Daan van Knippenberg

Numerous studies have shown that people with large networks who have many friends and work relationships are less likely to quit their job than people who only have small work-related networks. But do people who think of quitting their job change their networks at work? Do they change the people they go to for advice or seek out for help? Do they change their friends? Knowing this is important because after all it may be that people who expect they will be leaving a company give up their network during the months prior to quitting. 

If this is the case it means that many previous studies that have found a connection between network size at time of exit and turnover incorrectly concluded that smaller networks make people leave the organization. Should the explanation behind the relationship between networks and turnover need to be re-written? Indeed, we found in our study that people who were thinking of quitting their job had very different networks from those who were not thinking of quitting. But the results were different from what we expected.

Female leadership is a crucial agenda item for major corporations. Over the past years, the perception of female leaders has improved, along with the increased participation of women in the workforce. However, for many people, the mental model for leader still fits the phrase “think manager—think male”. Likewise, a large-scale survey of the German socio-economic panel shows that women are still falling behind when it comes to high-level promotions.

The negative attitude towards female leadership not only affects how women are perceived in their leadership role, but also negatively influences the performance of their subordinates. In our research, we set out to understand the processes that keep this negative image in place, and investigated whether a respectful leadership strategy could counter the effects.

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