Teamwork, Leadership and Gender

Maria De Paola (), Francesca Gioia () and Vincenzo Scoppa ()

No 11861, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We ran a field experiment to investigate whether individual performance in teams depends on the gender of the leader. About 430 students from an Italian University took an intermediate exam that was partly evaluated on the basis of teamwork. Students were randomly matched in teams of three and in each team we randomly chose a leader with the task of coordinating the work of the team. We find a positive and significant effect of female leadership on team performance. This effect is driven by the higher performance of team members in female led teams rather than due to an improvement in the leader's performance. We also find that, in spite of the higher performance of female led teams, male members tend to evaluate female leaders as less effective, whereas female members are more sympathetic towards them.

Keywords: stereotypes; gender; leadership; team; randomized experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 J16 M12 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2018-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published as 'Female leadership: effectiveness and perception' in: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, 201, 134-162.

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Related works:
Working Paper: TEAMWORK, LEADERSHIP AND GENDER (2018)
Working Paper: Teamwork, Leadership and Gender (2018)
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