Alumna, Faculty Members Earn Award for Gender, Leadership Research

A UNC Charlotte graduate and two faculty members have received a best paper award for their research on gender and leadership.

Samantha Paustian-Underdahl, a faculty member at Florida International University who received her Ph.D. in organizational science and her master’s in industrial-organizational psychology from UNC Charlotte, with Lisa Slattery Walker, professor of sociology and organizational science, and David Woehr, professor of management, were recognized at the Academy of Management annual meeting in August for their work.

The researchers received the Saroj Parasuraman Outstanding Publication Award for their article “Gender and Perceptions of Leadership Effectiveness: A Meta-Analysis of Contextual Moderators.”

The researchers studied ratings of leaders across 99 studies across industries. They found that women leaders are perceived to be equally as effective as their male counterparts by their employees.

“When all leadership contexts are considered, men and women do not differ in perceived leadership effectiveness,” Paustian-Underdahl said. “As more women have entered into and succeeded in leadership positions, it is likely that people’s stereotypes associating leadership with masculinity have been dissolving slowly over time.”

Men had a tendency to rate themselves as more effective than women rated themselves, compared with the ratings by others.

“These findings are surprising given that men on average continue to be paid more and advance into higher managerial levels than women,” Paustian-Underdahl said. “Future research needs to examine why women are seen as equally (or more) effective leaders than men, yet are not being rewarded in the same ways.”

The Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division presents the award annually to the individual or individuals who published the best journal article in the field of gender and diversity in the calendar year preceding the award. The award serves to highlight scholarly activity in the field of gender and diversity and to encourage further scholarly activity within the field.

The Academy of Management Annual Meeting is the premier conference for more than 10,000 students, academics, and scholars in the field of management and organization science.

The American Psychological Association published the meta-analysis in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2014.

Paustian-Underdahl is a professor, researcher, and consultant whose work is dedicated to enhancing employee and organizational well-being and effectiveness. Her research focuses on the work-family interface, gender and diversity in organizations, and leadership, in the context of work and organizations. Her research is published in premier academic journals including the Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP), the Journal of Organizational Behavior (JOB), the Journal of Management, and the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP), among others, and has been presented at international and national conferences. She also served as the assistant editor for the Journal of Business and Psychology (JBP) in 2011, and currently serves on the editorial board for JOOP and JBP, and is an ad-hoc reviewer for JAP, JOB, and Human Resources Management.

Slattery Walker received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Arizona in 1998. She joined the UNC Charlotte faculty as Assistant Professor of Sociology in 1998, and was promoted to Professor in 2010. Her research focuses on small group interaction, nonverbal behaviors, identity, emotions, gender, and expectations. Her work has appeared in Social Psychology Quarterly, Social Science Research, Social Forces, Sex Roles and numerous other journals. She has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator on four National Science Foundation-funded projects. Recently, she has conducted projects on altering the status meaning of gender and, with Murray Webster, on how characteristics come to have status value. Current work she is doing with Anita Blanchard examines how groups develop in online environments.

Woehr is department chair and Belk Distinguished Professor of Business Administration. He is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Association for Psychological Science (APS). He received his Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1989. Dr. Woehr’s research on managerial assessment centers, job performance measurement, work-related attitudes and behavior, training development, and quantitative methods has appeared in a variety of books, journals, as papers presented at professional meetings, and as technical reports. Dr. Woehr currently serves as the editor for Human Performance as well as on the editorial boards for Organizational Research Methods, and the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.