Gender stereotypes in management: A comparative study of communist and postcommunist Romania

Abstract

This study sets out to investigate the changes in the perception of women in leading positions in communist and postcommunist Romania. The study uses a noninvasive paradigm of analyzing the content of obituaries for women and men in leading positions published in a national journal, and shows that the gender gap in management widened during the postcommunist period. In postcommunist Romania, women are perceived as being less able to lead/manage and more relational in their leadership style as compared to men, while in the communist period the gender differences were not significant. © 2011 International Union of Psychological Science.