The Perceived Difference between Male and Female Managers: A Case of Five Selected Ministry Offices in Addis Ababa.
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Date
2010-10
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Whether men and women behave differently in managerial roles is a much debated
question. Many scholars developed different theories about the impacts of gender roles in
understanding differences between male and female managers. Most studies also proved
that gender role stereotyping resulted differences between male and female managers
leadership style, value systems, effectiveness, career advancements, etc. Thus, this study
was planned to examine the perceived differences between male and female managers on
the job (in Ethiopian context) by using managers self and their subordinates’ evaluation.
The study was conducted from the randomly selected five ministry offices found in Addis
Ababa. The already developed Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSI) and Multifactor
Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) were used as data collection tools. An analysis of
variance (ANOVA) on statistical measures was performed based on the number of
responses obtained from male female managers self and subordinates evaluations. The
most interesting finding revealed in this research is the presence of gender differences in
leadership style. Both male and female managers were rated to exhibit more
transformational leadership behaviors than transactional leadership behaviors. However,
female managers were rated to exhibit significantly more transformational behaviors than
male managers, F(1, 111) = 18.954, P<0.001 and male managers were rated to exhibit
significantly more transactional behaviors F(1, 111) = 21.662, P<0.001 than female
managers. The other significant finding of this study is that male managers are rated to
be more masculine than female managers and female managers are more feminine than
male counter parts. Gender role stereotyping is found to be the cause of most of the
differences revealed in this study.
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Keywords
Male and Female Managers