Abstract:

Since the second half of the twentieth century, women have joined the education system and the formal labor market. Although their education level has been equating male qualification, and even is higher in some levels, their situation in the labor market in is not as positive as men situation. This is reflected in the difficulty of many women to fully develop a professional career that allows them to positions of high responsibility and power, since there is the so-called glass ceiling that prevents them from getting there. Gender stereotypes and the perceived incongruity between the leadership role and the female role is one of the main mechanisms that helps to understand the existence of the glass ceiling. This led to coining the phenomenon “think manager- think male” (Schein, 1973, 1975), which still stands ( Schein , 2001). The aim of this study is to analyze which gender traits are considered more suitable to perform top managerial role and also to explore the gender differences in this topic. The sample was composed of 163 Spanish university students (N=64 men and N=99 women). According to our expectations, the results show that the masculine characteristics (e.g., dominant or strong personality) are considered more suitable for a top managerial job than the feminine traits (e.g., affectionate or compassionate). In addition, boys and girls did not differ in this issue. These findings show that management and power is still associated with male gender, so the phenomenon “think manager- think male” remains in our society and among highly-qualified people. The implications of the results for education, university teaching-learning process, future research guidelines, and limitations of the study are also discussed.

Keywords:

University students, think manager-think male.