Gender, does it shape leadership legitimacy and employees’ attitudes? : - A qualitative study about employees’perceptions of male and female owner-managers in the restaurant sector

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how employees’ perceptions of owner-managers’ gender shape perceived leadership legitimacy and how perceived leadership legitimacy influences employees’ attitudes toward the leader and the organization. The context of the study is small- and medium-sized restaurant businesses where owner-managers are active in the daily operations and leadership is continuously evaluated through everyday interactions. Previous research has examined gender and leadership, leadership legitimacy and employee attitudes separately, but less attention have been paid to how these dimensions are interconnected in everyday service settings. To address this gap, the study applies a qualitative research design based on semi-structured interviews with owner-managers and employees in a restaurant setting. The empirical material was analyzed through a thematic analysis. The findings show that gender does not determine whether owner-managers are perceived as legitimate, but it shapes the route through which legitimacy is granted. Male owner-managers are more easily associated with operational legitimacy, decisiveness, and natural leadership, while female owner-managers are more often evaluated through relational legitimacy, such as care, communication and conflict handling. Based on our findings, the study develops the insight that male and female owner-managers may follow different gendered routes toward leadership legitimacy, where men are more easily connected to operational authority, while women’s legitimacy is more often demonstrated and relationally connected. The study further shows that operational legitimacy, created through competence, visibility and reliability, and relational legitimacy, created through respect, openness and trust, both influence employees’ attitudes. To illustrate this, this study develops a typology of operational and relational legitimacy that shows four possible legitimacy positions. This typology shows that the most positive employee attitudes appear when owner-managers are perceived as both operationally competent and relationally supportive. When leadership is perceived as legitimate, employees describe stronger trust, job satisfaction, commitment and an increased willingness to follow the leader. When legitimacy is instead weakened through stress, micromanagement, harsh feedback or bad mood, employees describe reduced motivation, uncertainty and lower trust. The study also visualizes perceived leadership legitimacy as a mechanism between gendered expectations and employee attitudes, showing how everyday leadership behavior are interpreted through gendered expectations before shaping trust, motivation, commitment and willingness to follow. The thesis contributes by showing how gendered expectations, leadership legitimacy and employee attitudes are interconnected in everyday restaurant operations and offers practical recommendations for owner-managers seeking to build legitimate and inclusive leadership. Overall, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of leadership legitimacy as an ongoing, socially constructed process where gender does not directly determine legitimacy, but shapes how legitimacy is interpreted, granted and translated into attitudes.