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

85 Pages Posted: 3 Dec 2020

See all articles by Lea Heursen

Lea Heursen

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Eva Ranehill

University of Gothenburg

Roberto Weber

University of Zurich

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: 2020

Abstract

We study whether one reason behind female underrepresentation in leadership is that female leaders are less effective at coordinating action by followers. Two experiments using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than males in persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. Group performance hinges on higherorder 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, identifying a precisely-estimated null effect. We show that this absence of an effect is surprising given experts’ priors.

JEL Classification: D230, C720, C920, J100

Suggested Citation

Heursen, Lea and Ranehill, Eva and Weber, Roberto, Are Women Less Effective Leaders than Men? Evidence from Experiments Using Coordination Games (2020). CESifo Working Paper No. 8713, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3740325 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3740325

Lea Heursen (Contact Author)

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München ( email )

Munich

HOME PAGE: http://www.leaheursen.com

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ( email )

Humboldt Universität
Unter den Linden 6
Berlin, 10099
Germany

Eva Ranehill

University of Gothenburg ( email )

Viktoriagatan 30
Göteborg, 405 30
Sweden

Roberto Weber

University of Zurich ( email )

Rämistrasse 71
Zürich, CH-8006
Switzerland

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
86
Abstract Views
477
Rank
337,162
PlumX Metrics