Understanding the role of gender in humor expression: Directions for future scholarship

Humor expression is a potent interpersonal and professional communication tool, conveying intelligence and competence. This review examines the role of gender in outcomes of humor expression, particularly in professional settings. Despite humor's association with masculinity and stereotypes that women are less funny than men, we highlight findings that suggest potentially nuanced benefits of humor for women, depending upon contextual moderators including humor type and status. However, we also highlight that extant findings are mixed, limited for methodological reasons, and in some cases, inconclusive, necessitating future scholarship. Given that humor can be a powerful tool, coupled with persistent gender gaps in leadership, we call for future research to better understand how, when, and why gender influences the effectiveness of humor expression.

Inequalities, barriers, intersectionality, and facilitators of careers of women with disabilities: Themes and future research agenda from a scoping review

This article examines the career motivations, opportunities, and development of women with disabilities. The increasing number of women in paid work over recent decades has resulted in substantive research on all aspects of women's careers, yet examination of women in some minority groups has received much less attention. Extant research has found that although people with disabilities exhibit strong organisational loyalty and less absenteeism from work, they experience a disability pay gap, and are less likely to be working as managers or directors or in professional occupations. Experiences of prejudice, ableism, and discrimination lead to fear of disclosure, and this may be accentuated in some economies and communities where there is stigma associated with having disabilities, especially mental illness. As estimates suggest that one billion people in the world have a disability, and women may experience a double disadvantage based on their gender and disability and thus have lower levels of employment than men with disabilities and women without disabilities, it is important to understand factors affecting the career motivations, opportunities, and development of this significant proportion of the (potential) workforce. This article presents a rapid review of the relevant literature and identifies key themes including career inequalities for women with disabilities, career barriers for women with disabilities, educational interventions to improve career motivations and opportunities for women with disabilities, facilitators for careers and career development of women with disabilities, and intersectionality of gender, disability, and other identities for women's career development. Limitations of the review include the exclusion of grey literature and certain databases in the search process. Based on the analysis of the themes developed from peer reviewed academic literature examined, suggestions for organisations and governments are presented, and a future research agenda established.

Looking beyond workforce parity: addressing gender inequity in pathology

While women pathologists have made up over one-third of pathologists in the Australian workforce for over 15 years and at least 50% since 2019, they are under-represented in senior leadership roles, scientific publications, grant recipients, editorial boards, key presentations, and professional awards. This is not unique to pathology and is seen in the broader medical and academic community. Barriers to gender equity and equality in pathology, medicine and academia include gender stereotypes, gender-based discrimination, structural and organisational barriers as well as broader social and cultural barriers. A diverse leadership reflective of the whole professional body and the broader community is important for optimal health outcomes. It is the responsibility and moral duty of individuals and organisations to address any gender disparities, inequities, and inequalities by monitoring, identifying, and acting on gender biases and systemic barriers that hinder appropriate levels of representation by women.

Gender differences in perceived legitimacy and status perception in leadership role

The present study examined the difference between women and men in perceiving leadership roles. Two experiments, one conducted online and the other in a lab, investigated the subjective experiences of Japanese men and women when they are assigned with different roles (e.g., leader vs. subordinate). Both studies revealed that women perceived their role as less legitimate when they were assigned leader role (vs. subordinate role). In contrast, men did not differ in their perceived legitimacy according to the assigned roles. This discrepancy in legitimacy perception in response to different roles between men and women accounted for a significant variance in women's lower sense of status when they were a leader (vs. subordinate), but not among men. Our study results illustrate the psychological barrier operating for women in organizations that are embedded in a cultural context in which women leaders are highly underrepresented.

Gender Issues in Physiotherapy in Quebec, Canada

Purpose

This study examines gender differences in the physiotherapy (PT) profession in the province of Quebec regarding: (1) areas of practice; (2) roles associated with the advancement of the profession; (3) formal disciplinary complaints; and (4) interests and competency perceptions of PT students.

Methods

We collected data from the Canadian Institute of Health Information, the Quebec Professional Order of Physiotherapy, Quebec university public Internet sites, and PT associations. We also surveyed PT students at the Université de Montréal.

Results

The PT workforce in Quebec was 76.6% women. The presidents of the four main PT associations were men. In the five university programmes, the percentage of male and female physiotherapists in tenure track positions was 46% and 54%, respectively. There were more sanctioned complaints of sexual misconduct and not maintaining continuing education for male physiotherapists, while more women were sanctioned for problems with documentation and billing. Among students, men were more interested in becoming administrators, but neither men nor women had a strong interest in research.

Conclusions

Male physiotherapists make up 23.4% of the PT workforce in Quebec but are more involved in leadership positions in the profession than women.

Are Strategies for Women in Compensation Negotiations More Appealing When It Is Explained How They Are Meant to Impact Negotiation Outcomes?

Women perceive specific strategies developed to support their performance in compensation negotiations as ineffective and are unlikely to use them—suggesting an implementation gap. We examined whether providing theoretical rationales—explaining how specific strategies are meant to work—attenuates this gap. Furthermore, we explored a novel cause of it: women's expectations regarding the perpetuation of gender roles upon using a strategy. In two studies ( N = 1,254), we observed that regardless of the provision of the rationales, women expected all examined specific strategies to be less economically effective and most of them to perpetuate gender roles more than regular assertiveness. Moreover, especially women's expectations regarding economic outcomes decreased their intentions to use most specific strategies. Women also expected most specific strategies to lead to less favorable social evaluations than yielding, which again led to their lower intentions to use them. Altogether, negotiation trainers and educators should consider that explaining how specific strategies are meant to work is not enough to close the implementation gap and to reduce gender inequality in negotiations. To attenuate the implementation gap, they may need to enable women to more fully experience how using specific strategies can improve their negotiation performance. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/03616843221128484 .

Supporting women's research in predominantly undergraduate institutions: Experiences with a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award

This paper describes the Gender Equity Project (GEP) at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY), funded by the U. S. NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award (ITA) program. ADVANCE supports system-level strategies to promote gender equity in the social and natural sciences, but has supported very few teaching-intensive institutions. Hunter College is a teaching-intensive institution in which research productivity among faculty is highly valued and counts toward tenure and promotion. We created the GEP to address the particular challenges that faculty, especially White women and faculty of color, face in maintaining research programs and advancing in their careers at teaching-intensive institutions. During the course of the ADVANCE award, its centerpiece was the Sponsorship Program, a multifaceted paid mentorship/sponsorship program that paired each participant with a successful scholar in her discipline. It offered extensive professional development opportunities, including interactive workshops and internal grants to support research. The GEP helped change key policies and practices by ensuring that all faculty were treated fairly in areas like provision of research start-up funds and access to guidance on how to prepare for tenure and promotion. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that participation in the Sponsorship Program boosted research productivity and advanced the careers of many of the women who participated; the Program was highly rated by all participants. Some of the policy and practice changes that the GEP helped bring about were sustained at Hunter beyond the award period and some were adopted and disseminated by the central office of CUNY. However, we were not able to sustain the relatively expensive (but cost-effective) Sponsorship Program. We share the lessons we learned, including that creating a diverse, successful social and natural scientific workforce requires sustained support of female faculty employed at teaching-intensive colleges. We acknowledge the difficulties of sustaining gains, and offer ideas about how to make the case for gender equity when women seem to be doing "well enough." We underscore the imperative of building support for women's research in teaching-intensive institutions, where most women scientists are employed, and well over 90% of all college students-a disproportionate percentage of whom are female, minoritized, or both-are educated.

Influence of Certification on a Pathology Laboratory Professional's Career Mobility

OBJECTIVES

Competency in managing laboratory careers is important for retaining and ensuring a well-trained laboratory workforce. The objective of this study was to identify predictors for career advancement in pathology laboratories-specifically, whether the number of certifications obtained affects career mobility beyond what is accounted for with personality, gender, experience, and tenure.

METHODS

Cross-sectional data from nonphysician laboratory professionals were collected through a web-based survey tool. These data were examined in the context of a binary logistic regression model to assess how well independent variables predict career advancement.

RESULTS

We included 170 responses in the analysis. According to the statistical model, the odds of career advancement is significant-70% higher for every additional certification a laboratory profession obtains (P = .018), with other predictors being equal. Moreover, technologists with an outgoing personality (ie, extroverts) are 178% more likely to be promoted from entry-level positions than are introverts (P = .045), all else being equal. The number of years the employee has been with the laboratory (tenure) also contributes significantly to promotion (P = .012). Surprisingly, gender and industry experience do not contribute significantly to laboratory mobility and advancement, after accounting for the other variables.

CONCLUSIONS

Laboratories should provide incentives for obtaining certifications as a way to improve quality and retain workforce talent.

Managing the Double Bind: Women Directors’ Participation Tactics in the Gendered Boardroom

Women leaders who fail to manage the double bind by displaying both warmth and competence can face backlash, creating pressure for women to invest thought, time, and effort into their self-presentation. Research to date lacks theoretical insights around how women in the highest levels of leadership manage the double bind in natural settings. Our inductive study of interviews with 43 women directors on U.S. publicly traded company boards offers an insider’s perspective of participation tactics that women use to manage the double bind in male-dominated contexts. We found two features unique to advisory roles—a requirement that advisors possess a large breadth of knowledge and a time constraint whereby advisors meet less frequently with their peers—that suggest women directors adapt and learn how to participate on gendered boards. We uncovered six gendered participation tactics that mitigate stereotypical concerns for women to appear warm and/or competent on boards. We further reveal how women directors selectively use specific gendered participation tactics over others to effectively achieve their participation aims, which, in turn, helps them avoid backlash for mismanaging the double bind. Finally, we find that this matching process is constrained by the amount and scope of use related to the unique features of the advisory role. The emergence and trade-offs between the use of these novel gendered participation tactics deepen our theoretical understanding of women’s participation in advisory roles.

The Science of Leadership: A Theoretical Model and Research Agenda

I review the empirical literature on leadership, focusing on papers published since 2010. To do so, I introduce a framework composed of two features: whether theories ( a) involve the study of leaders or leading (i.e., the person versus the process) and ( b) conceptualize leadership as a cause or a consequence (i.e., an independent versus dependent variable). This framework can enable future research to accumulate in a more programmatic fashion and help scholars determine where their own studies are located within the landscape of leadership research. I end the review by critically evaluating existing work, arguing that the most popular subcategory of leadership research—lumped conceptualizations of leading, in which scholars examine multiple leader behaviors within a single construct—has significant limitations and may need to be replaced by a greater focus on split conceptualizations of leading, wherein scholars isolate single leader behaviors.

Women’s Promotion to Management and Unfairness Perceptions—A Challenge to the Social Sustainability of the Organizations and Beyond

Inequality between women and men in top management positions is still a current reality where women are underrepresented. Gender discrimination against women in managerial positions violates the Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality. Gender discrimination affects women but also has negative consequences for employee output. Our aim is analyzing how the role of gender moderates the relationship between gender barriers to managerial positions and performance, mediated by organizational justice and commitment, and whether this relationship is stronger in women than in men. This study was carried out with 1278 employees (45.2% women and 54.8% men) of a Spanish financial group consisting of three different organizations. We performed a moderated mediation path analysis with Mplus. Results show that some gender barriers are associated with lower perceptions of organizational justice, which in turn are associated with lower organizational commitment, thus reducing performance. Moreover, this relationship is significant in men and women for work–family balance and barriers to accessing influential networks, but for unfair HR policies and practices, it is only significant in women. Removing gender barriers and unfairness perceptions is the goal that will contribute to organizational sustainability from the gender perspective.

Evaluating Board Candidates: A Threat-Contingency Model of Shareholder Dissent Against Female Director Candidates

Given the growing corporate social responsibility (CSR) pressures to increase board gender diversity and the scrutiny afforded to firms that fail to appoint female directors, one may expect shareholders to vote with greater support for women (than for men) nominated to boards. However, diversity management research suggests that pressures to improve female representation in organizations and in leadership roles may also backfire. We propose a threat-contingency model of shareholder dissent against female director candidates to explain when shareholders will be more or less likely to dissent against female (relative to male) directors. Specifically, we advance CSR legitimacy threats and agency threats as conditions contextualizing shareholder dissent against female director candidates. Using a sample of 50,202 director elections at 1,104 public firms from 2003 to 2015, we find that female directors receive less dissent from shareholders; further, low female board representation intensifies this leniency as CSR legitimacy threats become more salient. However, when firm-related agency threats occur (e.g., firm underperformance and media controversies), shareholders’ leniency toward female director candidates dissipates, and when directors themselves present agency threats (e.g., director attendance problems and nonindependence), shareholders evaluate female directors more harshly than male directors. Underlining the relevance of our theory, our supplementary analyses show that shareholder dissent increases the probability of director turnover. These findings contribute to theory and research on women on boards, firm responses to institutional pressures, and shareholder dissent.

Women leaders' views on demand-side strategies

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine female leaders' attitudes toward demand-side strategies to close the gender-leadership gap and discuss implications for organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

This article describes the process of knowledge co-creation that took place using an engaged scholarship epistemology over 23 interviews with North American women in senior leadership roles.

Findings

Five key themes related to women leaders' attitudes toward demand-side strategies are discussed. Some felt uncertain or opposed toward these strategies, whereas others supported them. Support for these strategies was dependent on perceptions of backlash regarding the implementation of these strategies and the participants' career stage. Finally, participants acknowledged that demand-side strategies are insufficient in isolation and require additional organizational supports.

Research limitations/implications

These findings enhance our understanding and provide theoretical refinement of the mechanisms that drive female leaders' reactions to demand-side strategies to close the gender-leadership gap.

Practical implications

Participants advocated for certain practices to be considered when organizations contemplate the adoption of demand-side strategies. Importantly, participants advocated that the implementation of demand-side strategies would be insufficient unless organizations encourage greater dialogue regarding the gender-leadership gap, that top management support more gender inclusive leadership, and that male colleagues act as allies for women in leadership.

Originality/value

This article extends past research and theory by integrating the pragmatic perspectives of successful female leaders with previous empirical evidence to illustrate different reactions to demand-side strategies and ways for organizations to manage those in their efforts to close the gender-leadership gap.

"Why Can't I Become a Manager?"-A Systematic Review of Gender Stereotypes and Organizational Discrimination

Women continue to lag behind for accessing managerial positions, partially due to discrimination at work. One of the main roots of such discrimination is gender stereotyping, so we aim to comprehend those biased procedures. First, we have analyzed those highlighted gender lawsuit cases in the scientific literature that have dealt with stereotypes both in the American and the European work contexts. Second, meta-analytic studies regarding organizational consequences of gender stereotypes have been synthetized. Third, gender stereotypes have been grouped by means of a content analysis of the existing literature after processing 61 articles systematically retrieved from WOS, SCOPUS, and PsycINFO databases. As a result, a taxonomy of gender stereotypes has been achieved evidencing that descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes have an impact on decision-making procedures through the apparently perception of women as less suitable for managerial positions. Moreover, we offer a deep explanation of the gender discrimination phenomenon under the umbrella of psychosocial theories, and some measures for successfully overcoming management stereotyping, showing that organizational culture can be improved from both the perspective of equal employment opportunities and the organizational justice frameworks for reaching a balanced and healthier workplace.