The Study On The Female Entrepreneur Leadership Models Based On The Background Of China

The percentage of female Executives in modern organizations is increasing a lot.The data （Bureau of Labor Statistics，2006）shows that, the average percentage offemale CEO(Chief of Executive Officer) is about28.3%. However, in the ForbesFinancial TOP500companies, the female top leaders only take1.6%（Catalyst，2007）,Meanwhile, compared with male managers, female managers normally take thedifferent roles and responsibilities in the organization（Reski&Ross，1992）. However,the performance between male and female leaders is no big difference（Morrison，White&Van，1987）, even there is any, it is minor. The major difference is wokingperformance and leadership model（Cohn，2000）. The aim at present research is notfocus on male and female leadership differentiation but focus on studying andexploring the modern Chinese female leadership model especially in Chinabackground.More and more studies state that there are some advantages in female leadership,therefore conclude that female leadership model is more suitable for modernorganization（Vecchio，2002）. The literature studies show that some specific femaleleadership models have advantages under specific situations; however, they are oftensuffering the disadvantage due to the social prejudice to female leaders. It is evenworse when the organizations/companies/industries are wholly controlled bymasculine culture. With the social reforming, mindset transferring, knowledgeeconomic coming, more and more female managers are becoming the top leaders inall kinds of organizations even though there are a lot of obstacles to overcome “glassceiling”. According to gender stereotypes theory, it is suggested that the root cause ofleading to female leaders increasing is due to the requirement of modern organizationwith diversity qualifications combing female and male qualifications together.（Eagly&Karau，2002）.This research is interested in this areas especially in femaleledership model’s exploring.There are many theoretical explanations to the difference between male andfemale leadership model. The scholars had made a lot of efforts to study the difference from different perspectives: Eagly（1987）&Karau（2002）suggested thatfemale and male leaders generally apply the similar leadership model under the samesituation in the organization, however, this may lead to different perspective to thesame bahaivors just due to the sex role difference. The sex role theory states thatsocial shared the common perspective to men and women should behave and are oftenexamined in terms of agency and communion. The agency and communion areconsidered as fundamental drivers of human existence（Bakan，1966）. Especially,communion role emphasize on harmony and affiliation to form social relationships.The agency focus on assertiveness and mastery to control others（Bakan，1966）.Social role theory states that women should be expected to play the role of communal,for instance, helpful, nurturing, gentle (Eagly，1987) while men should be expected toplay the role of agency, for instance: assertive, controlling, confident. Individualbehavior will be evaluated as a negative when this individual behavior is conflictedwith the social expected behavior （Broverman et al.，1972；Eagly，1987；Eagly etal.，2000；Heilman，2001）。Just as people have expectation for men and women should behave, they have thesimilar expectation for how leader should behave. When leader’s behavior isconsistent with people’s expectation in mind, normally the leaders behavior will beevaluated as effective（Lord&Maher，1993）。However, this leads to the obviousconflict when applying for evaluating women（Eagly&Karau，2002）。Regardingthese conflict, there have not got clear answers.（Eagly&Karau，2002）。Lord and Emrich （2001）suggest that individual experience and backgrounddeterminate his perspective to leader expectation（Hogg，2001）。Social identity theorystates that individual identity to group is the fundamental of group behavior. Thistheory explains the mutual impact in group behaviors and individual’s identity ingroup reflects his/her own opinion.（Tajfel&Turner，1986），therefore, theseexpectations will exert impact on evaluating leadership effectiveness（Hogg et al.，2006），especially, it is more effective when leaders behavior is consistent with theleaderhip model.（Lord et al.，1984，Lord&Maher，1993；Smith&Foti，1998）。 Although leadership style might be different due to different leader（Lord，Brown，Harvey&Hall，2001），meanwhile it impacted by the organization and communitywhich individual work for（Hogg et al.，2006）, there are some certain leadershipdimensions keeping the same without influenced by outside factors（Epitropaki&Martin，2004）。Offermann，Kennedy&Wirtz（1994）etc scholars find that thereare7dimensions in leadership commonly accepted, they are: sensitivity，dedication，tyranny， charisma， attractiveness， intelligence， strength. These representedcomprehensive leadership model and it is investigated in the later studies（Epitropaki&Martin，2004）。Present research is aiming at integrating the femaleleadership model based on the past female leadership model and gender theories.Although there are lots of theories and literatures study on how the leadership modelimpact the leadership effectiveness however, there is no any study on Chinese femaleleadership model and leadership style. Moreover, in the past researches, theoreticallyand empirically, there are less study on how impact will be from organizationsituation, competition strategy, company culture. This research try to investigate eachdimension in leadership model and different expectation bring influence to men andwomen leaders evaluation.Current research method are combine questionnaires, case study and interviewsurvey.620questionnaires were distributed to students in MBA, EMBA program aswell as multinational companies. Especially taking advantage of my workingexperience in business HR, I’ve got258feedbacks eventually. Based on theseinterview, one case study has been completed.In this research,4studies are designed to investigate the assumptions mentionedabove. The first study investigates the female entrepreneur leadership model issuesunder china background based on academic leadership models and try to find outChinese female leadership models. They are: people oriented leadership model;creative leadership model; transformational leadership model; harmony leadershipmodel and transactional leadership model. The conclusions suggest thattransformational, transactional, creative model are clearly studied and there is nogender difference. At present study, the new construct are added. After anaysis, two specific dimensions are concluded: people oriented leadership and harmonyleadership. At the fist study, one case study is involved. This case tells a female leaderdevelopment from secretary to president.The second study is focusing on female leader’s organization and competitionstrategy. The result shows that normally there are3dimensions exist in theseorganizations: outside environments, industry environments and developmentenvironments. In additions, the study finds out there are3dimensions in competitionstrategy. Cost leadership, Differentiation leadership and Focus. From the literaturereview analysis, it shows that organization and strategy play a moderation variable.This study was explained in the paper in detail.The third study is focusing on female leader’s organization atmosphere andorganization culture. There are4dimensions are founded in organization atmosphere:harmony model; caring model; cool model and control model. Meanwhile there are3dimensions in organization culture: apathy model; innovation model and easy goingmodel. These dimensions play moderation variable between leadership andperformance.The fourth study is emphasizing on analysis between female leadership modeland leadership effectiveness. It mainly investigated the moderate factor impact thenafter concludes the completed model.The present research is to study on female leadership model in China. At thesame time, the moderation variables between leadership and organization strategy,culture are investigated and analyzed in this paper. There are both practical andtheoretical implications of this research. Especially the conclusion of this researchwill be significant important to improve female leadership competence andeffectiveness.