Table 3.
Summary of meta-analyses regarding differences between women and men.
| Reference | Results |
|---|---|
| Leadership styles | |
| Eagly AH, Karau SJ, Johnson BT 1992 | Women were more democratic and less autocratic than men, however there were no differences for either interpersonal style or interpersonal versus task style. |
| Eagly AH, Johannesen-Schmidt MC, van Engen ML 2003 | Female leaders were more transformational than male leaders and also engaged in more contingent reward; whereas men manifest greater transactional active and passive leadership and laissez-faire approaches. |
| Van Engen ML, Willemsen TM 2004 | Men tended to use the traditionally masculine styles and women the traditionally feminine styles: women tended to use the stereotypical feminine styles democratic-versus-autocratic and transformational leadership styles. However, no evidence was found for sex differences in interpersonal, task-oriented, and transactional leadership. |
| Leadership idea | |
| Eagly AH, Makhijani MG, Klonsky BG 1992 | There was a small overall tendency to evaluate female leaders less favorably than male leaders, especially when female leadership was carried out in stereotypically masculine styles, in male-dominated roles, and when the evaluators were men. |
| Koenig AM, Eagly AH, Mitchell AA, Ristikari T 2011 | Masculinity of leader stereotypes was found: (a) male-leader similarity; (b) greater agency than communion; and (c) greater masculinity. |
| Koch AJ, D’Mello SD, Sackett PR 2015 * | Men were preferred for male-dominated jobs, and male raters exhibited greater gender-role congruity bias than did female raters for male-dominated jobs. |
| Badura KL, Grijalva E, Newman DA, Yan TT, Jeon G 2018 | Men tended to emerge in leadership roles more often than did women. Moreover, men tended to possess higher levels of agentic traits, whereas women tended to possess higher levels of communal traits. |
| Effectiveness and performance | |
| Eagly AH, Karau SJ, Makhijani MG 1995 | Male and female leaders were equally effective. However, effectiveness comparisons favored men for first-level leadership; and female leaders fared better in feminine expected roles such as education, whereas male leader fared better in masculine expected roles such as military. |
| Paustian-Underdahl SC, Walker LS, Woehr DJ 2014 | Men and women did not differ in perceived leadership effectiveness when all leadership contexts are considered. |
| Schneid M, Isidor R, Li C, Kabst R 2015 * | A negative relationship was found between gender diversity and contextual performance, although no relationship was found with task performance. However, gender diversity has a significant negative relationship with task performance in countries with low gender egalitarianism. |
| Jeong SH, Harrison DA 2017 | Female presence in CEO positions was positively related to long-term financial performance and negatively related to short-term market returns; whereas female presence in top management teams was positively related to long-term financial performance but not to short term market returns. |
| Hoobler JM, Masterson CR, Nkomo SM, Michel EJ 2018 | There was a positive association between having more women on boards of directors and overall financial performance. |
| Personality and individual characteristics | |
| Hyde JS 2005 * | There were small or non-differences regarding cognitive variables, verbal or nonverbal communication, social or personality variables, wellbeing, motor behaviors, and moral reasoning. |
| Grijalva E et al., 2015 * | Men tended to be more narcissistic than women, however, men and women did not differ on vulnerable (low self-esteem, neuroticism, and introversion) narcissism. |
| Williams MJ, Tiedens LZ 2016 | Dominance expressed explicitly affected women’s likability, whereas implicit forms of dominance did not. Furthermore, dominant women were found to have worse outcomes on dimensions such hireability. Nonetheless, non significant differences were found regarding men’s and women’s perceived competence. |
| Kugler KG, Reif JAM, Kaschner T, Brodbeck FC 2018 * | Women were less likely to initiate negotiations than men. However, gender differences were smaller for low situational ambiguity and situational cues, consistent with the female gender role. |
| Other criteria: physical appearance, stereotype threat, and sexism | |
| Hosoda M, Stone-Romero EF, Coats G 2003 * | Attractive people were found to be better than unattractive on job-related outcomes, obtaining similar values for women and men. |
| Nguyen H-HD, Ryan AM 2008 * | The overall performance of women stereotyped test takers might suffer from a situational stereotype threat. |
| Jones KP et al., 2017 * | There was no relationship between sexism and overall workplace discrimination. |
* Studies marked with an asterisk are not specifically referred to managerial positions but they have been included as they could hinder women accessing/in managerial positions.