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Leadership and Gender: An Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Philip J. Grossman
  • Mana Komai

    (Department of Economics, St. Cloud State University)

Abstract

We present an information based model of leadership in a setting that exhibits the familiar problems of free riding and coordination failure. Leaders have superior information about the value of the project in hand and can send a costly signal to their uninformed followers to persuade them to cooperate in the project. Followers voluntarily choose whether or not to follow the better informed leader. We provide experimental evidence that, when the leaders� gender is revealed to their followers, female subjects hesitate to lead (send a costly signal) while followers� behavior does not indicate any gender discrimination. Such behavior is not observed among the male leaders.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip J. Grossman & Mana Komai, 2008. "Leadership and Gender: An Experiment," Working Papers 2008-4, Saint Cloud State University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:scs:wpaper:0804
    as

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    File URL: http://repository.stcloudstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=econ_wps
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Andreoni & Lise Vesterlund, 2001. "Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(1), pages 293-312.
    2. Uri Gneezy & Muriel Niederle & Aldo Rustichini, 2003. "Performance in Competitive Environments: Gender Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 1049-1074.
    3. Mana Komai & Mark Stegeman & Benjamin E. Hermalin, 2007. "Leadership and Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 944-947, June.
    4. Andreoni, James, 1988. "Why free ride? : Strategies and learning in public goods experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 291-304, December.
    5. Axel Franzen, 1995. "Group Size and One-Shot Collective Action," Rationality and Society, , vol. 7(2), pages 183-200, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. Eleonora Bottino & Teresa García-Muñoz & Praveen Kujal, 2016. "Gender Biases in Delegation," Working Papers 16-22, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    2. Tom Lane, 2015. "Discrimination in the laboratory: a meta-analysis," Discussion Papers 2015-03, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Leadership; Information; Gender; Free Riding; Coordination Problem;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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