Satisfaction With the Social Competencies of Female and Male Supervisors Across Workplaces

Carly van Mensvoort, Roza Meuleman, Gerbert Kraaykamp, Marieke van den Brink

OAI: oai:igi-global.com:312390 • DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-5151-9.ch010

Scholars have widely documented the challenges women face in being evaluated as competent leaders. The authors contribute to this field by addressing whether and when female supervisors might have a favorable position by examining evaluations of social competencies in supervision and by examining different organizational workplace features. To test the hypotheses, the authors used a representative Dutch sample on 1,251 employed respondents. The results indicated that male-led and female-led employees were equally satisfied with their supervisor's appreciation and understanding of employees' care tasks at home – but women with a female supervisor were slightly more satisfied with their supervisor's social skills than women with a male supervisor. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the share of female co-workers and the policy climate in the workplace shaped differentiated evaluations of male-female supervisors. These findings highlight the relevance of including (structural) workplace features in future studies on perceptions of women in leadership.

Gender & Diversity Business and Management Human Aspects of Business Social Sciences and Humanities Library and Information Science