to organizations through their supposed predisposition to transformational leadership (Rosener, 1990). This style is oriented towards participation, power sharing and information exchange and has been linked to organizational changes since the mid1990s such as a new customer focus and flatter hierarchies that rely on horizontal communication and on team based approaches that demand cooperation and interpersonal skills.…”