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Home > News & Events > Events Calendar > Can Female Leaders Mitigate Negative Effects of Diversity?: The Case of National Leaders
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emailThursday, February 14, 2013
Can Female Leaders Mitigate Negative Effects of Diversity?: The Case of National Leaders
Katherine Phillips, Professor of Management, Columbia
Business School
Ethnic diversity can have negative effects, increasing the
potential for perceived inequities, negative conflict, and
communication difficulties in groups and organizations that can
lead to negative performance outcomes. Consistent with these
findings political economists have also shown that ethnic
fractionalization, essentially a measure of country-level
diversity, undermines GDP growth of a country. Mitigating these
negative effects of diversity at all levels is critical and
research on leadership and gender differences suggests that female
leaders may be in a unique position to help manage the difficulties
that can accompany diversity. We use a multi-methods research
approach to examine the perceived and actual influence of male and
female national leaders in countries characterized by more or less
ethnic fractionalization. We first examine people's perceptions of
male and female country leaders and how well they might fit as
leaders of ethnically fractionalized countries. Two studies with
national adult samples indicate that female candidates were
perceived to be more effective leaders than male candidates when
the country had high ethnic diversity but not significantly so when
there was low ethnic diversity. Female leaders were expected to
improve perceived ethnic inequities and the economic situation of
the country better than male presidents. Evidence of moderated
mediation was found suggesting that a fit of female leadership
strengths to the particular needs of highly diverse environments
account for expected improvements in country-level economics. Using
a unique dataset we also analyzed over 10,000 leader-year
observations in 188 countries over a 55-year period and found that
countries characterized by higher ethnic fractionalization and
greater difficulty to lead (a country level indicator) had greater
GDP growth when they had female rather than male leaders. While
causation is not possible to prove, the results suggest countries
that have high ethnic fractionalization and difficulty to lead
scores stand to uniquely benefit from female leadership.
Implications for understanding the intersection of gender and
ethnic diversity in complex environments are discussed.
Cosponsored by the Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School
Lunch will be provided. An RSVP is not required as this is an open
event.
- Location:WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman Building, Room 102
- Date:Thursday, February 14, 2013
-
Time:11:40 AM
