An Experimental Study of Gender and Situational Effects in a Performance Evaluation of a Manager

Abstract

Following an interactionist perspective, performance evaluations of a manager were studied to assess whether person-related variables (manager's gender and behaviors) or situation-related variables (subordinate's gender, other persons' ratings of appropriateness of behavior or perceived unpleasantness of the task or situation) were related to judgments about the manager. Analysis points to the importance of both person and situation as sources of variance in evaluating the competence of the manager and observers' affect toward the manager. The manager's leadership or communication style, but not gender, affected 394 observers' ratings as did certain situational variables (subordinate's behavior and perceived unpleasantness of the situation, but not subordinate's gender).