ABSTRACT

Role congruity theory postulates that traditionally there is a mismatch between the communal qualities associated with women and the masculine or agentic qualities considered necessary in a good leader. Thus, female candidates are presumed to be less suitable for leadership roles. The purpose of this study is to discover the conditions under which this (in)congruity may fluctuate. In a hypothetical manager recruitment process done in Spain, two profiles (agentic and communal) were associated with female and male candidates to explore variations according to the organizational setting (profit-oriented or civic-minded company) and the value attributed to candidates’ qualities (high or low). Results showed congruity between candidates’ profile and organizational setting when their trait value was high: agentic candidates were preferred over communal candidates for the profit-oriented company, with the reverse occurring for the civic-minded company. However, candidates’ sex apparently played no significant role in participants’ decision making; additionally, when the value of candidates’ traits was low, congruity was only found for the profit-oriented company. We conclude that, overall, the agentic construal of management, with its good and bad features, still has the upper hand in the current vision of leadership.

摘要

角色一致性理论假设传统上与女性相关的公共品质与被认为是优秀领导者所必需的男性或代理品质之间存在不匹配。因此，女性候选人被认为不太适合担任领导职务。本研究的目的是发现这种（不）一致性可能波动的条件。在西班牙进行的假设经理招聘过程中，将两个档案（代理和公共）与女性和男性候选人相关联，以根据组织环境（以利润为导向或有公民意识的公司）探索变化以及归因于候选人素质的价值（高或低）。结果显示，当候选人的特质价值很高时，他们的个人资料和组织环境之间的一致性：以利润为导向的公司更喜欢代理候选人而不是公共候选人，而具有公民意识的公司则相反。然而，候选人的性别显然在参与者的决策中没有发挥重要作用；此外，当候选人的特质价值较低时，只有以盈利为导向的公司才能找到一致性。我们得出的结论是，总体而言，管理的代理解释，无论其优点还是缺点，在当前的领导力愿景中仍然占上风。