Walking the Talk? Gendered Rhetoric vs. Action in Small Firms

Abstract

This study challenges the assumption that male and female business leaders establish gender-stereotypic organizational characteristics in their firms. Data collected from 229 businesses in Vancouver, Canada, indicate that an owner’s sex has no effect on the extent of a firm’s bureaucracy or the femininity of its employment relationships. These findings hold even in situations theoretically conducive to eliciting gender stereotypes. Rather than conforming primarily to the archetypically masculine model of organizing, both male and female owners manage their firms with a mix of masculine and feminine approaches. Subsequent analyses revealed, however, that business owners tend to talk as if they organize and manage their firms in different (and gender-stereotypic) ways, even though they do not do so in practice. This finding may help explain the persistent belief that a leader’s sex leaves an identifiable imprint on organizational characteristics.