Women, men and management styles

The author seeks to disentangle the terminological complexities behind oppo sed concepts such as sex and gender, masculine and feminine, biological and socially constructed attributes. In so doing, she shows that stereotypes a re often less clear-cut than they seem and that erstwhile weaknesses can co me to be viewed as valuable skills, formerly perceived strengths as inflexi ble and one-dimensional. As management culture starts to appreciate and inc orporate gender differences it is coming to see the value of a mixture of s o-called feminine and masculine characteristics in the panoply of managemen t skills needed in the highly competitive global marker place.