comparative value priorities of chinese and new zealand

differences in leadership style. Sargent (198 l) stated that in general women and men,
including those who are managers in organizations, behave stereotypically to some
extent. Sargent advocated that managers of each sex adopt “the best” of the other sex’s
qualities to become more effective. Loden (1985) proposed two modes of management,
masculine: characterized by qualities such as competitiveness, hierarchical authority,
high control for the leader, and unemotional and analytic problem solving, and
feminine: characterized by cooperativeness, collaboration of managers and
subordinates, lower control for the leader, and problem solving based on intuition and
empathy as well as rationality. When gender is considered in studies, Eagly,
Johannesen-Schmidt, van Engen, and Vikenberg (2003) contend that women
demonstrate more “transformational leadership” behaviours, and are hence “better
leaders”. However, Manning (2002) found no gender differences in the style of
leadership exhibited by managers in her study; both sexes in top management roles in a
self-report study perceived themselves as more transformational than transactional
leaders.
In a study of leader effectiveness in China Vilkinas, Shen, and Cartan (2009) found
there were no significant differences in the leadership styles displayed by male and
female managers. This finding indicates a male-female inequity in employment
relations in China reported in Shen (2007) did not influence perceived leadership roles
and role effectiveness. Vilkinas (2000) found the same result amongst Australian
managers; the level of effectiveness influenced the perceptions of managers by their
significant others; gender had no effect.
In summary, broad reading of social science research leads to the suspicion that when
academic researchers set out to prove something their analyses most often provide that
proof. In research concerning sex differences, this could be the case. Much of the
literature indicates no sex differences in preferred leader behaviour.
� Dobbin and Platz (1986) in a meta-analysis 17 studies examining sex differences
in leadership indicate that male and female leaders exhibit equal amounts of
initiating structure and consideration and have equally satisfied subordinates.
Male leaders are rated as more effective than female leaders only in laboratory
settings.
� Eagly, Karau and Makhijani (1995) in a meta-analysis of research on the relative
effectiveness of women and men who occupy leadership and managerial roles
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