Abstract

MONICO, Lisete; PAIS, Leonor; PRATAS, Inês M.  and  SANTOS, Nuno R. dos. How is the ideal boss?: A study about its social representation in the Portuguese population. Psicologia [online]. 2019, vol.33, n.1, pp.1-18. ISSN 0874-2049.  https://doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v33i1.1367.

The aim of this study is to identify and interpret the social representations of the ideal boss among Portuguese people, based on the fact that leadership is one of the themes that has received most attention from Social Sciences researchers. To this end, 2725 people were surveyed. We used the Free Word Association technique to access the evocations of the ideal boss. The evocations were classified through the Four-Frame Table as a function of their significant value, making it possible to identify the following constituent elements of the central core: “comprehensive”, “respectful”, “leader”, “sympathetic” and “competent”. The central nucleus invariance and the variance of the peripheries were analyzed according to the variables gender, age and occupation of a managerial position. The results suggest some similarity between models of positive and virtuous leadership and what our sample defined as the ideal boss.

Keywords : Social Representation; Ideal Boss; Leadership; Leader.

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