Managerial sex role stereotyping among Chinese students in New Zealand

Abstract

The management literature in gender issues argues that in spite of the progress made in the last few decades, women still face difficulties in being accepted and recognised as managers because the manager’s role has been perceived as masculine. Gender stereotypes, hence, continue to become a barrier to women’s access to top management position. This study examines the perceptions of the relationship between sex role stereotypes and the perceived characteristics necessary for managerial success among Chinese students in New Zealand. The study sample consisted of 94 male Chinese students and 119 female Chinese students studying in New Zealand. In order to allow for cross-cultural comparisons, this study used a direct replication the Schein Descriptive Index (SDI) from previous study (Schein & Mueller, 1992).

The male and female perceptions on the relationship between sex role stereotypes and characteristics were analysed separately. The results revealed that both male and female Chinese students in New Zealand perceive that successful middle managers possess characteristics, attitudes and temperaments more commonly ascribed to men than to women in general. In addition, the results were compared with previous studies conducted in China and Japan, New Zealand, America, Britain, Canada, and Germany. Our findings conclude that Asian people are worse than Western people in respect to managerial sex role stereotyping, particularly, Chinese males who show a very strong degree of managerial gender stereotyping.

Multiple discriminant analysis was used to discriminate the relationship between men, women and middle managers on 92 items from the survey questionnaire. The analysis resulted in two separate canonical functions which distinguished between three groups women, men and managers).