Catherine Eckel on "The gender leadership gap: evidence from the lab"

Catherine Eckel (Texas A&M University, USA) 

Title: "The gender leadership gap: evidence from the lab" 

December 11, 2023, 16:00 CET (GMT+1)

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Abstract

Women are underrepresented among leadership positions.  We use lab experiments to isolate and examine one potential cause of the gender leadership gap: differences in the evaluation and reward of women and men.  In two studies we show first that, when skill and productivity are held constant by design, women receive lower evaluations and lower rewards.  In a second study we vary the organizational design to be more cooperative or more competitive. Women are believed to shy away from competitive environments and prefer cooperative environments. This study investigates the impact of the organizational design on the gender leadership gap. Our findings show that both male and female leaders are similarly effective in enhancing productivity. However, in a competitive context, a gender gap remains: Women leaders receive lower evaluations than male leaders for offering identical advice. Interestingly, this bias disappears in a cooperative context, suggesting that the congruence of the environment with gender stereotypes has important implications for leadership evaluations. Notably, men consistently demonstrate a higher willingness to lead, regardless of the surrounding context.