Implicit Leadership Theories: Do they differ for male and female leaders?

Implicit leadership theories have been shown to be potent in the development of global leadership models that accommodate the challenges posed to leadership efforts in a globalized world. Furthermore, the rise of women to leadership positions warrants investigations of whether individuals hold differing implicit leadership theories for men and women. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether implicit leadership theories differ for male and female leaders, and whether the difference was greater in a neutral versus masculine work context. The present research project utilized a short version of project GLOBE s leadership questionnaire that was administered to 579 students (311 women and 268 men) at Norwegian Universities and University Colleges. Results revealed no significant relationship between leaders gender and the rated importance of leadership attributes, contrary to the hypothesized expectations. Furthermore, a significant but very small interaction-effect between leader gender and work context was found to affect ratings of leader attributes. As such, the rated importance of the leader attributes within the culturally endorsed leadership theory does not differ as a function of leader gender. Methodological limitations as well as theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed

US-Fantasy 1977–1987

At the end of the 1970s, a new genre cycle was formed in US cinema. Starting with space opera in cinema, for which George Lucas' Star Wars is paradigmatic, fantasy established itself for the first time as an independent cinematic genre in distinction from fairy tales and fantastic fiction. The enthusiasm for pen & paper role-playing games and the continuing J. R. R. Tolkien craze culminated in the following years in a series of films that absorbed, pushed and further developed the diversity of modern film technology and production: the spectrum of films ranged from live-action films (Conan the Barbarian) to puppet animation (The Dark Crystal) to animated films (The Last Unicorn), in which George Lucas as well as Jim Henson and the production companies behind them at the time played leading roles. Contemporary critics had written these films off as conservative, sometimes even reactionary genre plays. In contrast, this essay unfolds a (historical) poetics of the US fantasy film. With its film-analytical case studies, the volume shows how the films of the years 1977 to 1987 are embedded in a specific film culture and how the genre cycle as part of the Hollywood system prepared and significantly influenced the triumph of blockbuster cinema in the 1990s