Do women CEOs face greater threat of shareholder activism compared to male CEOs? A role congruity perspective.

We examine the glass cliff proposition that female CEOs receive more scrutiny than male CEOs, by investigating whether CEO gender is related to threats from activist investors in public firms. Activist investors are extraorganizational stakeholders who, when dissatisfied with some aspect of the way the firm is being managed, seek to change the strategy or operations of the firm. Although some have argued that women will be viewed more favorably than men in top leadership positions (so-called "female leadership" advantage logic), we build on role congruity theory to hypothesize that female CEOs are significantly more likely than male CEOs to come under threat from activist investors. Results support our predictions, suggesting that female CEOs may face additional challenges not faced by male CEOs. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Changing job seekers' image perceptions during recruitment visits: the moderating role of belief confidence.

The purpose of this study was to understand how an important construct in social psychology-confidence in one's beliefs-could both (a) influence the effectiveness of organizations' recruiting processes and (b) be changed during recruitment. Using a sample of recruits to a branch of the United States military, the authors studied belief confidence before and after recruits' formal visits to the organization's recruiting stations. Personal sources of information had a stronger influence on recruits' belief confidence than impersonal sources. Moreover, recruits' confidence in their initial beliefs affected how perceptions of the recruiter changed their employer images. Among participants with low-initial confidence, the relation between recruitment experiences and employer images was positive and linear across the whole range of recruitment experiences. Among recruits with high-initial confidence, however, the recruitment experience-image relationship was curvilinear, such that recruitment experiences were related to images only at more positive recruitment experiences. The relationship between recruitment experiences and changes in belief confidence was also curvilinear, such that only more positive recruitment experiences led to changes in confidence. These results indicate not only that belief confidence influences the effectiveness of recruiting efforts but also that recruiting efforts can influence belief confidence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

The research mentoring relationship in family medicine: findings from the grant generating project.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Mentoring has been acknowledged as a critical factor in the development of family medicine academicians. Specific aims were to describe the research mentoring in family medicine from the experience of both mentors and protégés and identify characteristics that mentors and protégés associated with a successful mentoring relationship. The Grant Generating Project (GGP) Fellowship, a training and mentoring program for family medicine researchers, provided a natural opportunity to study these issues and better understand what is successful in research mentoring. METHODS: Separate mentor and protégés surveys measured perceptions about the extent of mentoring assistance, perceived relationship success, costs and benefits of the relationship, and the nature and duration of the relationship. Correlations between demographic characteristics and the mentoring relationship were also examined. RESULTS: Mentors were generally professors (78%), male (82%), with a mean age of 53 years, while protégés were assistant professors (53%) and almost evenly divided between male (51%) and female (49%) with mean age of 44 years. Both mentors and protégés describe the mentoring relationship in general to be of benefit to both mentor and protégé. Nonetheless, statistically significant differences between mentor-protégé responses were found for nine of the 20 survey items. Mentors tended to give higher values in their ratings of specific mentor-protégé relationship variables. Significant positive correlations were found between benefit, quality of the relationship, and mentoring assistance and the number of hours per month of mentor-protégé interaction, the number of mentor-protégé meetings per month, and the number of months the mentor worked with the protégé. Mentor-protégé acquaintance before the GGP fellowship was significantly correlated with cost, benefit, and mentoring assistance. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows agreement between mentor and protégé regarding the mentors' ability to promote the protégés, provide important technical skills, convey respect for the protégés, and serve as a friend and role model. Protégés tend to be more connected with their colleagues and with their profession, perhaps in part because the mentoring relationship facilitates networking opportunities provided by the mentor. In particular, excellent mentors can provide protégés with opportunities to meet other influential scholars at conferences and/or through various forms of correspondence. Such relationships can be helpful to the protégé in developing a constellation of mentoring relationships that may result in more successful research careers. Future studies should examine the relationship upon various outcomes.

The effect of gender stereotype activation on entrepreneurial intentions.

In this study, the impact of implicit and explicit activation of gender stereotypes on men's and women's intentions to pursue a traditionally masculine career, such as entrepreneurship, was examined. On the basis of stereotype activation theory, it was hypothesized that men and women would confirm the gender stereotype about entrepreneurship when it was presented implicitly but disconfirm it when it was presented explicitly. Hypotheses were tested by randomly assigning 469 business students to one of 6 experimental conditions and then measuring their entrepreneurial intentions. Results supported the hypothesis when entrepreneurship was associated with stereotypically masculine characteristics but not when it was associated with traditionally feminine characteristics. Men also had higher entrepreneurial intention scores compared with women when no stereotypical information about entrepreneurship was presented, suggesting that underlying societal stereotypes associating entrepreneurship with masculine characteristics may influence people's intentions. However, men and women reported similar intentions when entrepreneurship was presented as gender neutral, suggesting that widely held gender stereotypes can be nullified. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Disentangling role perceptions: how perceived role breadth, discretion, instrumentality, and efficacy relate to helping and taking charge.

The objective of this study was to empirically disentangle role perceptions related to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) that have been confounded in past research, investigate their unique relationships with both an affiliative (helping) and a challenging (taking charge) form of OCB, and determine their relative importance in explaining these 2 forms of OCB. The authors also examined whether role discretion and role breadth independently moderate the procedural justice-to-OCB relationship. The authors surveyed 225 engineers in India and their direct supervisors. The results showed that 3 of the 4 facets of OCB role perception explain unique variance in either helping or taking charge, and that role breadth moderates the relationships between procedural justice and both helping and taking charge. The authors discuss implications of these findings for OCB theory and research, as well as for managerial practice.

"All in a day's work": how follower individual differences and justice perceptions predict OCB role definitions and behavior.

The authors draw on theories of social exchange and prosocial behavior to explain how employee perceptions of procedural justice and individual differences in reciprocation wariness, empathic concern, and perspective taking function jointly as determinants of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) role definitions and behavior. As hypothesized, empirical findings from a field study show both direct and interactive effects of procedural justice perceptions and individual differences on OCB role definition. In turn, OCB role definitions not only predict OCB directly but also moderate the effects of procedural justice perceptions on OCB. The authors explore the implications of these findings for practice as well as research.

Personality and the goal-striving process: the influence of achievement goal patterns, goal level, and mental focus on performance and enjoyment.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mechanisms by which personality traits influence performance and satisfaction. Specifically, the authors examined how 3 personality characteristics derived from self-determination theory (autonomy, control, and amotivated orientations) influence performance and enjoyment through achievement goal patterns, goal level, and mental focus. Data were collected from 284 students at 5 points in time. In particular, mental focus emerged as an important aspect of the self-regulation process. The results suggest that global personality traits can help researchers to understand and predict the motivational strategies that people use while working toward goals in achievement settings.