Abstract
PurposeAlthough nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority. Because aspiration is a precursor of advancement, examining conditions fostering female leadership aspiration is important. A neglected perspective is the impact of organizational identification. Identification can be argued to foster leadership aspiration because the essence of leadership is the pursuit of collective interests, and identification motivates such pursuits. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey design with an n=400 fulltime employed men and women, working for various organizations was selected.FindingsThe initial prediction was that identification is more important to women’s leadership aspiration to the extent that gender is associated with communal orientation, because women tend to have stronger communal orientation with associated greater affiliation needs, and organizational identification can be expected to cater to those needs. The communal orientation by organizational identification interactive influence on leadership aspiration was supported. Also, the indirect effect of gender on leadership aspiration via this interactive influence of communal orientation and organizational identification was supported.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the selected survey approach the data are correlational and as a result no reference to matters of causality can be made. Thus (field) experimental data is needed to confirm these findings.Practical implicationsWithin the paper the discussion focuses on the importance of creating an environment that is more conducive to organizational identification and as such speaks to the communal orientation – being more pronounced among women – to act in favor of the organization by aspiring leadership positions.Originality/valueThe presented results depict an important step toward understanding how organizational identification and communal orientation interact and how they interact with women’s leadership aspiration.
Highlights
Nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority
Regression analysis To test the first hypothesis regarding the communal orientation and organizational identification interaction on leadership aspiration, a hierarchical regression analysis in which leadership aspiration was predicted by main effect terms at step 1 and the interaction term at step 2 was conducted
The analyses showed that whereas organizational identification was positively related to leadership aspiration for individuals with a high communal orientation (b 1⁄4 0.52, SE 1⁄4 0.06, p o0.01) as well as for individuals with a low communal orientation (b 1⁄4 0.38, SE 1⁄4 0.06, p o0.01), the slope was steeper for high communal orientation than for low communal orientation, supporting H1
Summary
Nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority. Because aspiration is a precursor of advancement, examining conditions fostering female leadership aspiration is important. Scholars have paid attention to both individual factors as well as to the requirements of the leadership role itself that may diminish female aspiration Studying the former, scholars have looked at factors such as self-efficacy (Gbadamosi et al, 2015; Hoyt, 2012; Litzky and Greenhaus, 2007; Singer, 1991; van Vianen and Keizer, 1996) or automatic negative personal gender stereotyping (Davies et al, 2002; Davies et al, 2005; Rudman and Phelan, 2010). The contribution of this study lies in stressing the significance of the interplay between the individual and the organization in stimulating female leadership aspiration as it is shown how women’s greater communal orientation can be triggered by organizational identification to inspire leadership aspiration. These insights advance theory in gender and leadership by discussing how an employee’s psychological linkage to his or her organization leads to potential differences between male and female leadership aspiration
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