A stream of research on “men vs. women” in Global Virtual Teams.

Are men really different from women in terms of performance, values, and behaviors?
Are women really being discriminated against?
Do teams with women in them perform better?

 

Research Question

Recently, a  well-publicized study found that students often give lower rating to female professors and will use negative words to describe the same positive traits in male professors, especially in specific disciples (Kamenetz, 2016). The role of gender differences (both positive and negative) within an array of fields is widely recognized. While the study if gender effects is large in scope, the x-Culture data has not yet explored the effects of gender with in and among GVTs (except for one study). Consequently, I wish to explore the question of gender on GVTs. There could be a number of hypotheses and studies and we can prioritize them based on interest and expertise of co-authors. Please email me if you are interested.

 

Here are examples of papers we’re working on as part of this research stream:

 

1. Gender differences in performance: Do women perform better than men?

A F vs. M performance comparison on

• Readiness test
• Peer evals
• Other performance indicators we have
• Possibly by country and with all kinds of controls.
• ALSO, do women get rated higher on friendliness and effort, while men higher on Intellectual contribution and leadership?

 

ADDITIONALLY, possibly as a separate study:

• Are women more generous when giving peer evaluations?
• Gender solidarity: Do men give higher peer evals to other men, while women give higher peer evals to other women?
• Country solidarity: Are women more likely to favor their countrymen in peer evals?

 

2. Gender biases in GVTs: Are women unjustifiably discriminated in peer-evaluations?

• Testing peer evaluation differences after controlling for objective performance indicators, such as communication frequency, performance on tests, diligence with completing weekly surveys, submission of individual ideas, etc.
• Does culture moderate this effect?

 

3. Gender differences in self-promotion: Are men more likely to over-estimate their own performance, while women are more modest?

• Testing M vs. F difference in self-evaluations vs. peer-evaluations.
• Everyone gives him/herself higher evals, but do men do it more?
• Controlling for real performance, etc.
• Do these effects increase or decrease with age?

 

4. Gender and team roles in GVTs: Are women less likely to be elected team leaders?

• Simple comparison, possibly by culture
• Does age moderate the effect?
• Controlling for objective qualifications for being a leader (language proficiency, test scores, university prestige

 

5. Gender difference in EQ: Are women more emotionally intelligent?

• A comparison to test this bias

 

6. Feminine personality? Gender differences in personality traits.

• Do Big 5 personality traits differ for M vs. F.
• Are women really more neurotic and conscientious, and agreeable and men are more open to experience and extraverted?

 

7. Values and Gender: Do women display more feminine values?

• Do women really value more harmony while men value more achievement?
• Same ono assertiveness, power distance, competitiveness, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, team identification, satisfaction, etc.

 

8. GVT gender composition and team performance: Does presence of women on the team boost performance?

• Team level: Does % male on the team correlate with team performance and team dynamics (quality of the report, frequency of communication, satisfaction, team identification, peer evals, etc.?
• Is the relationship linear? Is there a perfect gender combination, or the more women the better? Or one woman is enough?
• Do these effects vary by study level, age, etc.?

 

Implications

Will be based on what we address first, but clearly it can have many policy implications.

 

Kamenetz, A. (2016, January 25). Why Female Professors Get Lower Ratings. Retrieved July 19, 2016, from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/25/463846130/why-women-professors-get-lower-ratings

Lead Researcher:

Grishma Shah (lead)

Amanda Phalin

Justin Kraemer

Vas Taras