“Comparative influence of gender, age, industry and management level on communication”

Th e protracted COVID-19 pandemic repeatedly demonstrates the necessity of eff ective communication inside and outside organizations. However, a defi cient comprehensive study of factors able to aff ect managerial communication limit further progress in the improvement of such business interactions. Th e research fi lls in the knowledge gap about the comparative infl uence of various factors on managerial communication and particularly the impact of individual and organizational characteristics of managers on communication. Th e paper aims to determine the signifi cance of the relationships between managerial communication and age, genders, managerial levels, and industries in private companies from the energy, education, trade, service, extraction, con- struction, and production sectors. Within the organizational study, 224 subordinates from Kazakhstan fi rms refl ected on their supervisors’ communications through a mul- tivariate closed questionnaire. Th e obtained data was further processed and examined through correlation coeffi cients and dispersion analysis. Th e research results identifi ed the considerable relationship between communication practices and managers’ age (R 2 =0.9637), managerial level (R 2 =0.9640), and industry (R 2 =0.9653). Th e study reveals the weak relationship between manager’s gender and communication practices (R 2 =0.1535): women insignifi cantly outperform men in this linking process. Th e research postulates that eff ectiveness of managerial communication considerably varies by managers’ age, managerial level, and industry, and insignifi cantly by gender. Th e paper lays the groundwork for gender-unbiased practices of human resource manage- ment and contributes to the idea of building diverse management teams. gender significantly varies in age, managerial level, and industry. The research proves high effectiveness of managerial communication in middle at early career period, and its decrease in the retirement period. The study results show men lead communications in extraction, construction, production, and trade better compared to women, while the latter practice better communications in education, service, and energy. This study also detects top managers lead communication best out of all managers, whereas middle-level managers insignificantly outperform first-line supervisors.


INTRODUCTION
The significance of communication, a critical linking process penetrating all management functions, has risen under current conditions of vulnerability and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (Herman, 2021). Notwithstanding managerial communications have already been the most demanded types of interactions taking place in contemporary organizations, their intensity is still raising for managers of the 21 st century (Turco, 2016).
Managers represent a diverse group of leaders with their distinctive individual and organizational characteristics; the diversity of the managers' pool positively contributes to organizational prosperity (Arioglu, 2020; Reguera-Alvarado & Bravo-Urquiza, 2020). Communication and human resource (HR) diversity in companies are closely interrelated: the better managers communicate with their subordinates, the more positive impact diversity brings to working teams and the more diverse management teams are, and thus the more comprehensive communications they lead (Kelemen et al., 2020).
Managerial communication practices may vary depending on various aspects including individual, biological, social, and organizational (Levasseur, 2013). However, most studies on managerial communication consider only one or a few characteristics in isolation with others (Snaebjornsson & Edvardsson, 2013) that limit a proper understanding of the phenomena of managers as real people endowed with certain characteristics and working under specific organizational and industrial conditions. Deficient knowledge on the comparative influence of individual and organizational factors decelerates both theoretical and practical development of the issue. Moreover, isolated consideration of gender and age factors causes stereotype-based, age-biased, and gender discrimination during selection, promotion or advancement of managers. In their turn, biased and discriminatory HR practices decrease the effective utilization of human capital that further undermines the effectiveness of HR management. Therefore, a comprehensive comparative study of individual and organizational characteristics is required to shed light on what is actually influencing the effectiveness of organizational communication in private organizations.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
The recent review of highly regarded management and psychology peer-reviewed journals has revealed insufficient control of individual and organizational variables in leadership studies (Bernerth et al., 2017). Bernerth et al. (2017) emphasize the critical importance of multiple factors within management studies to improve their validity and real-life orientation.

Effective managerial communication
Managerial communication is "a communication between the manager and subordinates -the goal of this communication is both to develop and disseminate relevant knowledge that will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of managers in the contemporary business environment" (Gheorghe et al., 2009). Managers are involved in different types of daily communications: intra organizational and inter-organizational, upward and downward, formal and informal, etc. However, the largest share of managerial communication present interactions with the staff (Mintzberg, 2011 Effective leaders should listen to their subordinates and be flexible in applying various leadership styles that will be favorable under a highly competitive and multifaceted environment (Bamel et al., 2016). Adaptability and flexibility are considered critical conditions for manager effectiveness and particularly for communication (Bamel et al., 2015). Adaptability allows choosing the best way of approaching people to motivate highly effective performance.  A type of research influences its results in terms of absence or presence of differences. In laboratory studies of communications within teams, men demonstrated more self-assertion and dominance and women expressed more warmth and deference; men are somewhat more oriented to task, while women -to social behavior (Powell, 2019). In the meta-analysis of task versus relationship and participative versus directive styles, women showed more inclination to interpersonal and directive styles comparing to men within laboratory and assessment studies and less inclination within organizational studies (Sczesny et al., 2019). In their organizational studies, Gartzia and van Engen (2012) identified women leaders demonstrated more interpersonal orientation than men managers did.
The dimension of differences between women and men managerial communications is disputed and requires more complex research. To reduce the revealed gap the scope of gender influence along with such important factors as managerial level, age, and industry were considered. It is required to consider women and men management and communication as non-opposite with an account of other individual and organizational factors (Snaebjornsson & Edvardsson, 2013). In this regard, possible effects of gender stereotypes are reduced.
Managers at the age of 20-30 have less experience in supervising others comparatively to managers of elder age; they make their first steps and are prone to making mistakes. At the establishment stage, managers set roles including work ones, and at the age of 45   Based on the literature review the aim is to identify the comparative significance of the relationships between communication practices and managers' gender, management level, age, and industry in private companies operating in the energy, educa-tion, trade, service, extraction, construction, and production sectors. Within the framework of the set aim, four research hypotheses are elaborated: H1: Gender has a moderate influence on communication.
H2: Managerial level has a significant effect on communication.
H3: Age has a significant effect on communication.

METHODOLOGY
Given the applied nature of management where the involvement of real supervisors is most favorable for research (Powell, 2019), it was decided to implement an organizational study. The multi-choice closed questionnaire was based on the requirements for managerial communications of contemporary leaders ( 47% male, 53% female) from large, medium, and small private Kazakhstan companies constituted the respondent pool. Respondents were chosen on a random basis, 65% of questionnaires were sent by e-mail and 35% were passed as a hard copy. 224 managers (57% male, 43% female) from women-intensive (education, service), men-intensive (energy, extraction, construction, production), and gender-neutral industries (trade) were assessed (RK Committee on Statistics, 2020). The age distribution was uneven owing to slow career progress at early stages and the average retirement period: 15 managers were at the age of 20-30, 56 managers -31-40, 113 managers -41-50, 28 managers -51-60, and 12 managers -61-70. The distribution of supervisors along managerial levels was the following: 73 -top, 107 -middle, and 44 -first-line managers.
Levels of communication were classified as high, medium, low and represented a dependent variable. Three versions of answers were offered to every question with relative weights of 2, 1, or 0 scores. Gender, managerial level, age, and industry implied independent variables. The study utilizes methods of dispersion analysis and correlation coefficients for further data processing and examination.
To test the reliability of the chosen instrument, Cronbach α and Composite Reliability with the minimum acceptable value of 0.7 were calculated (Sekaran & Bougie, 2013). Additionally, for checking the scale validity the Average Variance Extracted and Factor Loadings were utilized with the minimum threshold of 0.5 for these scales (Sekaran & Bougie, 2013). The items aimed to measure certain managerial communication practices and values of the calculated indicators are reflected in Table 1.
Following Table 1, the implemented calculations certify the designed items meet the requirements set for scale values. Hence, the research results can be considered reliable and valid.
Initially, a comparison of the values of regression coefficients of respondent's gender and manager's gender was undertaken to measure the possible gender bias in evaluation of managers. For testing the proposed hypotheses, the analysis of multiple regression models with a dummy variable was applied. Mathematic equations and multiple correlation coefficients were calculated to further define relationships between managers' ages, management levels, industries, and managerial communications: where ComPrac -level of communication practices, Х first -first-line managers, X middle -middle managers, X top -top managers, W -random value. 20 where Х ed -managers in education, Х en -managers in energy, Х tr -managers in trade, Х srv -managers in service, Х ext, con,pr -managers in extraction, construction, and production, U -random value.

RESULTS
Measurement of the possible gender bias has shown its insignificance: the value of the multiple R (R 2 = 0.11) indicated rather a weak relationship between manager's gender, and the respondent's gender and manager's level of communications practices. Therefore, subordinates provided gender unbiased evaluations of their supervisors and the study findings were not distorted.
As the result of testing H1. Gender has a moderate influence on communication, the multiple R (R 2 = 0.1535) showed a weak relationship between the manager's gender and the level of communication practices. Therefore, the hypothesis was not confirmed. The possible explanation of this inconsistency may lie in women's minor position engendering a stereotype threat of utilizing a feminine In general, respondents evaluated men and women oral and written communication skills and adaptability of a communication style equally well. However, some insignificant gender differences in managerial communications were identified: female supervisors were assessed slightly higher for listening to subordinates, approachability, giving instructions and advice, as well as verifying the accuracy of message understanding.
The method of multiple regressions identified that managerial level demonstrated a considerable relationship with manager's communication practices (R 2 =0.9640). Consequently, the proposed H2. Managerial level has a significant effect on communication was fully attested. The degree of divergence between managers by gen-der (R 2 = 0.1535) was rather lower than by managerial level (R 2 =0.9640): the difference was identified between top, middle, and first-line managers' communication practices. The regression statistics of equation (2) showed that the multiple coefficients of correlation were equal to R Y…Xtop = 0.96, R 2 = 0.94, F actual > F tabular , α = 0.05. Additionally, top managers' communication practices were higher evaluated comparatively to other-level managers, whereas middle managers' communication practices were insignificantly higher appraised than of first-line managers (b 1 < b 2 < b 3 ). The calculated coefficient of the Student's t-test and the confidence interval were correct. The dispersion analysis of the equation (2) parameters is displayed in Table 2.
For better visualization, a distribution of first-line, middle, and top managers along the levels of communication practices is presented in Figure 1. The division was based on the statistical data of the conducted research.
Following Figure 1, low communication (least effective) was practiced by 20% of the first-line managers, 15% of the middle managers, and 10% of the top managers. High-level (most effective) communication was practiced by 31% of the top, 25% of the middle, and 23% of the first-line man- Obviously, top managers engage better communications due to a long professional experience comparatively with other managers. In addition, the process of candidate selection for top positions is associated with finding managers with the best skills. Positive evaluation of top managers might be also substantiated by their better abilities to adapt communication styles depending on a situation that is rooted in their key change-agent role in organizations (Anzengruber et al., 2017).
H3. Age has a significant effect on communication was tested utilizing the analysis of multiple regression models with a dummy variable. The multiple R (R 2 =0.9637) demonstrated a significant relationship between the manager age and the level of communication practices and, thus, supported the H3. To detect the age of managers who possess the best managerial communications, equation (3) was written and further dispersion analysis was conducted. Table 3 displays the dispersion analysis of equation (3).
The data analysis showed that managers at the age from 31 to 60 applied communication practices at the highest level. The best performers out of this group were managers from 41 to 50 (b 3 =10.58) followed by supervisors at age of 31-40 (b 2 =9.71) and 51-60 (b 4 =8.99). The lowest level of communication practices was observed among the group of 61-70 (b 5 =7.88), followed by the group of 20-30 (b 1 =8.30). Two groups with the lowest evaluations often face considerable employment difficulties in the labor market. Education and work style obtained in previous times, low flexibility, and declining mental abilities are considered as employment obstacles for elder workers, while the youngest group is characterized as inexperienced (Smirnova & Tatibekov, 2013).
To test H4. Industry affects communication insignificantly; the applied method of multiple regressions was used to calculate R 2 =0.9653 that refuted the hypothesized inconsiderable influence of managerial level on communication. The multiple regression equation (4) was written to identify how industries are related to the levels of communication. Table 4 presents the dispersion analysis of equation (4).
The dispersion analysis showed R Y…Xext, con,pr = 0.97, R 2 = 0.93, the equation was statistically significant by Fisher as F actual > F tab , and the regression coefficients were statistically significant by Student's t-test. The equation demonstrated that managers in education, trade, and energy practiced communications at a higher level out of all studied supervisors. The significant fluctuations in numbers of women and men managers represented in different industries made it impossible to make a reliable mathematical analysis of the relationship between gender, industry, and level of communication. However, the statistical analysis revealed that women were assessed higher in education, energy, and service, while men -in extraction, construction, production, and trade. Finally, verification of four proposed hypotheses justified H2 and H3 and rejected H1 and H4.
Comparative estimation of the regression equations of four independent variables is depicted in Table 5. The critical result is the identification of wider variations of managerial communication within one characteristic than variations between different characteristics. Therefore, the study shows women and men do not significantly differ in their communication practices but managers of the same gender vary considerably if they are of different ages, work in dissimilar industries or occupy different managerial levels in the organizational hi-erarchy. Thus, managerial level, age, and industry can be reliable predictors of how well a manager practices communication. The findings reveal the complexity of variables able to improve or worsen the effectiveness of managerial communication and bring to the forefront a comprehensive approach to an understanding of how individual and organizational factors may impact managerial communication.  The gained results, which showed that women have better communications in education, service, and energy while men in extraction, construction, production, and trade, partially agree with previous studies (Sczesny et al., 2019). Better evaluations of women in energy may be substan-tiated by the fact that the majority of respondents in this field were officers related to business settings in which women and men are equally effective (Sczesny et al., 2019) and to the fact that women adapt their communication practices to the demands of male-intensive sectors (Martin & Phillips, 2017).

DISCUSSION
Notwithstanding subordinate evaluations are considered equally reliable with other types, the given study is limited by the only type of evaluators -subordinates (Hoyt & Burnette, 2013). It is required to further examine managers' communication practices with the attraction of other evaluators. Another limitation is that the study focused on one country. Study of the same individual and organizational factors in other countries and cultures may disclose wider perspectives of the examined topic.

CONCLUSION
The study is aimed at revealing the comparative influence of gender, age, managerial level, and industry factors on managerial communications. The findings postulate the effectiveness of communication practices does not considerably depend on the gender factor, whereas significantly varies in age, managerial level, and industry. The research proves high effectiveness of managerial communication in the middle age, weak at early career period, and its decrease in the retirement period. The study results show men lead communications in extraction, construction, production, and trade better compared to women, while the latter practice better communications in education, service, and energy. This study also detects top managers lead communication best out of all managers, whereas middle-level managers insignificantly outperform first-line supervisors.
The paper develops the existing academic research with a comprehensive view of how the communication practices of a real manager are affected by the individual characteristics and the organization's specificity. Variations in managerial communications dependent on one factor should not be considered apart from other factors since a manager is a person with a range of biological and social characteristics working under certain organizational conditions, and the scale of individual differences fluctuates over a lifetime and might reduce with time (Powell, 2019). Emphasizing one factor with ignorance of others in research might lead to overstating of its role in management and increase the likelihood of stereotypes. Therefore, in management studies it is recommended to consider managerial communication in a complex of individual and organizational factors to raise research quality and reduce possible prejudice. The present findings must contribute to lowering gender stereotypes in staff employment and advancement and attract executives and HR managers to introducing diversity management in their companies.