For the Article provided :

Post, C. (2015). When is female leadership an advantage? Coordination requirements, team cohesion,

and team interaction norms. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36 (8), 1153-1175.

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1. Introduction (1 page)
1.1. General description of problem and area of research (context of study)
1.2. Specific research question(s)
1.3. What is this study supposed to add to the Body of Knowledge?

2. Summary of study.
In this section use a descriptive tone, be concise using 1-3 sentences per item. You are welcome to

use tables if needed. (3-6 pages).
2.1. Model (what predicts what, at the conceptual level)
2.1.1 Graphic version of model – if the authors don’t have one, please try to create it yourself)
2.2 Theory/ies used in the study.
2.2.1 Major hypothes(is)(es). Explain how they are formulated.
2.3. Methodological design
2.4. Variables’ definitions and measures. Validity and reliability of the scales.
2.5. Control factors/variables (if any) – implemented experimentally and/or statistically
2.6. Sample and population
2.7. Procedures – brief summary
2.8. Data analysis strategy
2.9. Claimed findings and contributions. Explain statistical tests used to test hypotheses and

findings. (R square, p-value, mediation, moderation, etc.)
2.10. Your overall assessment of the of the quality of the research

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evaluation and assessment, with description kept to a minimum. Use the questions below only as the

basis of your critique but customize them to your article’s evaluation. Some sections can be

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hypotheses, Hypotheses to variables, variables to measures, Model to methodological design, Model

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4.1.1. Who cares?
4.1.2. Implications for theory
4.1.3. Implications for practice
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4.2.1. Design, Measures, Analysis

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1. What are the dependent/independent/mediating/moderating variables in the study? Please

explain.
2. What is a unit of analysis?
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question for each hypothesis.
4. What are the researchers trying to do with the theory that underlies their research – to

find support for that theory? To show how the theory can be proven wrong? To compare between two

competing theories? To come up with their own theory? Or maybe something else?
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for each hypothesis).
6. Why is this study important and for whom?
7. How were the variables measured?
8. Are the measures that were used in the study reliable? What is the proof for that?
a. Are the measures that were used in the study valid? What is the proof for that?
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examples.
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reason for that – be very specific in your answer.
12. For the supported hypotheses, how significant are the results? (Explain statistical values

such as p value or R square).
13. What are the main findings of the study?
14. What are the study’s limitations? And why are these considered as limitations?
15. What are the study’s implications to business? And why are these considered as limitations?
16. In retrospective – How could that study be improved?
17. Does the study contribute anything to our knowledge about the workplace and ways to improve

people’s work experience? How?
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example, you will have to explain the results, meaning and interpretation of the tables and

figures.
19. How do you plan to expand this research study?

When is female leadership an advantage?
Coordination requirements, team cohesion, and
team interaction norms
CORINNE POST*
Lehigh University College of Business and Economics Bethlehem, PA, U.S.A.
Summary This study seeks to understand to what extent and in what contexts women leaders may be

advantageous for
teams. More specifically, this study examines how team leader gender relates to team cohesion,

cooperative
learning, and participative communication. Furthermore, the study argues that advantages derived

from
female leadership may be contingent on teams’ coordination requirements. I propose that as teams’

coordination
requirements increase (i.e., with functional diversity, size, and geographic dispersion), teams

with women
leaders report more cohesion and more cooperative and participative interaction norms than those

with men
leaders. I aggregated survey responses from the members of 82 teams in 29 organizations at the team

level.
Findings from hierarchical linear modeling analyses suggest that female leadership is more

positively associated
with cohesion on larger and more functionally diverse teams and more positively associated with

cooperative
learning and participative communication on larger and geographically dispersed teams. These

results
call for more research on boundary conditions on the relationship between leader gender and team

outcomes,
on the role of relational leadership on complex and diverse teams and, ultimately, on the potential

mediating
role of cohesion and team interaction norms on the relationship between leader gender and team

performance.
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Keywords: gender; teams; leadership; cohesion; interaction norms; cooperative learning;

participative
communication; functional diversity; size; geographic dispersion
In a network economy that increasingly emphasizes the importance of relational skills, shared

responsibilities,
coaching, and the nurturing and development of others (Adler, 2001; Fondas, 1997; Kanter & Zolner,

1986), the debate
over the existence of a female advantage in leadership has drawn considerable attention both in

academic circles
(Eagly & Carli, 2003; Rosette & Tost, 2010; Vecchio, 2003) and in the business press (Conlin, 2003;

Gerzema &
D’Antonio, 2013; Heffernan, 2002; Klotz, 2011; LaVine, 2014; Sharpe, 2000). The argument that there

is a female
leadership advantage posits that because women, compared with men, tend to be more relational, more

likely to
emphasize teamwork and collaboration over self-interest, and more participative in their leadership

(Eagly &
Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003), female leaders are more

effective
than male leaders (Grant, 1988; Rosener, 1990). Yet, evidence for a female advantage in leadership

is decidedly
mixed (Butterfield & Grinnell, 1999; Eagly, 2007; Paustian-Underdahl, Walker, & Woehr, 2014).
This study seeks to understand to what extent and in what contexts female leadership may be

advantageous. One
explanation for the mixed evidence may be that the extent to which leader gender influences team

outcomes depends
on the characteristics of the teams being led. For example, teams may benefit more from relational

leadership as their
coordination requirements increase (Burke et al., 2006). In addition, the mixed results for the

female leadership
advantage may reflect variation in the control leaders have on team performance relative to other,

more proximal
outcomes, such as team cohesion and team interaction norms. Leader characteristics (e.g., gender)

are likely to
*Correspondence to: Corinne Post, College of Business and Economics, 621 Taylor Street, Bethlehem,

PA 18015, U.S.A. E-mail: cgp208@lehigh.
edu
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 09 January 2014
Revised 04 May 2015, Accepted 08 May 2015
Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 36, 1153–1175 (2015)
Published online 24 June 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI:

10.1002/job.2031
Research Article
explain more variation in proximal team outcomes (e.g., team climate and interaction norms) than in

distal outcomes
(e.g., team performance and innovation).
This study contributes to the debate on the female advantage in leadership in two novel and

important ways. First,
it seeks to understand in what contexts female leadership may be an advantage by identifying

coordination requirements
as contextual factors that create situations in which women leaders may be more successful than

men.
Consideration of context is central to better understand manifestations of gender differences in

leadership outcomes
(Butterfield & Grinnell, 1999; Liden & Antonakis, 2009; Vecchio, 2003). Role congruity studies

(Eagly & Karau,
2002), for example, have documented that leader gender interacts with the gender typing of leaders’

roles to influence
subjective evaluations of leadership (Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani, 1995; Rosette & Tost, 2010;

Vecchio, 2002).
This study differs from the work on role-congruity by identifying team coordination requirements

(rather than gender
role and leadership role congruity) as a contextual factor that may exacerbate leader gender

differences in team
outcomes. Drawing on the concept of coordination requirements, I propose that as teams become more

functionally
diverse, larger or when they are geographically dispersed, teams led by women will report more

cohesion and more
cooperative and participative interaction norms than those led by men. This happens, I argue,

because teams with
higher coordination requirements (i.e., teams that are more functionally diverse, larger, and

geographically dispersed)
may require a more relational approach from their leaders, and a relational approach to leadership

is more
readily available and accessible to women than to men.
As a second contribution, this study extends the present debate on leader gender and team outcomes

by examining
how team leader gender may relate to team cohesion and to team interaction norms. Previous team-

level studies considering
gender differences in leadership have primarily focused on team-level performance outcomes or

evaluations
of leader performance. This study differs from those studies by focusing on the quality of the

relationship between
individuals and their team (e.g., cohesion) and on team interaction norms (i.e., cooperative

learning and participative
communication). I chose this focus because leaders may have a greater impact on proximal outcomes

such as these
than on team performance, which is more distally related to team leadership. Further, by relying on

members’ evaluation
of team cohesion and team interaction norms rather than on members’ evaluations of team leaders,

this study
may be able to mitigate the risk of gender biases that, as others have documented, may influence

leader evaluations
(Elsesser & Lever, 2011; Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004).
While performance evaluations of leaders are an important consideration in research on gender and

leadership
effectiveness, an examination of leader gender effects on team cohesion and team interaction norms

is sorely missing
from this body of research. This is the case despite evidence that leadership influences both the

quality of the relationship
between individuals and their team (Burke, Fiore, & Salas, 2003; Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2002)

and
team norms (Lott & Lott, 1965; Taggar & Ellis, 2007), which is legitimate, socially shared

standards of appropriate
behavior (Birenbaum & Sagarin, 1976) that influence how members of a team “perceive and interact

with one
another, approach decisions, and solve problems” (Chatman & Flynn, 2001: 956). This study focuses

on team
cohesion, cooperative learning, and participative communication as outcomes of team leader gender

because these
outcomes are indicative of the quality of the relationship between individuals and their team and

of other-centered,
cooperative team norms that emphasize cooperation, shared objectives, and mutual interests among

members
(Chatman & Flynn, 2001) and because research suggests that relational individuals (e.g., women)

show more concern
for others and for the collective.
Theoretical background
The expectation that female leaders will foster more cohesion, cooperative learning, and

participative communication
than male leaders rests on the argument that female leaders are more likely to have a relational

self-construal
than male leaders—that is, a conception of themselves as relatively interdependent, relational, and

interconnected
(Cross & Madson, 1997; Markus & Kitayama, 1991)—which, research finds, fosters team cohesion and

communal
interaction norms such as cooperative learning and participative communication.
1154 C. POST
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 36, 1153–1175 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/job
A large body of work points to stereotypical differences in the self-construal of men and women

(for a review, see
Cross & Madson, 1997; Eagly & Wood, 1999; Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000) that are also discernible

among
organizational leaders and managers (e.g., Cavallo & Brienza, 2006; Eagly et al., 2003; Mandell &

Pherwani,
2003; van Emmerik, Gardner, Wendt, & Fischer, 2010; Zenger & Folkman, 2012): on average, women’s

selfconstrual
appears to be more relational or interdependent and men’s self-construal more independent (Gabriel

&
Gardner, 1999). This may explain why, compared with men, women display more empathy toward others

(Cundiff
& Komarraju, 2008; Dimberg & Lundquist, 1990; Eagly, 2009; Feingold, 1994; Fukushima & Hiraki,

2006);
are more concerned with establishing, maintaining, or repairing close personal relationships with

others (Eagly &
Johnson, 1990); are less likely to seek to dominate others in resolving conflicts (Holt & DeVore,

2005); and are more
supportive in their communication with others (Aries, 1996; Tannen, 1990) as they inquire, listen

carefully, and
create “space for others to express themselves” (White, Mcmillen, & Baker, 2001: 41).
Empirical evidence about managers also supports the suggestion that female leaders are, on average,

more relational
than male leaders in their self-construal (e.g., Mandell & Pherwani, 2003; Zenger & Folkman, 2012):

female
managers exhibit more emotional and social competence (Cavallo & Brienza, 2006; Groves, 2005;

Taylor & Hood,
2011); show more affiliative concerns and behaviors toward others (van Emmerik et al., 2010),

including subordinates
(Eagly et al., 2003; Luxen, 2005); are more inclusive and participative (Adams & Funk, 2012; Eagly

&
Johnson, 1990; McInerney-Lacombe, Bilimoria, & Salipante, 2008); and are more likely to approach

decisionmaking
cooperatively when competing interests are at stake (Bart & McQueen, 2013).
Female leaders, relational self-construal, cohesion, cooperative learning, and participative
communication
I argue that female leaders are more likely than their male counterparts to facilitate team

cohesion, cooperative learning,
and participative communication. Women are more likely than their male counterparts to construe

themselves as
relational. In addition, relational activities facilitate team members’ convergence around team

community and norms
of collective orientation (Fletcher, 1998), such as cohesion, cooperative learning, and

participative communication.
Leaders’ centrality on teams provides them with greater influence and control over others

(Lockwood, Jordan, &
Kunda, 2002). Because self-construal regulates affect, motivation, and cognition in powerful ways

(Markus
& Kitayama, 1991), it stands to reason that leaders’ self-construal influences members’ behaviors

in ways that shape
the quality of the relationship between team members and the team (e.g., cohesion) and team

interaction norms
(e.g., cooperative learning and participative communication.)
Because women leaders, more so than men leaders, construe themselves as relational, I argue that

teams led by
women are likely to report more team cohesion than those led by men. Cohesion, here, describes “the

process(es)
keeping members of a small group or larger social entity (…) together and united in varying

degrees” (Dion,
2000: 7). Cross and Madson (1997) suggest that individuals with a relational self-construal derive

positive feelings
from the development and maintenance of close relationships. By extension, it stands to reason that

leaders with
more of a relational self-construal (i.e., women leaders) will seek to establish frequent, positive

interactions with
team members and infuse their bonds with affective concern. The quality of these relationships, in

turn, is likely
to positively influence members’ attitudes, including their desire to stay in the team,

identification, and satisfaction
with the team, which are central aspects of cohesion. Relational leaders, because of their focus on

relationships
among team members, may also bring about positive affect and energy (Carmeli, Ben-Hador, Waldman, &

Rupp,
2009), which may enhance members’ positive affect toward the collective, thereby further enhancing

cohesion.
Taken together, this suggests that leaders’ relational self-construal may enhance team cohesion.

Cohesion is a
multi-dimensional construct that includes both task and social dimensions (Carron, Widmeyer, &

Brawley, 1985;
Griffith, 1988; Zaccaro, 1991). This study theorizes that relational differences among leaders

affect team cohesion
and interaction norms. Therefore, it focuses on the social (rather than task) dimension of

cohesion. In addition, this
study is concerned with team members’ perception of team cohesion (rather than with an objective

measure of
WHEN IS FEMALE LEADERSHIP AN ADVANTAGE? 1155
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 36, 1153–1175 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/job
cohesion). Hence, this study relies on Bollen and Hoyle’s (1990) conceptualization of cohesion as

“an individual’s
sense of belonging to a particular group and his or her feelings of morale associated with

membership in the group”
(p. 482).
Because women leaders, more so than men leaders, construe themselves as relational, I theorize that

teams led
by women are also likely to report more cooperative learning than those led by men. Cooperative

learning refers
to team norms that stress members’ interdependence in knowledge creation and reciprocity in

learning (Janz
& Prasarnphanich, 2003; Johnson, Johnson, & Anderson, 1983). Leaders with more of a relational

self-construal
(e.g., women leaders) may be especially likely and motivated to emphasize cooperative learning.

This reasoning
stems from evidence that individuals with a relational self-construal tend to pay careful attention

to how information
is embedded in relationships (Cross & Madson, 1997). They tend to think of their outcomes as

intertwined with
those of the group (Cross & Madson, 1997). When individuals construe themselves as interdependent,

they are more
motivated to promote group-relevant goals (e.g., Bond & Hwang, 1986) and are more likely to display

cooperative
behaviors (Wagner, 1995). This study draws on Janz and Prasarnphanich’s (2003) conceptualization of

cooperative
learning as composed of positive outcome interdependence (i.e., team members’ perceptions that they

cannot be
successful unless every other team member is also successful) and promotive interactions (i.e., the

extent to which
members educate and encourage each other to accomplish tasks and promote one another’s success).
Finally, because women leaders, more so than men leaders, construe themselves as relational, I

anticipate that
teams led by women are likely to report more participative communication than those led by men.

Participative communication
refers to communication norms characterized by high levels of transparency, mindfulness,

participation,
and input (Jassawalla & Sashittal, 2006). Transparency indicates awareness and openness that come

from the intense
exchange of information (Nambisan, 2002), while participation and input represent the extent to

which team members
exercise their voice (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007). My contention—that leaders with more of a

relational
self-construal (e.g., women leaders) are likely to promote participative communication—is informed

by research
linking individuals’ and leaders’ relational self-construal with various aspects of participative

communication. For
example, Kim, Hunter, Miyahara, Horvath, Bresnahan and Yoon (1996) show that individuals with a

relational
self-construal seek to avoid hurting hearers’ feelings. Relational individuals’ concern with how

one’s communications
may affect the feelings of others promotes mindfulness in conversations and attention to and

solicitation of
others’ viewpoints. In another study, Cross, Bacon and Morris (2000) find that individuals with a

relational selfconstrual
are more inclined to consider the needs and wishes of others when they make decisions. And, in a

series
of experiments, Brewer and Gardner (1996) demonstrate that individuals primed with relational

schemas perceive
ambiguous attitude statements as more similar to their own attitudes and behave more inclusively.

Others have
theorized that leaders with a relational self-construal more easily relate to and trust their

followers (Brower,
Schoorman, & Tan, 2000). Taken together, this suggests that leaders with a stronger relational

self-construal are
likely to stimulate participative communication, for example, requesting and valuing others’

opinions and ideas
and promoting information sharing with and among team members.
In summary, because female leaders are more likely to be relational than male leaders and because

relational
leaders tend to bring about team cohesion, cooperative learning, and participative communication,

one would, therefore,
expect teams led by women to report more cohesion, cooperative learning, and participative

communication
than those led by men.
The female leadership advantage in context: team coordination requirements
When managing teams of employees, coordination is critically important. Yet, some teams require

more coordination
than the others (Espinosa, Slaughter, Kraut, & Herbsleb, 2007). Three characteristics of teams

represent high
team coordination requirements: functional diversity, size, and geographic dispersion. Functional

diversity requires
high coordination because the more dissimilar members are in terms of their functional backgrounds,

the more likely
members are to interpret problems and data differently, to lack a common understanding of

appropriate responses
1156 C. POST
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 36, 1153–1175 (2015)
DOI: 10.1002/job
and behaviors, and to draw on dissimilar skills and knowledge. In addition, functional diversity is

likely to create
strains that impede the development of cohesion (Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Keller, 2001). In

particular, members
may categorize each other according to their functional representation (Hogg & Terry, 2000; Tajfel,

1981) and
develop more interpersonal attraction to individuals representing similar functions while keeping

more distance
from, and sometimes competing with, individuals from other organizational functions (Byrne, 1971),

for example
by engaging in self-serving behaviors (Chatman & Flynn, 2001). Team size and team member geographic

dispersion
also require high levels of coordination for team tasks (Espinosa et al., 2007), because, on teams

with these characteristics,
it is “difficult for members to communicate and coordinate with each other and effectively manage

their
mutual dependencies” (Espinosa et al., 2007: 613). As teams get larger and when they are

geographically dispersed,
members also find it increasingly difficult to understand and trust each other. For example, in a

study of top management
teams, Amason and Sapienza (1997) show that as team size increases, members feel less joint

responsibility
and shared goals. In documenting the challenges of eliciting trust on geographically dispersed

teams, Jarvenpaa and
Leidner (1999) further suggest that even when swift trust emerges on teams, it is fragile and

fleeting.
I propose that on more functionally diverse teams, larger teams, and on geographically dispersed

teams—all of
which require considerable coordination—women leaders are more likely than men to foster cohesion,

cooperative
learning, and participative communication. Without relational leadership, teams with higher

coordination requirements
may find it difficult to succeed in their efforts (Fletcher & Kaeufer, 2002). Collaboration

mechanisms, for
example, enable functionally diverse teams to access the knowledge embedded among members of the

team
(Montoya, Massey, & Lockwood, 2011). Relational leaders may be well positioned to help teams become

more
aware of the unique assets each team member brings to the group and of the interdependence among

these assets.
Additionally, relational leaders are likely to develop team collaboration mechanisms. By creating

trust with and
among team members, relational leaders are also better at eliciting a sense of responsibility and

eagerness toward
learning from and developing the team (Carmeli et al., 2009; Fletcher & Kaeufer, 2002). In the

following discussion,
I elaborate on the reasons why women leaders, who are more likely to have a relational self-

construal, are also more
likely than men leaders to be successful at fostering cohesion, cooperative learning, and

participative communication
on teams that are more functionally diverse, larger in size, and geographically dispersed.
As functional diversity increases, teams’ likelihood of achieving communal team outcomes, such as

cohesion, cooperative
learning, and participative communication, may be especially contingent on team leaders’ gender,

because
female leaders, on average, are likely to have more of a relational self-construal, and therefore

more of a relational
approach to leadership. The relational approach, in placing value on the outcomes embedded in the

connection
among members, seems particularly beneficial when members represent a variety of functions because

it motivates
team members to overcome functional social categorization, biases, and stereotyping (Hornsey &

Hogg, 2000; Sherif,
1958). Further, teams that develop a relational closeness seem to be able to mitigate the otherwise

negative effect
of conflict on other-oriented, communal group behaviors (Rispens, Greer, Jehn, & Thatcher, 2011).
Leaders’ demonstrations of empathy, caring values, and affective concern for others may improve the

ability
of functionally diverse teams to develop cohesion and other-oriented team norms (Druskat &

Pescosolido,
2006; Kirkman, Li, & Porter, 2014). For example, in a study of team-level citizenship behaviors in

the automotive industry,
Pearce and Herbik (2004) found that when leaders encouraged teamwork, members were significantly

more
likely to engage in behaviors that were supportive of the team, such as mindfulness and altruism.

Finally, cultivating
team members’ ability for perspective taking may help foster higher quality team relationships

between team
members and the team and more cooperative and participative interaction norms on functionally

diverse teams. Indeed,
perspect