Challenges of Change: An Experiment Promoting Women to Managerial Roles in the Bangladeshi Garment Sector

Macchiavello, Rocco; Menzel, Andreas; Rabbani, Atonu; Woodruff, Christopher

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3665877

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In other words, we assume that female politicians get less credit for their actions. This in line with evidence showing that voters assess female political leaders less favorably than their male counterparts (e.g., Bertrand and Duflo 2017), and of gender-biased performance evaluation in other contexts (e.g., Sarsons 2017;Mengel et al 2018;Macchiavello et al 2020;Egan et al 2022;Ross et al 2022).…”

Section: Voters' Beliefssupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Using quasi-experimental evidence from Italy, Gagliarducci and Paserman (2012) show that female mayors are more likely to experience an early termination of their mandate in regions where people display less favorable attitudes towards working women. Similar gender biases in performance evaluation have been found in multiple contexts outside politics, including manufacturing and financial firms (Macchiavello et al, 2020;Egan et al, 2022), healthcare (Sarsons, 2017), and academia (Mengel et al, 2018;Ross et al, 2022).…”

Section: Contribution To the Literaturesupporting

confidence: 55%

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Gender and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Crisis Respons

Chauvin¹,

Tricaud²

2022

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While there is evidence of gender differences in leaders behavior, less is known about what drives these gaps. This paper uncovers the role of electoral incentives. Using a close election regression discontinuity design in Brazil, we first show that female mayors handled the COVID-19 crisis differently over the year 2020, which ended with new municipal elections. We find that having a female mayor led to more deaths per capita at the beginning of the pandemic a period characterized by uncertainty about the severity of the threat but to fewer deaths per capita later in the year, a period where this uncertainty was reduced. We provide additional evidence that female mayors were less likely to close non-essential businesses early on, and more likely to do so at the end, and that residents in female-led municipalities were more likely to stay at home in the weeks surrounding the election. We then show that these results can be rationalized by a simple political agency model where politicians seek re-election and where voters assess female and male politicians actions differently. Consistent with this interpretation, we show that the gender differences we find are driven exclusively by mayors who were not term-limited and thus allowed to run for re-election, and that the effects are stronger in municipalities with greater gender discrimination. Taken together, the results suggest that female and male leaders face different electoral incentives and adapt their policy decisions to voters expectations.

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Section: Voters' Beliefssupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Contribution To the Literaturesupporting

confidence: 55%

Gender and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Crisis Respons

Chauvin¹,

Tricaud²

2022

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“…Our study contributes to a fast-growing economics literature on the importance of management practices in organizations across the world (Adhvaryu et al, 2018a;Aghion et al, 2017;Bandiera et al, 2017;Bloom et al, 2017aBloom et al, , 2013Bloom et al, , 2017bBloom and Van Reenen, 2007;Macchiavello et al, 2015;McKenzie and Woodruff, 2016;Schoar, 2011). 7 Our work is most closely related to Bloom et al (2016), who estimate firm production functions that incorporate management as a technology; Bloom et al (2018a), who study management practice variation across US firms; and Bandiera et al (2017), who study the link between time use and productivity of CEOs around the world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Managerial Quality and Productivity Dynamics

Adhvaryu¹,

Nyshadham

Tamayo

2022

The Review of Economic Studies

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Do productivity and managerial quality vary within the firm? If so which managerial traits and practices matter most for team productivity? Combining granular garment production data with survey data on managers across 120 production lines in India, we document substantial productivity dispersion both across teams producing overlapping products and within team over the course of production runs, and structurally link this variation to a comprehensive assessment of supervisor quality. We find that factors related to managerial attention and control are the most important for enabling line productivity, both more impactful than traditionally emphasized dimensions like cognitive skills and tenure. We document that one mechanism by which specific managerial practices contribute to productivity is by way of enabling faster learning-by-doing. In-sample pay patterns suggest potential net gains from screening for or training in less readily measured dimensions of managerial quality, as pass-through of productivity contributions to pay is incomplete.

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“…Second, as discussed in Macchiavello et al (2016), women have been largely excluded from higher-level positions in the sector. The lower potential for promotion into management positions may be a cause of shorter careers and also reduce the benefit of acquiring skills in operator positions.…”

Section: Drivers Of Grade and Promotion Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, surveyed female workers are more likely to report receiving opportunities to increase their skills, though the difference is not statistically significant. With regard to promotion to supervisory positions, the strong glass-ceiling in the sector between ordinary and supervisor positions could induce women to invest less in their skills and in promotions (Macchiavello et al, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%