Consensus report shows burnout prevalent in health care community
October 23, 2019
Science Daily/Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Clinician burnout is affecting between one-third and one-half of all of U.S. nurses and physicians, and 45 to 60% of medical students and residents, according to a National Academy of Medicine (NAM) report released today.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is among 32 institutions and foundations that sponsored the 296-page report, "Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being," which investigates the causes of widespread clinician burnout and offers solutions to address the problem at its source.
"There's an all too direct connection between clinician burnout and health care safety and quality. While clinician burnout isn't a new problem, its worsening prevalence and impact are due to system factors inherent in the modern health care system," said Matthew Weinger, MD, professor of Anesthesiology and Norman Ty Smith Chair in Patient Safety and Medical Simulation at VUMC, and a member of the NAM authoring committee for the new report.
"The Committee came to realize that addressing clinician burnout will require a deliberate and substantive health care system redesign with a focus on those activities that deliver the most value to patients while enabling and empowering clinicians to deliver high-quality care," he said.
The report discusses key issues that need to be addressed:
· Clinician burnout needs to be tackled early in professional development and special stressors in the learning environment need to be recognized. Leaders in health care and health professions education have a responsibility to foster, monitor and continuously improve work and learning environments.
· While some health care technologies appear to contribute to clinician burnout (poorly designed electronic health record systems, for example), there is real potential for well-designed and implemented technologies to help reduce burnout.
· Federal and state governments, other payors and regulators and the health care industry itself have important roles to play in preventing clinician burnout. Increasing administrative burdens and distracting clinicians from the care of their patients can directly affect burnout.
· Medical societies, state licensing boards, specialty certification boards, medical education and health care organizations all need to take concrete steps to reduce the stigma for clinicians seeking help for psychological distress and make assistance more easily available.
The report concludes with goals and recommendations centered on creating more positive work and learning environments, reducing administrative burden, enabling technology solutions, providing more support to clinicians and learners, and investing in research to address clinician burnout.
The new report is the latest in a series that includes the landmark volumes, "To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System" (2000) and "Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century" (2001).
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191023172121.htm
Science demonstrates that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Researchers find that early-career failure promotes future professional success
October 1, 2019
Science Daily/Northwestern University
Through advanced data analysis, researchers have established a causal relationship between failure and future success.
Scientists at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management have established a causal relationship between failure and future success, proving German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's adage that "what does not kill me makes me stronger."
The researchers utilized advanced analytics to assess the relationship between professional failure and success for young scientists. They found, in contrast to their initial expectations, that failure early in one's career leads to greater success in the long term for those who try again.
"The attrition rate does increase for those who fail early in their careers," lead author Yang Wang said. "But those who stick it out, on average, perform much better in the long term, suggesting that if it doesn't kill you, it really does make you stronger."
The study, "Early-career setback and future career impact," will be published Oct. 1, in Nature Communications.
The findings provide a counter-narrative to the Matthew Effect, which posits a "rich get richer" theory that success begets more success.
"It turns out that, historically, while we have been relatively successful in pinpointing the benefits of success, we have failed to understand the impact of failure," said Dashun Wang, corresponding author and associate professor of management and organizations at Kellogg.
Methodology and findings
Researchers analyzed records of scientists who, early in their careers, applied for R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between 1990 and 2005. They utilized the NIH's evaluation scores to separate individuals into two groups: (1) the "near-misses" whose scores were just below the threshold that received funding and (2) the "just-made-its" whose scores were just above that threshold.
Researchers then considered how many papers each group published, on average, over the next 10 years and how many of those papers turned out to be hits, as determined by the number of citations those papers received.
Analysis revealed that individuals in the near-miss group received less funding, but published just as many papers, and more hit papers, than individuals in the just-made-it group.
The researchers found that individuals in the near-miss funding group were 6.1% more likely to publish a hit paper over the next 10 years compared to scientists in the just-made-it group.
"The fact that the near-miss group published more hit papers than the just-made-it group is even more surprising when you consider that the just-made-it group received money to further their work, while the near-miss group did not," said Benjamin Jones, study co-author and the Gordon and Llura Gund Family Professor of Entrepreneurship at Kellogg.
Researchers wondered whether the effect could be attributed to a "weed-out" phenomenon -- that the early-career failure caused some scientists in the near-miss group to exit the field, leaving only the most-determined members. Further analysis revealed that while the attrition rate after failure was 10 percent higher for the near-miss group, that alone could not account for the greater success later in their careers.
After testing a number of other possible explanations for the long-term success of the near-miss group, researchers could not find any supporting evidence for any of their hypotheses, suggesting other unobservable factors, such as grit or lessons learned, might be at play.
The research does not contradict the Matthew Effect, but rather suggests a complementary path for those who fail.
"There is value in failure," Dashun Wang said. "We have just begun expanding this research into a broader domain and are seeing promising signals of similar effects in other fields."
All three researchers involved in the study are faculty in Northwestern's Center for the Science of Science and Innovation, which is dedicated to understanding the conditions that lead to scientific success and failure.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191001084008.htm
Heterogeneity in the workplace: 'Diversity is very important to us -- but not in my team'
September 12, 2019
Science Daily/University of Basel
Diversity in the workplace is highly sought in theory, but often still lacking in practice. A new study shows that people tend to favor diversity for others, but prefer to work with people who are as similar to themselves as possible. A team of researchers from the universities of Basel and Koblenz-Landau published their report in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Today, many large corporations tout the importance of diversity on their websites, but current statistics show that the typical manager still tends to be white and male. Obviously, there is a dissonance between the desire to bring about diversity and corporate reality.
A team of researchers led by Dr. Mariela Jaffé from the Department of Psychology at the University of Basel studied this discrepancy from a social psychology perspective. This involved conducting four studies with a sampling of 605 people in total. The results showed a significant difference in how people select colleagues for themselves versus for other people.
How do people value diversity?
People have a wide spectrum of opinions concerning diversity. On the one hand, people see value in diversity, which can contribute a variety of perspectives, new ideas and innovative solutions. On the other hand, they assume that it might be difficult to work with someone who has completely different views, speaks a different language, or has a different style of work.
The actual value they attribute to diversity depends on the decision-making perspective. Building on current theories, the researchers have shown that doubts about the practicability of diversity have a greater weight if a person is directly affected. In other words, when a person's own work group is involved, they tend to prefer team members who are similar to themselves, whereas when people make decisions for other people, these reservations play a lesser role. Typically, a person will then put together a more diverse team.
Consequences of differing preferences
This leads to the conclusion that organizations could become more diverse if hiring and team decisions were not (only) made by those directly affected, but (also) by other people who are not directly involved in the group's daily work later.
"Research shows that people's perception of and the importance they attach to diversity have key implications for people's decision making," explains lead author Dr. Jaffé. "In a next step it would be important to gain a better understanding of the evaluation of diversity to discuss and resolve concerns about potential disadvantages. This way, people may then be more willing to include dissimilar people in their own teams."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190912120539.htm
A little kindness goes a long way for worker performance and health
September 10, 2019
Science Daily/Penn State
Small gestures of kindness by employers can have big impacts on employees' health and work performance, according to an international team of researchers. The team specifically examined the effects of employers enhancing the lunches of bus drivers in China with fresh fruit and found that it reduced depression among the drivers and increased their confidence in their own work performance.
"An ultimate solution to improve worker performance and health could be big pay raises or reduced workloads, but when those solutions aren't feasible, we found that even small offerings can make a big difference," said Bu Zhong, associate professor of journalism at Penn State.
According to Zhong, bus drivers are vulnerable to specific health problems due in large part to their stressful working environment, which often includes irregular shift schedules, unpredictable traffic conditions and random meal times. In addition, the sedentary nature of driving and continuous whole-body vibration contributes to fatigue, musculoskeletal problems such as lower-back pain, cardiovascular diseases and gastrointestinal issues.
Zhong and his colleagues conducted an experiment with 86 Shenzen bus drivers. During the experiment, on-duty bus drivers were given, in addition to their typical box lunch which includes no fruit, a serving of fresh fruit -- either an apple or a banana -- for three weeks. The cost of the fruit was 73 cents per meal.
The team distributed surveys to the bus drivers at three time intervals -- one week before the experiment began, once in the middle of the three-week-long experiment and one week following the end of the experiment. The findings appear today in the International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics.
The researchers assessed depression with a personal health questionnaire that is recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The scale consisted of eight items, asking the participants to rate, for example, how often during the past two weeks they felt down, depressed or hopeless, and had trouble falling or staying asleep.
"Bus drivers reported significantly decreased depression levels one week after the experiments ended compared to one week before it began," said Zhong.
The team measured self-efficacy -- perceived confidence and ability to implement the necessary actions and tasks so as to achieve specific goals -- using the 10-item General Self-Efficacy Scale. Items on this scale included, "I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough" and "I can usually handle whatever comes my way."
"We found that self-efficacy was significantly higher in the middle of the experiment week than in the week after the experiment ended," said Zhong.
Zhong concluded that while eating an extra apple at lunchtime may seem trivial, its impact can be large.
"This research suggests that employees can be sensitive to any improvement at the workplace," he said. "Before an ultimate solution is possible, some small steps can make a difference -- one apple at a time."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190910154708.htm
Hiring committees that don't believe in gender bias promote fewer women
August 26, 2019
Science Daily/University of British Columbia
Is gender bias in hiring really a thing?
Opinions vary, but a new study by a UBC psychologist and researchers in France reveals that hiring committees who denied it's a problem were less likely to promote women.
"Our evidence suggests that when people recognize women might face barriers, they are more able to put aside their own biases," said Toni Schmader, a UBC psychology professor and Canada Research Chair in social psychology. "We don't see any favourability for or against male or female candidates among those committees who believe they need to be vigilant to the possibility that biases could be creeping in to their decision-making."
The study was unique in that findings were based on actual decisions made by 40 hiring committees in France, charged with filling elite research positions with the National Committee for Scientific Research (CNRS) for two consecutive years. Past research in this area has relied mostly on hypothetical scenarios, such as presenting a large sample of participants with identical resumés bearing either male or female names and asking who they would hire. By contrast, the decisions made during this study had real impact on scientists' careers.
With cooperation from the CNRS, the researchers were able to first measure how strongly hiring committee members associated men with science. They did this using an "implicit association test" that flashes words on a computer screen and measures how quickly participants are able to assign those words to a particular category. People who make a strong association between men and science have to think a bit longer, and react more slowly, when challenged to pair female-related words with science concepts.
Both men and women on the hiring committees tended to show the science = male association, which is difficult to hide in such a test.
"There's research suggesting that you can document a 'think science, think male' implicit association showing up with kids as early as elementary school," Schmader said. "We learn associations from what we see in our environment. If we don't see a lot of women who are role models in science, then we learn to associate science more with men than women."
These implicit associations are distinct from people's explicit beliefs about women in science. In a separate survey that asked panellists directly whether women in science careers are impacted by such things as discrimination and family constraints, some hiring committees minimized those issues. Others acknowledged them.
When the researchers compared these implicit and explicit beliefs with the actual hiring outcomes, they learned that committees attuned to the barriers women face were more likely to overcome their implicit science/male associations when selecting candidates for the job. Among committees that believed "science isn't sexist," those which implicitly associated science more with men promoted fewer women. The difference was especially pronounced in Year 2 of the study, when committee members would have been less conscious of the fact that their selections were being studied.
The findings show that awareness and acknowledgement of the barriers women face might be key to making sure implicit biases don't affect hiring decisions. They also point to the importance of educating hiring committees about gender bias and how to guard against it, Schmader said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190826112653.htm
Maximizing alertness and productivity on the nightshift
August 9, 2019
Science Daily/University of South Australia
If you're one of Australia's 1.4 million shiftworkers, eating at irregular times is just par for the course -- but have you ever stopped to think about the impact this might have on your body?
In a new research study by the University of South Australia, researchers have investigated whether altering food intake during the nightshift could optimise how shiftworkers feel during the night and reduce their sleepiness.
Testing the impact of either a snack, a meal, or no food at all, the study found that a simple snack was the best choice for maximising alertness and productivity.
Lead researcher and UniSA PhD candidate Charlotte Gupta says the finding has the potential to help thousands of shiftworkers who work during the night.
"In today's 24/7 economy, working the nightshift is increasingly common, with many industries -- health care, aviation, transport and mining -- requiring employees to work around the clock," Gupta says.
"As a nightshift worker, finding ways to manage your alertness when your body is naturally primed for sleep can be really challenging.
"We know that many nightshift workers eat on-shift to help them stay awake, but until now, no research has shown whether this is good or bad for their health and performance.
"This is the first study to investigate how workers feel and perform after eating different amounts of food.
"The findings will inform the most strategic eating patterns on-shift and can hopefully contribute to more alert and better performing workers."
In Australia, of the 1.4 million shiftworkers, 15 per cent (or over 200,000) regularly work a night or evening shift. Working at night-time conflicts with a person's internal circadian clock, making it harder to stay focused and awake. Managing fatigue is therefore critical for workplace health and safety.
Over a 7-day simulated shiftwork protocol, the study assessed the impact of three eating conditions (a meal comprising 30 per cent of energy intake over a 24-hour period (for example, a sandwich, muesli bar, and apple); a snack comprising 10 percent of energy intake (for example, just the muesli bar and apple); and no food intake at all) each consumed at 12:30 am. The 44 participants were randomly split into the three test-conditions and were asked to report on their levels of hunger, gut reaction and sleepiness.
The results showed that while all participants reported increased sleepiness and fatigue, and decreased vigour across the nightshift, consuming a snack reduces the impact of these feelings more so than a meal or no food at all. The snack group also reported having no uncomfortable feelings of fullness as noted by the meal group.
Gupta says the next step in the research is to investigate the different types of snacks and how they affect shiftworkers differently.
"Now that we know that consuming a snack on nightshift will optimise your alertness and performance without any adverse effects, we're keen to delve more into the types of snacks shiftworkers are eating," Gupta says.
"Lots of shiftworkers snack multiple times over a nightshift, and understanding the different macronutrient balances is important, especially as many report consuming foods high in fat, such as chips, chocolate and fast foods.
"We're keen to assess how people feel and perform after a healthy snack versus a less-healthy, but potentially more satisfying snack like chocolate or lollies.
"Ultimately, the goal is to help Australian shiftworkers on the nightshift to stay alert, be safe, and feel healthy."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190809104947.htm
Tips for Keeping Your Employee Wellness on Track This Holiday Season
Contributed by Cassidy Webb; cassidy@recoverylocal.org
The time between Thanksgiving and the New Year brings many challenges to workplaces in regard to work performance, sickness, and productivity. Therefore, keeping employees excited, engaged, productive, and healthy is difficult during the holiday season. Productive and healthy employees are crucial for the success of any company - small or large. When employees become caught up in the chaos of the holidays, they may let go of their healthy habits and become preoccupied at work.
The holidays are known for being a time of joy, hearty food, and family gatherings. However, anticipation and preparation of the season can lead to high levels of stress and the emergence of unhealthy habits. It’s important to recognize that heightened levels of stress can put a damper on your employees and your business. Fortunately, there are many ways you can keep your employee wellness on track this holiday season.
The Connection Between Employee Wellness and Productivity
Employees who don’t have access to resources to help them maintain optimal mental and physical health have higher rates of presenteeism, being physically at work but mentally unable to perform at their best. Studies have shown that the costs attributed to presenteeism are 2 to 3 times higher than typical health care expenses. Employees are more likely to suffer from presenteeism during the holiday season as they are preoccupied with everything they need to do to prepare for the holidays.
However, when employers take steps to improve workplace wellness, employees stay happier and healthier. As a result, they feel more valued in the workplace and are more eager to perform better. This holiday season, consider taking these steps to help improve your employee morale and keep productivity high.
Show Your Appreciation
When employees feel unappreciated, they are more likely to feel unmotivated and disengaged at work. One study found that managers who express their gratitude and appreciation towards their employees have harder working and happier employees. Due to the stress employees may feel during the holidays, showing a little appreciation can go a long way. Nobody wants to feel unappreciated at work, so consider giving your employees extra praise, buying them a company lunch, or writing a personal card to each employee thanking them for their hard work. To go the extra mile, surprise your employees with a holiday bonus or extra vacation time. This year, find a way to show your employees just how much you care.
Encourage Employees to Take PTO
PTO is incredibly important for employee wellness, and many employees find that they have leftover PTO at the end of the year that needs to be used up. Many employees also have substantial workloads that make them reluctant to take advantage of vacation days and PTO. However, overworked employees are at risk of becoming unhealthy due to exhaustion, impatience, and low output. As a result, companies that care about their employees’ wellbeings encourage them to take advantage of PTO.
When you encourage PTO, you are letting your employees know that it’s okay to stay home when you are physically or mentally unwell. Making it known that you encourage vacation time, sick days, and mental health days allows your employees to take care of themselves, which, in turn, makes for better employees. When you encourage employees to utilize PTO before the holidays, you allow them to run last-minute errands or prepare for holiday festivities that they may be preoccupied with. Then, when they return to work, there is less to stress about the holidays and more time and energy can be put into their work. Communicate to your employees that it is okay to take time off during the holidays, as it will help keep them more productive and healthy.
Provide Healthy Office Snacks
Everyone knows how easy it is to over-indulge in holiday sweets, heavy meals, and drinking during the holidays. Unfortunately, unhealthy eating, even for a short period of time, can be detrimental to a person’s health, mood, and productivity. A poor diet not only means poor performance, but it can lead to fatigue, decreased mental effectiveness, low energy levels, irritability, higher stress levels, and decreased productivity.
Depending on the size of your business, pick up some healthy snacks for the office or have them catered to the office. When employees avoid the after lunch sugar crash, they will have more energy throughout the day. It’s so easy to steer away from healthy eating during the holidays, but providing healthy office snacks is a great way to encourage nutrition in the workplace.
Participate in a Team Charity Event
Helping others is always a rewarding thing to do, and there are plenty of opportunities to help others during the holiday season. When you volunteer as a team, you can use this opportunity as a team-building exercise. Get your office together and volunteer somewhere you all feel passionate about. Volunteering together can not only boost corporate morale, but it can improve employee retention and job satisfaction. Whether you volunteer at a soup kitchen or support a needy family, you and your employees can work together to help spread holiday cheer.
Show your employees how much you care this holiday season by using some of these tools to improve workplace wellness. You might be surprised how far little changes go!
Paid family leave improves vaccination rates in infants
September 9, 2019
Science Daily/Binghamton University
Parents who take paid family leave after the birth of a newborn are more likely to have their child vaccinated on time compared to those who do not, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York. The effect is stronger on families living below the poverty line.
"Currently, many people do not vaccinate their child within the recommended schedule and are late," said Solomon Polachek, professor of economics at Binghamton University. "Often this might be due to parental time constraints. When an infant is really young, these immunizations are critical, since infants are at a higher risk of infection and illness if not vaccinated properly."
In 2004, California was the first state to implement a Paid Family Leave (PFL) policy, allowing private-sector employees up to six weeks of leave with partial wage replacement to care for a newborn baby. This time not only helps parents settle into their new caregiving roles, but it also allows them time to make vital parental decisions, such as ensuring their child is vaccinated on time.
Binghamton University PhD student Agnitra Roy Choudhury, who conducted this study under Polachek's direction, looked at the National Immunization Survey to collect data regarding child vaccination rates between 19-35 months old. Specifically, the researchers looked at children born before and after the PFL policy was implemented in California and whether children received vaccinations on time compared to children in other states during the same time period. Vaccinations studied include Hepatitis-B (HepB), Diphtheria Tetatus Pertusis (DTP) and Haemophilus Influenza Type B (HIB).
They found that the PFL policy in California granting six weeks of family leave with partial wage replacement reduced late vaccination rates in infants.
"The research finds that paid family leave (at least in California) increases the chance an infant will be inoculated for the second HepB injection by over 5 percent relative to states not implementing paid family leave, and for the DTP injection by about 1.5 percent," said Polachek. "The effects are bigger for poorer families, who are less likely to have access to paid family leave from their jobs alone."
According to Polachek, vaccinating infants on time is vital to their future health and well-being, since vaccines can ward off diseases that can impact future attendance at school. Not only do these outcomes lead to less learning for children, but also they can lead to lower earnings power.
"Poor school attendance and less early childhood learning can have consequences regarding the widening earnings distribution," said Polachek. "Paid family leave might be a viable national policy if it mitigates these detrimental effects."
Future research will focus on using more precise survey data and analyzing other states, such as New York, that have recently implemented PFL policies.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190909131128.htm
Women scientists author fewer invited commentaries in medical journals than men
October 23, 2019
Science Daily/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Women scientists were 21% less likely to author invited commentaries in medical journals during a five-year period than men with similar scientific expertise, seniority, and publication metrics, according to a new study led by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and in collaboration with Elsevier. They found that the disparity was larger for women who were further progressed in their careers, reaching as high as 40% for the most senior authors.
In medical journals, publication of an invited commentary is a recognition of expertise and can raise an author's profile.
"I was genuinely surprised by the size of the gender gap we found," said first author Emma Thomas, a doctoral student in the Department of Biostatistics. "As a young female scientist, I hoped that we might achieve gender parity in authorship of invited articles naturally as more women progressed to the top of the scientific pipeline. Our results suggest that may not be the case."
The study will be published online in JAMA Network Open on October 23, 2019.
The researchers analyzed data on all invited commentaries published in English-language medical journals from 2013 through 2017, made available by Elsevier from its Scopus database. The researchers compared the gender of each "case" -- authors of invited commentaries -- to the gender of a group of "controls" -- other researchers who had similar scientific expertise to the case author, identified through text mining of their published abstracts. The final dataset included 43,235 cases across 2,459 journals.
The researchers found that female researchers were approximately 21% less likely than their male peers to publish an invited commentary. The gender disparity was larger for researchers who had been actively publishing for longer. Overall, just 23% of invited commentaries in the dataset had female corresponding authors.
"These findings challenge the common assumption that gender disparities in authorship of prestigious scientific articles exist because there are fewer women with sufficient experience and expertise to write these articles," said senior author Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science and co-director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative. "Our results also show that women's voices are not heard as often as men's. This lack of diversity in perspectives can hamper the progress of health research, since diversity of thought is a key driver of innovation."
The authors suggest that journals could expand and diversify their pool of commentary writers by using text mining software to identify researchers with relevant expertise who might not otherwise have been considered.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191023172110.htm
Women CEOs judged more harshly than men for corporate ethical failures
Female leaders receive less negativity for general business failures, study says
October 24, 2019
Science Daily/American Psychological Association
People are less likely to support an organization after an ethical failure if the business is led by a woman, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association. However, organizations led by women endure less negative backlash for competence failures than those headed by men.
"Our study found that consumers' trust in, and willingness to support, an organization after a failure varied based on the gender of the organization's leader and the type of incident," said Nicole Votolato Montgomery, PhD, of the University of Virginia and lead author of the study. "Women incur greater penalties for ethical transgressions because of persistent gender stereotypes that tend to categorize women as having more communal traits than men, such as being more likable, sensitive and supportive of others. Even in leadership settings, women are still expected to be more communal than their male counterparts."
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Across three experiments, Montgomery and co-author Amanda P. Cowen, DBA, examined how gender would influence perceptions of female-led and male-led organizations after experiencing a competence failure, such as a product flaw, or an ethical failure, such as if the product flaw was known but not disclosed to the public for a long period of time.
In the first experiment, 512 participants read a business news article about an auto manufacturer and then filled out a survey about their intent to buy a vehicle from the company. One-third of the participants read about an ethical failure, one-third read about a competence failure and the final third only read the company description. Afterward, the participants were asked how likely they were to purchase a car from the company the next time they were in the market for a vehicle and reported their trust in the organization (e.g., "I feel that XYZ automobiles is very dependable/undependable, very competent/incompetent or of low integrity/high integrity").
"When participants were told that the company had previously been made aware of a fuel sensor problem and failed to take immediate action, an ethical failure, they reported less intent to purchase from the company when the CEO was a woman than when the CEO was a man," said Montgomery. "However, when participants were told that the company was previously unaware of the product issue, a competence failure, they reported greater intent to buy the products when the CEO was a woman than when the CEO was a man."
The purchase intentions for the group that read only the company description did not vary based on the CEO's gender.
The second experiment further examined how gender stereotypes influence consumers' judgments by altering how female and male CEOs were described. The researchers added descriptions of the CEO either to highlight communal traits that are typically associated with females (e.g., "helpful, sensitive to the needs of employees and customers, able to listen carefully to customers' concerns") or agentic traits that are typically associated with males (e.g., "skilled, strongly independent, able to work well under pressure").
The 416 participants in this study read the same news article as in the previous experiment and completed the same survey questions about their buying intentions and trust in the company. In this experiment, participants also were asked to report their attitudes toward the brand, their response to online advertisements for the company, if they would recommend the company to others and the effectiveness of the company's leader.
Similar to the previous experiment, when participants read about an ethical failure where the CEO was described using traits consistent with stereotypes (e.g., the female leader was described as being communal and the male leader was described as being agentic), participants were less likely to buy from the company led by the female CEO. In contrast, when the CEO was described using traits inconsistent with stereotypes (e.g., the male leader was described as being communal and female leader was described as being agentic), the participants said they were less likely to buy from the male-led company than the female-led company in the aftermath of an ethical failure, the researchers said.
"When leaders are described in ways that reinforce stereotypes, we continue to find that people penalize female-led organizations more for ethical failures, but we can reduce these penalties for female-led organizations by highlighting agentic traits of their leaders," said Cowen.
For the final experiment, Montgomery and Cowen explored whether consumers' judgments would change if the women CEOs led businesses that operated in industries that are viewed as more stereotypically feminine -- in this case, a child products company, versus the automotive company.
Participants indicated they would be less likely to purchase from a female-led organization in both stereotypically male (e.g., automotive) and stereotypically female (e.g., child products) industries after an ethical failure, according to the researchers. However, participants' responses to competence failures differed depending on the industry.
"In the auto industry, which is typically viewed as more male, participants penalized female-led organizations less than male-led organizations for competence failures," Cowan said. "However, the opposite was true for a child products company. In that setting, participants who read about a competence failure penalized female-led organizations more than male-led organizations. This further demonstrates how gender stereotypes influence our expectations of leaders and their organizations."
Montgomery and Cowen believe their findings may have implications for leaders' career outcomes.
"Organizational performance affects how leaders are evaluated, how they are compensated and ultimately, whether they retain their positions," Montgomery said. "Our research suggests that when ethical failures occur, female leaders may aid their organizations' recovery efforts by exhibiting agentic traits that are more consistent with male stereotypes."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191024093604.htm