Abstract:

The reason why girls and women are withdrawn from certain Science and Technology domains has been a transversal concern in various research fields, including Management. Despite the growing number of women in Management during the last decades, there are some barriers related to gender that continue to hamper successful implementation of women's careers in this area and, in particular, to achieve top positions (Saavedra, Silva, & Taveira, 2010). Good manager or leaders are still perceived as predominantly masculine (Loureiro, 2010). In fact, traditional ideas about men and women are still conveyed. Men are viewed to be emotionally stable, dynamic, aggressive and affirmative, while women are viewed to be the opposite, that is, unstable, passive, and submissive (Rocheblave-Spenlé, 1964). These traditional ideas seems to be accepted and continues to create gender asymmetries in Management. In this sense, the goal of this work is to analyze differences in management skills between Portuguese’s men and women. Therefore, this empirical study includes 60 managers, both men and women, and various business sectors. The evaluation plan used includes socio-demographic analysis and the use of the Management Skills Questionnaire (from Felício, Lopes, Salgueiro, & Parreira, 2007) for the assessment of management skills. We found that there are no gender differences in management competences. Then, if the management capacity does not justify the asymmetry in the occupation of these management functions, we really have to consider psychological and social factors as well as the perception of lower expectations of self effectiveness in women (Saavedra, 1997), threats to a certain image of femininity (Saavedra, 1997) and perceived anticipation of work-family conflict (Cinamon & Hanson, 2005; Saavedra & Taveira, 2007). Based on the results, we stress the importance of intervention related to the social representations of men and women roles, and the importance of demystifying capabilities based on sex attributes in order to social and economic development. We also point out some ideas for future research tracks

Keywords:

Management competencies, gender, gender asymmetries.