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Compensation and Honesty: Gender Differences in Lying

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  • Nieken, Petra
  • Dato, Simon

Abstract

We compare gender differences in lying under two incentive schemes that are widely used in companies: individual performance-pay and tournament incentives. While we do not observe significantly different behavior of males and females given individual performance-pay, females lie significantly less than males if the compensation scheme is switched to tournament incentives. This result is mainly driven by a decrease in the propensity to lie of females in a competitive environment. The gender gap in lying is robust with respect to the gender composition of the pool of opponents. Dishonesty is largest for males competing in a mixed-gender environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Nieken, Petra & Dato, Simon, 2016. "Compensation and Honesty: Gender Differences in Lying," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145758, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145758
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Simon Piest & Philipp Schreck, 2021. "Contests and unethical behavior in organizations: a review and synthesis of the empirical literature," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 679-721, October.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior

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