GENDER STEREOTYPES ABOUT MANAGERS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CEE AND CA

Gender stereotypes about managers:

a comparative study of CEE and CA

Research Talk, UN GenCon Anastassiya Lipovka

PhD candidate, Senior Lecturer, AlmaU

Publication details

• Lipovka, A. and Buzady, Z. (2020). Gender stereotypes about managers: a comparative study of Central-Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In: I. Rybnikova, A. Soulsby, S. Blazejewski (Ed.), Women in Management in Central and Eastern European Countries, Journal of East European Management Studies

(JEEMS) - Special Issue, pp. 15-36,

https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748907190

Abstract

• The paper investigates gender stereotypes (GS) about managers across a post-socialist, now emerging geographic region with the high Human Development Index but lacking due research attention.

• The study extends the previous survey conducted in Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia with a Kazakhstani sample of 551 respondents. The research identified stronger GS in Kazakhstan compared to CEE. The influence of the socialist period and retraditionalism on women and management in Central Asia and CEE is discussed.

Introduction

• CEE-CA – the region with significant female potential (ILO 2018) – demonstrates the same slow growth of women managers. In CEE- CA, 19.9% of firms are led by a female top manager compared to 18.6% global average, and the larger the business the fewer women represent its top management in this region (ILO 2018).

• Cultural norms and expectations of society from women hinder female progress to senior positions (OECD 2017b). Women in CEE-CA have to satisfy several, sometimes contradictory, cultural and societal norms: remnants of socialist mind-set, growing Europeanisation/Westernization and reviving traditionalism

(Tabyshalieva 2000; Nagy/Vicsek 2014;

Kuzhabekova/Almukhambetova 2017). Therefore, the societal views of CEE-CA women managers substantially vary from female images in Western society.

Purpose and scope of the study

• The purpose - to conduct a comparative investigation of GS about managers in CEE-CA, possessing considerable women’s potential, sharing common socialist past and undergoing a complicated process of transformation to the liberalized market economy.

• The choice of Kazakhstan as a representative of CA was stipulated by its highest similarity to the CEE average level of economic progress and human development out of all CA states (OECD 2018). The authors added the Kazakhstan sample to the six CEE countries surveyed by Buzady, Sanyova, Bennett, and Brewster (2015) to conduct a comparative study between CA and CEE.

Introduction: Untapped Women Potential for Management in CEE-CA

• Among the holders of tertiary education, the gender gap is higher than among the lower-educated workers.

• Female high representation in the labour force on the rather gender-segregated labour market.

• Women managers’ labour remuneration in CEE-CA is the most unfair among other jobs and professions: the higher women’s advancement the larger the gender pay gap (ILO 2018).

• Better-educated women who constitute the majority of master’s and PhD degree holders are paid less by 31%

averagely (RK Committee on Statistics 2018).

Introduction: Historical Preview of Women’s Status and Empowerment in CEE-CA (1)

• Following Megoran (1999) and Johnson and Robinson (2006), we assume critically important to consider GS about managers in CEE-CA in the context of gender neotraditionalism – the concept developed by CEE-CA researchers from political notion of neotraditionalism - “the deliberate revival and revamping of old cultures, practices, and institutions for use in new political contexts and strategies” (Galvan 2007:599).

• Gender neotraditionalism is an ideology “bolstered by resurgent nostalgic nationalism, religious revivals that seek to confine women to home” (Shevchenko 2006:130).

Introduction: Historical Preview of Women’s Status and Empowerment in CEE-CA (2)

• Women’s Positions and Images under Socialism

• Transformation of Gender Stereotypes in Newly Emerging Economies

• Westernisation and gender equality

Literature review (1)

• Analysis of the existing literature in CEE-CA allowed revealing a reflection of the Social Role Theory (Eagly/Wood 1999) in the findings on the researched topic. The link between gender bias towards women managers and female destination to give birth to children and take care of family is central for many studies in the field.

• The gender views about managers in CEE-CA could be categorized as patriarchic GS depicting women lacking enough attributes for managing that limit their opportunities to occupy posts and being promoted along the organizational hierarchies (Valerio 2009:28).

• It refers us to the Role Congruity Theory by Eagly and Karau (2002), stating GS reflect the division of gender roles constrained by socio- economic development of certain societies (Eagly/Wood 2012).

Literature review (2)

• The conducted historical and literature review has facilitated identifying common trends in GS about leaders in societies under transformation. The similarity of GS about managers in CEE-CA lies in its adherence to the family discourse. Direct connotations of women’s family role as a primary designation in CEE-CA is much more rarely pronounced in the US and Western European contemporary studies (Kusterer/Lindholm/Montgomery 2013; Powell/Butterfield 2017).

• Differences of GS about women leaders across Christian and Muslim cultures have been justified (Abouchedid 2007; Elsaid/Elsaid 2012;

Güngör/Bornstein/Phalet 2012;Hannover/Gubernath/Schultze/Zander 2018).

• Existing research of Kazakhs and Russians’ GS about leaders defines the more significant influence of traditions on Kazakh respondents' attitudes (Bendas/Nurysheva 2001; Kuzhabekova/Almukhambetova 2019).

Literature review: gap in research

• The gap in the research of gender and management in the transformation from the centralized to the liberalized market economy (Metcalfe/Afanassieva 2005; Bučiūnienė 2018) inhibits further progress in reconsideration of the existing theories and development of new theoretical concepts (Rybnikova 2018).

• Lack of studies on women and men’s managerial practices causes generalization of Western European, North American and Middle Eastern findings about CEE and CA. Neither CA countries could be categorized as Middle Eastern in terms of gender stereotypes (Bodman /Tohidi 1998), nor CEE states should undergo perfunctory extrapolation of Western research, as CEE societal culture is still different from Western European (Čeněk 2013) and socialism is yet apparent in individuals’ decisions in the newly emerging region (Vadi 2018).

The hypothesis of the research

• Basing on the existing empirical and theoretical

evidence obtained through the literature analysis

we hypothesize the following: Kazakhstanis have

stronger GS about managers compared to the

CEE countries engendered by their traditional

values and norms of the Muslim culture.

Method: sample

• The CEE sample: 1110 respondents from Slovakia (237), Romania (210), Czechia (174), Hungary (198), Poland (143) and Bulgaria (148).

• The Kazakhstani sample: 551 respondents at the

age from 18 to 70 with a mean age of 38.7,

inhabitants of the largest cities – Nur-Sultan, Almaty,

and Karaganda. The participants included 276 men

and women 275, Kazakhs 439 (79.7%) and 112

Russians (20.3%).

Method: instrument

• The research instrument utilized in the CEE survey has been applied in the present study with the comparative purpose.

• It represented a questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first asked for the respondent's socio-demographic details, and in the second respondents expressed their level of agreement with the specified statement.

• The Likert scale based on end-labelling and numerical values was offered to evaluate the statement from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The 6-point agreement style scale was utilised to reduce extreme response bias (Moors/Kieruj/Vermunt 2014).

Method: procedure and analysis

• Three people were asking the passers to express their level of agreement with the statement “On the whole, women tend to be more effective managers than their male counterparts” in the main streets of the mentioned cities during the whole week at different times.

• The study utilized both primary obtained data by the authors from the Kazakhstan field research and secondary data, borrowed from the above-mentioned CEE study. The obtained data were analyzed and interpreted based on statistical analysis methods: multivariate analysis and specifically cluster analysis.

Findings ⁽¹⁾

Agreement with the statement by Kazakhstanis equals to 49%. In the meantime, the average agreement of CEE constitutes 64% (Buzady et al.

2015). The discrepancy between Kazakhstan and Europe of 15% represents a significant difference in views of women managers: in general, all CEE countries expressed their agreement with the statement, while Kazakhstanis disagreed.

Figure 1. Agreement of CEE and Kazakhstan respondents with the examined statement

Findings

(2)

Agreement with the statement in Czechia equals to 53%, Poland - 55%, Slovakia – 58%, Hungary – 62%, Bulgaria – 76%, Romania – 77%, whereas in Kazakhstan – only 49% The discrepancy between Kazakhstan and some CEE countries is not as obvious as with the CEE average, however, respondents of all CEE countries agreed with the statement, while Kazakhstan participants disagreed.

Figure 2. Agreement of CEE countries and Kazakhstan with the examined statement

Findings (2)

• It is worthy to emphasize noticeable differences within the CEE sample with varying views of women managers, including rather positive opinions in Bulgaria and Romania, medium in Hungary and Slovakia and more negative in Czechia and Poland.

• A rather similar distribution of answers intensity along the agreement scale (percentages of agreed or disagreed in every category within the continuum) is observed between the following pairs: Poland and Kazakhstan, Romania and Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia. Notwithstanding, average agreement in the Kazakhstan sample is closer to Czechs (49% and 53% respectively), the intensity of the Kazakhstan answers is closer to Polish participants.

Findings (3)

Figure 3. Agreement of Kazakhs and Russians with the examined statement

The disaggregated data of the Kazakhstan sample by ethnic groups demonstrate a higher gender bias of Kazakh respondents. Along the whole continuum, Russian respondents express slightly stronger agreement with the statement compared to Kazakhs: 16% and 13% of strong agreement (6), 13% and 11% of medium agreement (5) and 28% and 23% of frontier agreement (4) respectively.

The general agreement of Kazakhs constitutes 47%, whereas agreement of Russians - 57%

with the difference in 10%. Disaggregation also allowed revealing the proximity of Russian sample with the Slavic and Polish ones.

Discussion and conclusion ⁽¹⁾

• The outlay of the socialist legacy in the form of

considerable gender segregation in education and

occupations and the status of working mothers

double-burdened with family and work still hangs

over the CEE-CA region. The introduction of new

ideologies has not led to the elimination of the

socialist soft spots but overbuilt additional barriers

for women managers through retraditionalisation.

Discussion and conclusion

(2)

• The current study supports the idea of GS variations depending on culture (Dieckman/Eagly 2000; Fiske 2017) and the influence of ethnicity on prejudice towards women (Güngör et al. 2012, Hannover et al. 2018).

• Despite being citizens of one country, undergoing the same political, social and economic processes Russians have more similar GS with CEE average comparatively to the Kazakh sample. This fact corresponds with the preceding studies of GS between Kazakhs and Russians (Bendas/Nurysheva 2001; Umbetaliyeva et al. 2016;

Kuzhabekova/Almukhambetova 2019).

• Commonalities between Russian, Polish, and Slavic responses are presumably connected with their belonging to the Slav ethnic group (Encyclopedia Britannica 2019) that requires further research as has not been covered by the present study.

Discussion and conclusion

⁽³⁾

• The theoretical value of the present study lies in the attempt to shed light on highly promising but still neglecting topic of GS about managers in the newly emerging region. The authors attempted to bring together ideas originated in both CEE and CA in works of internationally recognized experts and local researchers for further elaboration of initial theoretical concepts, extremely required by two subregions (Megoran 1999; Kamp 2009; Nagy/Vicsek 2014; Rybnikova 2018).

• The phenomena of “the refamilialized post-socialist context”

(Nagy/Vicsek 2014:329) and the “triple trap”

(Kuzhabekova/Almukhambetova 2017:14) for women leaders along with the gender neotraditionalism concept contributes to the more conceptualized explanation of stereotypes about women managers in CEE-CA.

Discussion and conclusion (4)

• Today women in CA are prisoners of the “family cage”, artificially constructed by GS incorporated in all fields of private and public life. The continuous interconnection of women and family in legislative documents and mass media limits public views of women to family-cares.

• Reconsideration of gender policies is required to separate gender and family as two connected but different directions.

Particularly, state gender policies of Kazakhstan should provide a better differentiation between family discourse and women involvement in management (OECD 2017a).

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