Marie-Hélène Budworth

Becoming a leader: the challenge of modesty for women

Purpose – While the number of women in managerial positions has been increasing, the gender composition of top management teams is skewed. There are barriers and obstacles in place that limit the movement of women into leadership roles. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between modesty and access to leadership. Specifically, tendencies toward modesty and lack of self‐promotion are hypothesized to perpetuate the lack of female involvement in top management positions.Design/methodology/approach – The literature on modesty and self‐promotion is reviewed. The findings are discussed in terms of the persistent challenges faced by women with regard to their ability to enter senior levels of management.Findings – The overall message of the paper is that behaviours that are successful for males in the workplace are not successful for females. The good news is that women do not need to adopt male ways of being in order to succeed. A limitation is that the paper is largely “uni‐cultural”, as t...

The Influence of a Manager's Own Performance Appraisal on the Evaluation of Others

This study examined the possibility that the performance appraisal process is affected by a pervasive and inherent effect that has heretofore been unidentified. This effect derives from the results of the performance appraisal most recently performed on the manager who subsequently conducts appraisals of others. The nature of this effect was examined in four studies. In a case study, the ratings received by two area coordinators in a university academic department affected their subsequent ratings of faculty. In a simulation, 30 managers received hypothetical feedback regarding their own job performance. The managers subsequently evaluated an employee on videotape. Managers who received positive feedback about their performance subsequently rated the employee significantly higher than managers who received negative feedback regarding their own performance. This occurred despite the fact that the managers knew the evaluation of them was bogus. The results of two follow-up field studies involving 74 manager-employee dyads in a manufacturing company in Canada and 39 manager-subordinate dyads in a retail organization in Turkey are consistent with the view that ones own performance appraisal is related to the subsequent appraisal of ones subordinates. Both anchoring with insufficient adjustment and a mood induction may explain this effect, but the results are more consistent with the former explanation than the latter.

The Glass Ceiling and Executive Careers Still an Issue for Pre-Career Women

With respect to how the enduring challenge of the glass ceiling might be resolved, one position holds that parity in the executive ranks will be achieved, given enough women entering the managerial pipeline. However, there is scant evidence that such a pipeline exists, and pre-career women’s attitudes toward executive work remain to be better understood. Guided by theories of social role and stereotype threat, and research on work–life balance and culture, the study uses thematic discourse analysis to explore executive attitudes in an ethnically diverse sample of 69 Canadian undergraduate women in business. We find that they perceive the glass ceiling in stereotype threatening ways, blame their personal limitations and work–family choices for its existence, and sense a range of obstacles to their advancement. Although some expressed a desire for work–family balance, participants predominantly restricted career choices to favor one over the other. Implications, recommendations, and limitations are also discussed.

Individual learning and group performance: the role of collective efficacy

Purpose – The aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of training individual group members on the collective efficacy of the group and the groups subsequent performance.Design/methodology/approach – Participants (n=275), in a laboratory study were randomly assigned to groups of five (k=55). Individuals were then randomly selected from those groups such that none, one, three, or all five members of the group participated in training on effective ways to select a job candidate.Findings – Groups in which at least a majority of group members were trained had higher collective efficacy than groups where fewer members were trained. Training individuals beyond a majority did not improve collective efficacy further. Collective efficacy mediated the relationship between individual training and group level performance.Research limitations/implications – This research extends the knowledge of the relationship between the individual and the group within social cognitive theory. Training a majority of t...

Ratings of counterproductive performance: the effect of source and rater behavior

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to examine inter‐rater agreement on counterproductive performance between self‐ and peer‐ratings, and the factors that moderate this agreement. The factors investigated included self‐reported levels of counterproductive performance and known antecedents of counterproductive performance: conscientiousness and integrity values.Design/methodology/approach – Data were gathered (three to five peer ratings per individual) from 108 undergraduate students.Findings – The paper finds that there was a significantly low correlation between self‐ and peer‐ ratings of counterproductive performance. Ratings given by peers were much higher than ratings given by oneself. Individuals and peers who are similar in the extent to which they engage in counterproductive behaviors were in agreement with respect to ratings of counterproductive performance.Practical implications – This study provided evidence that rater disagreement is a consistent phenomenon across dimensions of performance....

Unintended consequences of a digital presence

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how job seekers’ digital profile influences employment-related outcomes, namely recommendations on hiring and salary. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 118 job seekers sharing information online about job searching was identified using a social networking platform. Using an impression management (IM) framework, two research assistants coded for use of verbal IM (e.g. utterances) and the use of nonverbal IM (e.g. professional images). Three HR managers evaluated the profiles and provided hiring-related recommendations. Data were analyzed used OLS moderated regression and simple slope analysis. Findings – Consistent with IM theory, use of verbal and nonverbal IM were both positively related to employment-related recommendations. Gender was found to moderate the use of IM utterances and employment-related recommendations in an unexpected direction for women. Originality/value – Findings suggest that an IM framework can be applied to studying digit...

Breaking rules for relationship-promotion: The interactive effects of gratitude and CSE

Recently, the broader psychology literature has demonstrated the importance of gratitude in human relationships. Despite this evidence that gratitude is central to effective relationships, research on gratitude in organizational relationships has received little attention. This symposium seeks to address this gap by examining the role of gratitude in organizations. The symposium includes four empirical papers—two field experiments and two field studies—that explore the influence of gratitude on beneficiaries, their coworkers, and their organizations. Specifically, the studies in the symposium examine the role of gratitude in informing the meaning of one’s work and motivating performance, the importance of appreciation in supervisor/subordinate relationships, the explanatory power of gratitude in understanding employees’ reactions to receiving OCB at work, and the downside of grateful feelings for professional colleagues. These papers extend our understanding of organizational gratitude by considering novel contexts and novel outcomes. We hope the symposium will highlight the importance of this topic and stimulate future research.

VERTICAL TRANSFER OF TRAINING: CAN ONE PERSON MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Individuals were selected from groups (k = 55) such that none, one, three, or all five members of the group were trained. The extent to which the knowledge acquired by one or more individuals was used by the group was evaluated. Extroversion moderated the relationship between training and vertical transfer.