VISION ORGANIZZATIVA E QUESTIONE DI GENERE: STUDI DI CASO DI LEADERSHIP FEMMINILE

In organizational studies the link between leadership and organizational vision is grounded in several Contributions. The emergence of charismatic and transformational leadership theories allows to the organizational vision to assume a key role in the definition of characteristic traits of leadership. The shift from the mechanistic and not participatory leadership model to the inclusive and sharing organizational goals is a crucial point for the leadership theories and particularly for the one strictly related to the organizational vision. In this transaction, the "reward", that comes from the achievement of organizational objectives, does not represent the exchange’s result of taken preventively agreements between the parties, but the fruit of gratitude came from the same leader related to essential contributions of its employees in order to obtain the result achieved (Burns, 1978, 2003). The current reflection on managerial behavior clearly highlights that the logic does not cover up all the complexity of behavior in the organizations and, in order to understand the many facets of organized reality, the motivations has to be posed in terms of multi-dimensional factors. (Bodega , 2002). The definition of transformational leadership style seems to respond to the need to find new ways to understand the renewed organizational realities and the new requirements of a cultural nature in which and from which they insist are affected. The rise of women, in fact, in the business world, has highlighted the need to investigate the gender issue, and specifically, on the "feminine leadership", as index of relevant social and economic changes. The dedicated studies show that it is possible to associate the characteristics of the female leadership to the ones related to transformational model. The predominant female leadership style seems to take over the distinctive features of transformational leadership among which emerges the leader's ability to develop effective vision. However in literature not specific finding on the capacity of women leaders to meet the organizational need to develop a vision that is shared and effective is found. Contrary to what has been done on the transformational leadership, there are no studies that investigate the visionary capacity through the lens of gender issue, referring in particular to the ability of the female leadership. The aim of this thesis is to fulfill that gap by answering the following research question: how can women's leadership, endowed by qualities and characteristics of transformational leadership, develop an effective organizational vision? Women's leadership is able to develop effective organizational vision is the theoretical proposition from which come down the following research hypotheses: HP 1) The vision of an organization characterized by a female leadership is shared. HP 2) The vision of an organization characterized by a female leadership is feasible. HP 3) The vision of an organization characterized by a female leadership is an inspiration. The first two chapters are dedicated to the literature theoretical review about the two variables in question. In the first chapter, it takes place, in fact, a theoretical excursus on leadership theories that has developed into a first section dedicated to that charismatic style, followed by transformational and finally on female leadership style (Bass, 1985, 1990, 1991; Yukl, 2010; Burns, 1978, 1998, 2003; Stogdill, 1974; Northouse, 2015; Bryman, 1992; Day & Antonakis, 2012; Gardner, 1990; Hickman, 2009; Mumford, 2006; Bodega, 2002; Van Seters & Field , 1990; Bass & Riggio, 2006; Sosik et al., 1993). Several authors (Helgesen, 1990; Rosener, 1995; Eagly, 1991, 2012; Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Powell & Butterfield, 1989; Terborg, 1977; Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001) have found particular affinity between the female leadership style and characteristics of the transformational leadership. These similarities justify the parallelism of the characteristics among the transformational and female leadership styles. In the second chapter, they are listened the definitions of vision as fund in the literature and it has been deal with the issue on the characteristics of an effective vision (Amawleh & Garder, 1999; Baum & Kirkpatrick, 1998; Berson et al., 2001; Collins & Porras was provided, 1991, 1996, 2005; Kantabutra, 2009, 2010, 2012; Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996; Levin, 2000; Nanus, 1992; O'Brien & Meadows, 2000; Senge, 1992, 2006; Strange & Mumford, 2002, 2005) . Were thus highlighted some characters in literature are considered essential, sufficient and necessary because a Concept can be defined as "effective." The third chapter introduces the methodological protocol. In this chapter, it has been clarified the epistemological approach used. The aim is to lead the research by a post-positivist approach, by means of deductive processes, through the use of not purely quantitative techniques despite the use of variables, in order to elaborate the results through processes of generalizations, however, open to revision (Corbetta, 2003, Vol. I., p. 30). Proceeding in a case studies analysis, in order to obtain suitable data, the technique choosed has been the structured interview. The case studies were selected among activities and contexts aimed to the promotion and enhancement of the female figure in the economic and management environment, such as the "Tecnovisionarie" competition. Since 2008, it rewards women whose own capability to elaborate efficient organizational visions has been testified by their professionalism activity in research, innovation and business . The fourth chapter present the data collected through the interviews and their analysis. These allow to consider the initial research hypothesis well founded and justified. It is therefore sensible to consider women's leadership as a leadership style characterized by peculiarities that are analogous to those related to transformational leadership, and, if the transformational leadership is distinguished by a certain ability of the leaders to elaborate effective if Vision, for followers and throughout the organization, then it is right to think of women's leadership as equally capable of generating the same results. The female leaders, available for research purposes, have expressed great interest in the issue. as per their point of view, the ability to investigate the female leadership not as exclusively social issue but related to economic purposes and about aspects related to organizational performance has represented the most innovative profile of the research. This suggests the validity of ideas at the bottom of the study even in terms of pragmatism. It is feasible, in order to define the next steps of research, to include the possibility to consider other organizational variables, beyond the vision and its effectiveness, in order to study believable connections to female leadership style.