Arbeitspapier
Are women less effective leaders than men? Evidence from experiments using coordination games
We study whether one reason behind female underrepresentation in leadership is that female leaders are less effective at coordinating action by followers. Two experiments using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than males in persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. Group performance hinges on higher-order beliefs about the leader's capacity to convince followers to pursue desired actions, making beliefs that women are less effective leaders potentially self-confirming. We find no evidence that such bias impacts actual leadership performance, identifying a precisely-estimated null effect. We show that this absence of an effect is surprising given experts' priors.
- Language
-
Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
-
Series: Working Paper ; No. 368
- Classification
-
Wirtschaft
Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
Noncooperative Games
Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Group Behavior
- Subject
-
gender
coordination games
leadership
experiment
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Heursen, Lea
Ranehill, Eva
Weber, Roberto A.
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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University of Zurich, Department of Economics
- (where)
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Zurich
- (when)
-
2020
- DOI
-
doi:10.5167/uzh-191998
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Heursen, Lea
- Ranehill, Eva
- Weber, Roberto A.
- University of Zurich, Department of Economics
Time of origin
- 2020
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