To explain wavering empirical support for a female leadership penalty, we introduce a novel stakeholder-oriented framework that highlights variance in the application and expression of gender bias in the upper echelons. Directed by their relationship with the firm’s leadership, we theorize that stakeholders’ appraisals of top female leaders map onto a category-complexity continuum. At the “category” end of this continuum, stakeholders neither have access nor are attentive to capability cues from the leader, increasing their reliance on stereotypes and gender biases in their leader evaluations. At the “complexity” end of the continuum, stakeholders have access and are attentive to capability cues from the leader, decreasing their reliance on stereotypes and increasing their ability to accurately evaluate the leader. Between these ends, stakeholders evaluate female leaders by applying stereotypes and striving for accuracy to varying degrees. Each region on this continuum is linked to an array of behavioral responses, directed by stakeholders toward a target leader, that differ in valence and intensity. Our framework has significant implications for understanding a variety of social biases beyond gender and enables the development of tailored strategies that can be used to facilitate accurate leader evaluations by all stakeholders.

中文翻译：

---

高层性别偏见的新视角：为什么利益相关者的变异性很重要

为了解释对女性领导惩罚的摇摆不定的实证支持，我们引入了一个新的以利益相关者为导向的框架，该框架强调了上层性别偏见在应用和表达方面的差异。以她们与公司领导层的关系为导向，我们推测利益相关者对顶级女性领导者的评价映射到一个类别复杂性连续体上。在这个连续体的“类别”末端，利益相关者既无法获得也无法关注来自领导者的能力线索，从而增加了他们在领导者评估中对刻板印象和性别偏见的依赖。在连续体的“复杂性”端，利益相关者可以访问并关注来自领导者的能力提示，从而减少他们对刻板印象的依赖，并提高他们准确评估领导者的能力。在这些终点之间，利益相关者通过应用刻板印象和不同程度地争取准确性来评估女性领导者。这个连续体上的每个区域都与一系列行为反应相关联，这些反应由利益相关者引导到目标领导者，这些反应的效价和强度不同。我们的框架对于理解性别以外的各种社会偏见具有重要意义，并能够制定量身定制的策略，以促进所有利益相关者对领导者进行准确的评估。