Men, women, and competition: An experimental test of behavior

Vandegrift, Donald; Yavaş, Abdullah

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2009.06.003

Cited by 49 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…This failure to find an effect across the team-production and piece-rate conditions occurs despite a series of studies that have found strong effects from other incentive schemes (e.g. tournaments) using the MCPL task employed here (Brown, 1995(Brown, , 1998Vandegrift and Brown, 2003;Vandegrift et al, 2007;Vandegrift and Yavas, 2009). However, the differences in the performance of men and women across the two conditions are striking.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 85%

An experimental test of behavior under team production

Vandegrift

Yavaş

2010

Manage. Decis. Econ.

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This study reports experiments that examine behavior under team production and a piece rate. In the experiments, participants complete a forecasting task and are rewarded based on the accuracy of their forecasts. In the piece-rate condition, participants are paid based on their own performance, whereas the team-production condition rewards participants based on the average performance of the team. Overall, there is no statistically significant difference in performance between the conditions. However, this result masks important differences in the behavior of men and women across the conditions. Men in the team-production condition increase their performance relative to men in the piece-rate condition. However, this gap in male performances across conditions diminishes over the course of the experiment. In contrast, women in the team-production condition show significantly lower performance than the women in the piece rate. As a consequence of these differences, men in the team-production condition show significantly better performance than women in the team-production condition. We also find evidence that men show stronger performance when they are in teams with a larger variation in skill level. Copyright r 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. INTRODUCTIONUnder team production, groups rather than individuals are responsible for a set of tasks and compensation is based on the performance of the group. Because compensation is based on group performance, theoretical models of team production suggest that team members will free ride on the efforts of others (i.e. shirk). If total returns are divided evenly among a team with n members, team members incur the full cost of their effort while they receive only 1/n of the marginal gains from the effort. Consequently, effort levels are sub-optimal. Although theoretical models suggest that team production may lower worker productivity, firms often opt to reward workers based on team performance anyway. For instance, a recent survey finds that 26% of firms used team rewards (McClurg, 2001).To further advance understanding of behavior under team production, we conduct a series of experiments. We compare behavior under team production and a piece-rate payment scheme and examine the likely causes of the mixed results on shirking in team production. In the experiments, participants complete a real-effort forecasting task and are rewarded based on the accuracy of their forecasts. The experimental task is designed to allow measurement of both individual contributions and team performance.1 Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the piece-rate condition, participants are paid based on their own performance, whereas the team-production condition rewards participants based on the average performance of the team. In each condition, participants produce forecasts for twenty rounds. In each round, participants receive feedback on their forecast error and earnings. In the team-production condition, participants also receive information on the forecast error of the tea...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 85%

An experimental test of behavior under team production

Vandegrift

Yavaş

2010

Manage. Decis. Econ.

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“…Two explanations suggest themselves. First, men may fail to understand the extent to which women dislike competition and attribute too much of the difference in behavior across gender to ability differences 3 For further supporting evidence, see, for instance, Gupta, Poulsen, and Villeval (2005), Garratt, Weinberger, and Johnson (2013), Vandegrift andYavas (2009), Cason, Masters, andSheremeta (2010), and Fletschner, Anderson, and Cullen (2010). However, Gneezy, Leonard, and List (2009) found the same effect in a traditional patriarchal society, but not in a matrilineal one, Charness and Villeval (2009) found no effect, Kamas and Preston (2012) found differences only for business majors, Wozniak, Harbaugh, and Mayr (2010) found that feedback about relative performance in a piece-rate stage reduces the gender entry gap, and Charness, Rustichini, and van de Ven (2012) found no effect when controlling for confidence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Differences and Dynamics in Competition: The Role of Luck

Gill¹,

Prowse

2011

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. In a real effort experiment with repeated competition we find striking differences in how the work effort of men and women responds to previous wins and losses. For women, losing per se is detrimental to productivity, but for men, a loss impacts negatively on productivity only when the prize at stake is big enough. Responses to luck are more persistent and explain more of the variation in behavior for women, and account for about half of the gender performance gap in our experiment. Our findings shed new light on why women may be less inclined to pursue competition-intensive careers. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may

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“…One particular focus in this literature has been the effect of the sex composition of a group on the performance of an individual of a particular sex which has lead to ambiguous results (Gneezy et al, 2003;Gneezy and Rustichini, 2004;Antonovics et al, 2003;Price, 2006). Further studies have also examined whether there is a sex difference with respect to the choice to enter a competition (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2005;Vandegrift et al, 2004) and whether individuals choose to engage in competition depending on the sex of the other participant Datta Gupta et al (2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

Does competition enhance performance or cheating? A laboratory experiment

Schwieren

Weichselbaumer

2010

Journal of Economic Psychology

173

107

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Does Competition Enhance Performance or Cheating?A Laboratory Experiment *In this paper we experimentally test whether competing for a desired reward does not only affect individuals' performance, but also their tendency to cheat. Recent doping scandals in sports as well as forgery and plagiarism scandals in academia have been partially explained by "competitive pressures", which suggests a link between competition and cheating. In our experiment subjects conduct a task where they have the possibility to make use of illegitimate tools to better their results. We find that women react much stronger to competitive pressure by increasing their cheating activity while there is no overall sex difference in cheating. However, the effect of competition on women's cheating behavior is entirely due to the fact that women, on average, are doing worse with respect to the assigned task. Indeed we find that it is the ability of an individual to conduct a particular task and not sex that crucially affects the reaction to competition. Poor performers significantly increase their cheating behavior under competition which may be a face-saving strategy or an attempt to retain a chance of winning.JEL Classification: C91, J24, J31, M52

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Men, women, and competition: An experimental test of behavior

Cited by 49 publications

References 34 publications

An experimental test of behavior under team production

An experimental test of behavior under team production

Gender Differences and Dynamics in Competition: The Role of Luck

Does competition enhance performance or cheating? A laboratory experiment

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