"Exploring the Intersectionality of Age, Gender and Reputation on Perceptions of Leaders’ Fairness"

Abstract

Our research contributes to the understanding of the complexities that women face in business by investigating through a series of three experimental studies (N = 192, N = 160, and N = 320) how a number of factors (e.g. personal reputation, supervisor, employee, and rater age) impact perceptions of justice of female and male supervisors. Our findings revealed that female supervisors benefited most when there was a significant mismatch in age between the supervisor and employee (in either direction) and when they were judged by older workers. Further, supervisors (both males and females) who had a reputation for being friendly and approachable were perceived as more fair than those who had a reputation for being impersonal and distant, with one exception - when there were significant age incongruities between supervisors and their employees. In this case, female supervisors actually benefited from being perceived as more impersonal and distant. Our results have practical implications for understanding supervisor-employee interactions and their potential impact in today’s age-diverse workplace, especially as it relates to the future success of female leaders. In particular, our findings suggest that with time, as more organizations encounter diversity in their workforce, the obstacles that women face may actually lessen.