Leadership Style and Gender: A Study of Spanish Cooperatives

Inocencia María Martinez-Leon, Isabel Olmedo-Cifuentes, MCarmen Martínez-Victoria and Narciso Arcas-Lario
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Inocencia María Martinez-Leon: Business Administration Department, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Calle Real, 3, 30201 Cartagena, Spain
Isabel Olmedo-Cifuentes: Business Administration Department, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Calle Real, 3, 30201 Cartagena, Spain
MCarmen Martínez-Victoria: Economics and Business Department, University of Almería, Ctra. Sacramento s/n, La Cañada de San Urbano, 04120 Almería, Spain
Narciso Arcas-Lario: Business Administration Department, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Calle Real, 3, 30201 Cartagena, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-23

Abstract: The growing global need for social cohesion and sustainable development gives visibility to cooperatives because their principles help to achieve these objectives and the adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Among them, gender equality policies are in the forefront. This paper explains how cooperatives contribute to women’s professional opportunities and to balancing the presence of women in management positions. It analyzes the predominant leadership styles and gender differences in cooperatives with a sample of 114 cooperative firms. The results show that: (a) Both transformational and transactional leadership styles are widely used; (b) no significant differences in leadership styles between men and women exist; and (c) the composition of management teams results in significant leadership style differences. The transformational style is less often used in mixed teams with a male majority and a woman president, and most often used in homogeneous teams (made up of only men or only women). Transactional leadership is more frequently implemented in teams made up only of women than in mixed masculine teams with a female president. These findings identify women’s leadership styles in cooperatives, pointing out their difficulties and introducing innovative proposals for contributing to their success and the achievement of SDGs in cooperatives.

Keywords: cooperatives; sustainability; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), leadership style; transformational leadership; transactional leadership; gender differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:12:p:5107-:d:375193

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