Gender and Cultural Differences in Leader's Perception

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Psychology - Work, Business, Organisational and Economic Psychology, grade: 10 (A) with honors, University of Ramon Llull (Organizational Psychology), language: English, abstract: The objective of this study is to evaluate the gender and cultural differences in the perception of a male and a female leader in a feedback situation. The research is based upon considerations of a literature review in the fields of gender bias and stereotype conducted previously. Subjects from Spain and Germany were asked to evaluate a director (male or female) of a fictive feedback situation that was described before a short questionnaire.

The questions of the questionnaire were based on previous research and findings of the literature review. Results show no significance differences in the evaluation across genders and cultures. We tested if previous experience with a woman leader was related to a higher evaluation of the female leader finding no significant relationship. We tested if there was a relationship between the previous experience with a female leader and the preference to work for a certain leader's gender finding no significant relationship. Taking into consideration the subgroup "previous experience with a female leader", we analyzed if personnel responsibility was related to the preference to work for a certain leader's gender finding no relationship. Results from the study show that gender, culture and previous experience with a female leader had no influence on the leader's evaluation. A discussion with possible interpretations of the findings and implication for further research follows.