Are Women Less Effective Leaders than Men? Evidence from Experiments Using Coordination Games

Lea Heursen, Eva Ranehill and Roberto Weber
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Lea Heursen: HU Berlin
Roberto Weber: University of Zurich

No 472, Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series from CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition

Abstract: We study whether one reason behind female underrepresentation in leadership is that female leaders are less effective at coordinating followers’ actions. Two experiments using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than males in persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. In these settings, successful coordination hinges on higher-order beliefs about the leader’s capacity to convince followers to pursue desired actions, making beliefs that women are less effective leaders potentially self-confirming. We find no evidence that such bias impacts actual leadership performance, precisely estimating the absence of a gender leadership gap. We further show that this result is surprising given experts’ priors.

Keywords: gender; coordination games; leadership; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D23 J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-12-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hrm and nep-lab
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Related works:
Working Paper: Are Women Less Effective Leaders Than Men? Evidence from Experiments Using Coordination Games (2020)
Working Paper: Are women less effective leaders than men? Evidence from experiments using coordination games (2020)
Working Paper: Are women less effective leaders than men? Evidence from experiments using coordination games (2020)
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