Leadership and gender In groups:

an experimENT

AUTHORS:-
PHILIP J. GROSSMAN
MANA KOMAI
JAMES E. JENSEN
 INTRODUCTION
•The paper investigates the role of gender in the behaviour of leaders and
followers in collective actions .

•It offers some insights into how the gender combination of groups and
organizations and the emphasis on gender in them may help explain why
women are not well represented in leadership role .
FORTUNE 500 TOP EARNER’S: 7.9%
(16.4%)
SALARIED WORKER’S: 39%
(80.7%)

FORTUNE 500 CEO’S: 1.4%

(2.9%)
Literature Review:
 The Game :
 ByKGD (2011),
Type of game : COLLECTIVE ACTION GAME / SINGLE SHOT GAME

 FOCUS ON
•BEHAVIOUR OF INDIVIDUAL GROUP MEMEBERS
•GENDER COMBINATION
•TREATMENTS
 THE GAME DEPICTS THE FOLLOWING EQUATION:
ai ℇ A={N,P}
Where ai=identical players
N denotes non-participation
P denotes participation
Single shot game
3 identical players
Endowment=$10

3 RANDOM PAYOFF SCENARIOS HAPPENS

SCENARIO 1 : HIGH PAYOFF SCENARIO

SCENARIO 2:AVERAGE PAYOFF SCENARIO
SCENARIO 3: LOW PAYOFF SCENARIO
 LEADER - FOLLOWER GAME
Strategies of the game
1. PP- follower always participate no matter what the leader does
2. R – Follower reject leader’s action
3. NN – The follower never participate regardless of the leader’s action
4. M – Follower mimics the leader’s action
 EXPERIMENT
The passage dives into the specifics of how the experiment was conducted:
Subject Groups: ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY
● All Male & All Female: Considered variations of Gender Signalling treatment.
● Gender Signalling: Leader's decision and gender revealed to followers (4 sessions).
● No Gender-Signalling: Leader's decision only revealed (5 sessions).
● Mixed Gender (not used for Single Gender comparison): Attempt to have 8:7 or
close
male-female ratio (5 sessions with variations).
Total Subjects & Sessions:
● 270 subjects participated in 18 sessions.
● No subject participated in multiple sessions .
Procedure per Session (10 rounds):
1. Recruitment: 15 subjects recruited per session via email and posters.
2. Instructions: Provided and read aloud. Practice questions ensured understanding.
3. Rounds:
○ Subjects randomly grouped into 3 for each round.
○ Investment scenario randomly assigned to the group for each round.
○ Leader (randomly chosen) decides to invest or not (informed of scenario & gender in
Gender Signalling).
○ Followers informed of leader's decision (and gender in Gender Signalling) and
independently decide to invest or not.
○ Individual earnings calculated and posted anonymously by ID after each round.
○ Subjects re-matched and leader/follower roles change each round.
4. Anonymity: Identities remained anonymous throughout.
5. Payment: Final earnings determined by randomly chosen round (subjects roll a die to
decide the relevant round).
 MAJOR FINDINGS
OVERALL INVESTMENT DECISIONS
WITHIN TREATMENT ANALYSIS
1. THE SINGLE GENDER TREATMENT
2. NO GENDER SIGNALLING TREATMENT
3. GENDER SIGNALLING TREATMENT
 TREATMENT INVESTIGATION OF THE SUBJECT
1. FEMALE SUBJECT
2. MALE SUBJECT
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

•The authors investigate the issue of gender differences in

leadership using a laboratory experiment. To do so they
consider a collective action game in which free riding and
coordination failures can prevent group cooperation. They
then introduces an information based leadership structure
in which leaders with exclusive information are followed
by a group of followers.
 Our result suggest 2 conclusions:
:
1. The study suggests female leaders are less likely to take charge when their followers
can easily avoid following (free rider ) and their gender is emphasized . This is
especially true in mixed – gender groups . The researchers believe this might be due to
stereotype threat. When their gender is highlighted, female leaders might feel anxious
about confirming negative stereotypes about female leadership, leading to hesitation
and reduced willingness to lead.
2. The study found that followers didn’t treat male and female leaders differently. This
suggests female leaders themselves might be misjudging followers trust and
legitimacy, and more leadership experience could help them overcome this hesitation .
 Publisher and References

•Published by : Wiley on behalf of the Canadian Economics Association

•Source : The Canadian Journal of Economics / Revue canadienne

d’Economique , February 2015.

•Vol. 48 NO. 1 (February 2015) , PP. 36-388

THANK YOU
23-EC-207 VISHWA
23-EC-208 NOOPUR
23-EC-223 KENA
23-EC-235 RIVA