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The question of what changes when women enter upper-echelons teams has long frustrated upper echelons and gender researchers. We build on the dynamic strategic renewal literature, combine it with upper echelons theory insights, and integrate knowledge about female executives' career strategies to theorize how and when female appointments into top management teams (TMTs) cause firms to change their approach to knowledge-related strategic renewal. In doing so, we reconcile the tension among extant mediating processes invoked to explain how female TMT representation might affect strategic decisions: change orientation and risk-taking propensity. Estimating a dynamic ordinary least squares model on panel data from 163 multinationals, we find that following female (but not male) TMT appointments, TMT cognitions shift, becoming more change oriented and less risk seeking. Subsequently, these TMT cognitive shifts cause a decrease in mergers and acquisitions and an increase in research and development. Our model of female TMT appointments as catalysts that cause shifts in TMT cognitions, which, in turn, redirect knowledge-related strategic renewal from a buying to a building approach, is a novel effort at advancing research on women at upper echelons to examine time-dependent, within-firm mechanisms linking women in upper echelons and firm outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the roots of prosocial behavior is an interdisciplinary research endeavor that has generated an abundance of empirical data across many disciplines. This review integrates research findings from different fields into a novel theoretical framework that can account for when prosocial behavior is likely to occur. Specifically, we propose that the motivation to cooperate (or not), generated by the reward system in the brain (extending from the striatum to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex), is modulated by two neural networks: a cognitive control system (centered on the lateral prefrontal cortex) that processes extrinsic cooperative incentives, and/or a social cognition system (including the temporo-parietal junction, the medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala) that processes trust and/or threat signals. The independent modulatory influence of incentives and trust on the decision to cooperate is substantiated by a growing body of neuroimaging data and reconciles the apparent paradox between economic versus social rationality in the literature, suggesting that we are in fact wired for both. Furthermore, the theoretical framework can account for substantial behavioral heterogeneity in prosocial behavior. Based on the existing data, we postulate that self-regarding individuals (who are more likely to adopt an economically rational strategy) are more responsive to extrinsic cooperative incentives and therefore rely relatively more on cognitive control to make (un)cooperative decisions, whereas other-regarding individuals (who are more likely to adopt a socially rational strategy) are more sensitive to trust signals to avoid betrayal and recruit relatively more brain activity in the social cognition system. Several additional hypotheses with respect to the neural roots of social preferences are derived from the model and suggested for future research. (Contains 1 table and 4 figures.)

This review aims to create a cross-disciplinary framework for understanding the perception of control. Although, the personality trait locus of control, the most common measure of control perception, has traditionally been regarded as a product of social learning, it may have biological antecedents as well. It is suggested that control perception follows from the brain's capacity for self regulation, leading to flexible and goal directed behaviours. To this account, a model is presented which spans several levels of analyses. On a behavioural level, control perception may be a corollary of emotion regulation, executive functions, and social cognition. On a neural level, these self-regulatory functions are substantiated in part by the dorsolateral and ventral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. In addition, a possible role of subcortical-cortical dopamine pathways underlying control perception is discussed.

The aging population trend and the associated growing share of older employees lead to high levels of workplace age diversity, which has inspired many researchers to examine the implications. In this article, we show that the prevalent use of the standard deviation (SD) as age diversity measurement may hinder the field in unraveling the effects of age diversity. While SD is known as an operationalization of age diversity as separation—that is, the clustering of work units in distinct age-based subgroups—we argue and show that SD does not fit well with the concept of age separation due to its sensitivity to large age differences. We develop and introduce the mean standard deviation (MSD) as alternative age separation measure. This novel measure is based on SD but is less sensitive to large age differences. We empirically substantiate our concerns and the value of MSD using simple examples of fictitious work units and 2 simulation analyses. We suggest that age diversity scholars use MSD for examining the effects of workplace age diversity as separation. By introducing MSD to the age diversity measurement toolbox, we want to improve the conceptual clarity, measurement, and empirical testing of workplace age diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we investigate whether the process of Attraction, Selection and Attrition as described by Schneider (1987) is already operative prior to labor market entry, i.e., in the educational phase of careers. We focused on selection with regard to the locus of control personality trait because of its firm conceptual and empirical relevance in both content and process of choice. Specific hypotheses were proposed as to the sorting of different personality types in study programs leading to different prospective professional careers. The study was carried out in a sample of 158 Austrian students. We found strong support for our hypotheses in that (1) personality predicted specific study choices and (2) personality predicted different levels of rationality in the choice process. In addition, the findings also suggest that tighter matches between personality and study programs could be observed for students making rational choices. The results indicate support for the validity of the ASA model in educational choice, provided the use of meaningful individual differences. Several promising avenues for future research are identified.