A Cross-Country Comparison of Gender Traditionalism in Business Leadership: How Supportive Are Female Supervisors?

Abstract

This study investigates whether female supervisors hold less traditional attitudes towards gender in business leadership than male supervisors and non-supervisors, and whether these attitudinal differences vary between countries. It uses the sociological notions of self-interest and exposure and a multilevel approach to advance and expand the investigation of gender attitudes in the domain of business leadership. Two recent waves of the World Values Survey (2005/2009; 2010/2014) for 22 OECD countries were analysed with multilevel logistic regression. Findings indicated less gender traditionalism among female supervisors and among people living in countries with a larger share of women in managerial positions and a less traditional normative climate towards working women. No such attitudinal differences between individuals were found when comparing countries with and without a national legislative gender quota policy. Finally, men’s attitudes towards gender traditionalism in business leadership appeared to be more susceptible to the country context than those of women.