Intuition-analysis in Women Managers and Gendered Stereotypes by Hayes - Article Example

In this paper I will try to illustrate that Hayes and Allinson's (2004) article on "Intuition, women managers and gendered stereotypes" is challenging and informative, however it provides a one-side view and do not dwell much on other researchers and methodologies. The paper embraces approaches that support the viewpoint of its authors and do not compare the results and findings reached with opponent researches. In the article Hayes and Allinson (2004) explore the gender-centered perspective which characterizes women managers and women in general as being more intuitive than male managers and men in general. After a review of the relevant literature and after conducting their own questionnaire survey the authors conclude that the stereotypic characterizations lack supportive evidence that women in general and women managers are more intuitive than their male equivalents. After challenging this notion, Hayes and Allison (2004) found out that there is no visible difference in male and female intuition of individuals who occupy managerial positions. They account this for the structural and gendered cultural behaviour in given organization. Thus, women accomplishing higher top manager posts act within the context of the male dominant surrounding that they work in. The main concepts that Hayes and Allinson describe are intuition, analysis, cognition and stereotypical thinking. Intuition and analysis are used to describe right-brain and left-brain thinking (Allinson & Hayes, 1996). Hayes and Allinson argue the gendered stereotypical thinking which suggests that intuition is a femine trait whereas analysis is dominanatly male trait. The authors fail to explain that actually stereotypes are forms of social consensus. Hayes and Allinson did not mention sociological researches exploring how girls and boys are brought up with different values. Girls are taught to be nurturing and caring, whereas boys are raised to be rational and conquering. While depicting the cognition processes, Hayes and Allinson (2004) did not comment on the fact that "Women's brain is 10% larger than that of men, Women's brain has about 11% more brain cells in the cerebral cortex and Neural pathways between the two hemispheres of the brain of women are far more active than men (Kishore, 2009, par.3)." The differences of the brains of women and men imply that these are biological differences and on the bases of them institutions and organizations focus in developing certain characteristics more on the differences sexes. Hayes and Allinson have to look at other perspective as well - for example why women are underrepresented in senior management. Linehan (2001) suggests that interviewees believe that many jobs are seen are "men's" or "women's" and that there is an organizational barrier that women have to fights against. Hayes and Allinson (2004) briefly imply that may be their research detected no difference in intuition between men and women managers, because in their attempts to keep up with the male managers organizational culture women suppress their intuitive skills and emphasize more on the analytical ones. However, this concept is not explored further. In general the review of the literature provides the reader with the contrasting opinions of the gendered-centered approaches where male managers are portrayed as unemotional (Loden cited in Hayes and Allinson, 2004) and that women are perceived as illogical, emotional and sexual aspects Green and Cassell cited in Hayes and Allinson, 2004). And the others where studies indicate that intuition can be traced both in men and women. Hayes and Allinson (2004) test three research hypothesis. The first is that female managers are more intuitive than male managers. The second is that female non-managers are more intuitive than male non-managers and the third is that there is no difference in the intuitive orientation of women managers and women non-managers. The research method that the authors use is the CSI - a self-report questionnaire used to assess the analytic-intuitive dimension of cognitive style. Hayes and Allinson (2004) describe this as 38 item true-uncertain-false response. They claim that "the reliability of the CSI is good with test-retest correlations ranging from 0.78 to 0.90 (2004, p.409)." There are two concerns in the methodology part I would like to address . Using the CSI, Hayes and Allinson (2004) administered three sub-samples divided into UK managers and UK non-managers. Within the UK managers sub-samples the interviewed individuals were 364 males and only 187 females. In my opinion the underrepresentation of the female managers influences the final data and the findings, because the predominant respondents were males. This might have affected the results and question the predictive validity of the UK managers sub-sample. The other issue that concerns the research method is an alternative one which Hayes and Allinson did not mention in their article. The researchers Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith (2003) have debated on the nature of the cognitive style as a basis for comprehending the individual differences in organizational behaviour. Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith (2003) refer to two competitive theoretical positions regarding cognitive style. One group of scholars argue that cognitive style can be best conceptualized within multidimensional and compounded frameworks. The other posits that the various facets of style are meaningful if include single dimension (Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith, 2003). What Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith (2003) argue is that Allinson and Hayes (1996) incorrectly specified the nature of cognitive style. The Allinson and Hayes Cognitive Style Index is presented as a measure of intuition-analysis and is predicated on a unitarist conception (Allinson and Hayes, 1996). Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith (2003) claim that a twofactor model with correlated factors provides a stronger approximation of responses to the Cognitive Style Index than the unifactoral solutions of Allinson and Hayes (1996). Having noted on the rival theoretical paradigm we have to pose that cognitive style is widely acknowledged as a significant determinant of individual behavior in the psychology literature (Sadler-Smith & Badger, 1998). However Hayes and Allinson (2004) did not provide an alternative method to theirs with which limit the scope of the research, which is focused only on their own analytical method. Empirical studies have demonstrated that cognitive style has a considerable impact on individual choice (Hough & Ogilvie, 2005). The cognitive style is also closely connected with the workplace behaviour and can ease the apprehension of strategic decision-making in organizations (Sadler-Smith, 1998). Thus, I presume that it is of vital importance to compare the data from the two prevailing, rival theoretical traditions, so as to better analyze them and contrast the results. Moreover Brigham et al (2007) claim that the cognitive style has proved to be a useful indicator to evaluate person-organizational fit of managers. If the cognitive style index is correctly applied we can better generalize the differences between male and female managers as they will be better reported. In the light of the findings exhibited by Hayes and Allinson (2004) on the bases of their research methodology I would propose a revised scoring procedure using the twofactor model of Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith (2003). Using this method the analysis and intuition will be treated on separate scales. It is necessary to modify and revise the original version of this research and to consider other theoretical and methodological structures. The results reached by Hayes and Allinson (2004) report on their own empiricl study and they are pressured to adopt other researches and practices. The practical implications of the paper concern namely the break-through idea that gender-centered perspective that female managers are more intuitive than male ones. Stereotypical views persist among some of the researchers, but with Hayes and Allinson (2004) they are not universal. Future scholars should be aware that even though sex differences might be socially constructed, there is a grain of truth that they reflect reality and that women's work performance and career advancements is strongly influenced by the social beliefs. Thus, the practical implication of this report is to see why males' and females' manager intuition equals and how women perceive themselves among the predominant male managerial realm. Hayes and Allinson (2004) attempted to challenge the widely spread view that women in general are more intuitive than males. However, due to the one-sided research method applied, the data can be argued that it did not accurately represent the cognitive style index which refers to the intuition-analyses processes. In this regard we should take the finding of Hayes and Allinson as only one side of the coin. References: Allinson, C.W. and Hayes, J. 1996. The Cognitive Style Index: a measure of intuition-analysis for organizational research. Journal of Management Studies.. Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 119-35. Hayes, J. and Allinson, C., 2004. Intuition, women managers and gendered stereotypes. Personnel Review. Vol.33. No.4. pp. 403-417 Hodgkinson G.P.andSadler-Smith E., 2003. Complex or unitary A critique and empirical re-assessment of the Allinson-Hayes Cognitive Style Index . Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Volume 76,No. 2, pp. 243-268(26) Hough, J.R. & ogilvie, d.t. (2005). An empirical test of cognitive style and strategic decision outcomes. Journal of Management Studies, 42(2), 417-448. Kishore, L, 2009. Human brain is not gender neutral, informs research, News Source Available at http://www.mynews.in/News/Human_brain_is_not_gender_neutral,_informs_research_N27308.html# Linehan, M,. 2001. Challenges for female international managers: evidence from Europe, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol.16, No.3. pp.215-228. Sadler-Smith, E. & Badger, B. (1998). Cognitive style, learning, and innovation. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 10(2), 247-265. Read More