Gender Differences in Dishonesty Disappear When Leaders Make Decisions on Behalf of Their Team
Kerstin Grosch,
Stephan Müller,
Holger A. Rau and
Lilia Wasserka-Zhurakhovska
No 8514, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo
Abstract:
Leaders often face a dilemma between ethical considerations and financial gains. We experimentally study such a dilemma where leaders can benefit their teams at the expense of moral costs. Given the question whether gender diversity in leadership can enhance ethical behavior, our study focuses on examining potential gender differences. Specifically, we analyze the stability of individual dishonesty preferences after subjects assume leadership roles and have to make reporting decisions on behalf of their team. In our lab experiment, we measure, first, individual dishonesty preferences and, second, leaders' reporting decisions for a team by using outcome-reporting games. We focus on an endogenous leadership setting, where subjects can apply for leadership. Women have less pronounced dishonesty preferences than men, but increase dishonesty as leaders. The increase disappears when the promotion procedure changes and leadership is randomly assigned. A follow-up study reveals that women leaders behave dishonestly when they believe their team members prefer dishonesty.
Keywords: leadership; decisions for others; lab experiment; gender differences; dishonesty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 H26 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8514.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8514
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().