Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether women encounter more social resistance than men do when they attempt to negotiate for higher compensation, and whether the gender and personality of the interviewer moderates that resistance. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted an experiment to explore how gender and personality jointly influence interviewers’ decision making in job negotiations. Findings – The authors found that: first, female interviewees who initiate negotiations in a job interview are penalized by both male and female interviewers; second, more agreeable interviewers are “nicer” than less agreeable ones to interviewees who ask for more pay, even after controlling for the interviewers’ gender; and third, more extraverted interviewers are “tougher” than less extraverted interviewers toward interviewees who initiate salary negotiation. These phenomena are more pronounced when interviewees are male as opposed to female. Research limitations/implications – Some limitations need to be brought to the reader’s attention. First, the participants of this study are undergraduate students. While most of them have job interview experience as an interviewee, few have any experience as an interviewer. In order to minimize this effect, we used human resources management students who previously had a course on hiring and selection in this experiment. Second, the order of the interviewees evaluated by participants, acting as interviewers, could cause an “order effect.” Practical implications – This study contributes to the gender, personality, and negotiations literature, and “fills the gap” on the joint effect of gender, personality, and hiring decision making. Gender discrimination during job interviews suggests that business needs to address discrimination and diversity issues earlier. It may be wise for management to consider the potential bias of an interviewer’s gender and personality on their hiring decisions before the organization makes a final decision on which interviewee should be hired and how much salary should be offered. Originality/value – To the best of the knowledge of the authors, no prior studies have explored the joint effect of gender and personality on negotiation behavior in a job interview setting from an interviewer’s perspective.

Purpose – The aim of this study is to examine how personality traits influence interviewees’ negotiation decisions as well as whether and to what extent such effects are moderated by one’s gender and risk attitudes. Design/methodology/approach – An experiment was designed in which participants acted as interviewees and were asked to decide whether to initiate negotiations to potentially increase their salary and benefits. A logistic regression analysis and conditional process analysis were used to examine the effects of personality traits (agreeableness and extraversion) on the initiation of salary negotiation, as well as whether and to what extent such effects are moderated by one’s gender and risk attitudes. Findings – A significant direct influence of extraversion and risk attitude on a job applicant’s initiation of salary negotiations. It was also found that risk attitudes moderate the effect of personality traits (i.e. agreeableness and extraversion) on individuals’ negotiation decisions. This study thus indicates that the effects of personality traits on job applicants’ initiation of salary negotiations are contingent on their risk attitudes. Originality/value – To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the direct as well as moderated effects of personality traits on interviewees’ negotiation behavior in job interviews. The findings of this study thus significantly contribute to the literature in this line of research. Human resource professionals, as well as job seekers, may also benefit from the findings and implications of this study.

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Imagine yourself as the human resource manager in the following scenario: You have just notified one of your employees that he is going to be terminated due to a conflict of interest which the employee has repeatedly refused to resolve. In accordance with usual company practice, you instruct his immediate supervisor to accompany the employee to his office to pack up his personal belongings and escort him out the main entrance. Neither you, nor the supervisor say anything to anyone regarding the reason for the employee's termination.