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Group Gender Composition and Economic Decision-Making

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This paper analyses data collected in 2012 and 2013 at the ESSEC Business School from Kallystée, a proprietary mass-attendance business game. Company boards are simulated by groups of five students selected at random. We manipulate the gender composition of the management teams to allow for all possible gender combinations. We show that all-men and mixed teams with four women perform significantly better than all-women teams. However, when controlling for the average tolerance to risk of the teams, the performance advantage of all-men teams vanishes, while the “residual” economic performance of mixed-gender teams with a majority of women is still positive and strong. Further analysis of “actual” risk-taking behavior shows that in these mixed-gender teams a “risk shift” mechanism is at play, as they take risks beyond what their total tolerance to risk as a group would suggest.

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  • Lamiraud, Karine & Vranceanu , Radu, 2015. "Group Gender Composition and Economic Decision-Making," ESSEC Working Papers WP1515, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebg:essewp:dr-15015
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    Cited by:

    1. Olivier Vidal, 2016. "Studying Unmanaged Earnings Distributions [L'étude des distributions de résultats non manipulés]," Post-Print hal-01902456, HAL.
    2. Radu, Vranceanu & Delphine, Dubart, 2019. "Experimental evidence on deceitful communication: does everyone have a price ?," ESSEC Working Papers WP1806, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    3. Eloisa Campioni & Vittorio Larocca & Loredana Mirra & Luca Panaccione, 2017. "Financial literacy and bank runs: an experimental analysis," CEIS Research Paper 402, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 07 Jul 2017.
    4. Vranceanu, Radu & Dubart, Delphine, 2019. "Deceitful communication in a sender-receiver experiment: Does everyone have a price?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 43-52.
    5. Grimm, Stefan, 2018. "Show What You Risk - Norms for Risk Taking," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 119, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. Olivier Vidal, 2017. "Studying Unmanaged Earnings Distributions [L'étude des distributions de résultats non manipulés]," Post-Print hal-03737349, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    group decision; gender studies; risk-taking; business game; performance; governance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

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