Gender Interaction in Teams: Experimental Evidence on Performance and Punishment Behavior

32 Pages Posted: 3 Jul 2015

See all articles by SeEun Jung

SeEun Jung

Inha University - Department of Economics

Radu Vranceanu

ESSEC Business School; University of Cergy-Pontoise - THEMA

Date Written: June 25, 2015

Abstract

This paper reports results from a real-effort experiment in which men and women are paired to form a two-member team and asked to execute a real-effort task. Each participant receives an equal share of the team's output. Workers who perform better than their partner can punish him/her by imposing a fine. We manipulate the teams' gender composition (man-man, man-woman, and woman-woman) to analyze whether an individual's performance and sanctioning behavior depends on his/her gender and the gender interaction within the team. The data show that, on average, men perform slightly better than women. A man's performance will deteriorate when paired with a woman, while a woman's performance will improve when paired with a woman. When underperforming, women are sanctioned more often and more heavily than men; if sanctioned, men tend to improve their performance, while women's performance does not change.

Keywords: Gender studies, Real-effort task, Team production, Performance, Punishment, Discrimination

JEL Classification: M52, J16, C91

Suggested Citation

Jung, SeEun and Vranceanu, Radu, Gender Interaction in Teams: Experimental Evidence on Performance and Punishment Behavior (June 25, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2626327 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2626327

SeEun Jung (Contact Author)

Inha University - Department of Economics ( email )

253 Yonghyun-dong
Nam-gu Incheon 402-751
Korea

Radu Vranceanu

ESSEC Business School ( email )

3, Av. Bernard Hirsch
PB 50105
Cergy-Pontoise, 95021
France

HOME PAGE: http://www.essec.fr

University of Cergy-Pontoise - THEMA ( email )

33 boulevard du port
F-95011 Cergy-Pontoise Cedex, 95011
France

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
115
Abstract Views
880
Rank
433,300
PlumX Metrics