Leadership Style and Readiness Requirement in Job Advertisements : Exploring gender differences in wording appeal within technological corporate culture

Sammanfattning: Organizational leadership is predominantly male, even after decades of effort to even out this gap. The gender gap in corporal leadership was here assessed by investigating the possible effect of job advertisement configuration. Requesting a democratic or autocratic leadership style and high or low level of readiness for the leadership position in job advertisements was hypothesized to affect their appreciated appeal differently depending on the reader’s gender. A democratic leadership style and a low level of readiness requirement was thought to appeal more to women. Additionally, an effect of nearness to a manager of the same sex on the appreciated likelihood of applying for a leadership position was investigated, in line with the theory of same-sex role models. Seventy-nine male and seventy-seven female employees from a technical department within a global industrial company were included in the study where they rated manipulated company job advertisements’ appeal and filled out a survey. The results revealed no gender difference in the employees’ appeal ratings depending on the two variables. No difference in likelihood of applying for a leadership position was found, regardless of same-sex managerial nearness. The unique characteristics of the sample used induces a discussion of when advertisement wording matters and matters not.