The gender leadership gap in competitive and cooperative institutions

This study investigates the impact of the institutional setting on the gender leadership gap. Motivating our study is the belief that women shy away from competitive environments and tend to prefer cooperative environments. We design an experiment using a modified Centipede game to test whether leaders can foster cooperation under two incentive schemes: competitive (“winner takes all”) versus cooperative (equal earnings distribution). The leader, whose gender is revealed, sends a message providing strategic advice to their group. We find that male and female leaders are similarly effective in enhancing efficiency and are anticipated to perform equivalently. However, in the competitive context, a gender gap emerges: Female leaders receive lower evaluations than male leaders for offering identical advice. Interestingly, this bias is not observed in the cooperative context, suggesting that the congruence of the environment with gender stereotypes has important implications for leadership evaluations. Randomly-selected female leaders are evaluated 50% higher in a cooperative, as compared to a competitive environment. Thus, achieving gender equality in leadership requires careful attention to the institutional design of organizations. Notably, men consistently demonstrate a higher propensity to lead, regardless of the surrounding context.