TY - JOUR
T1 - Leadership selection
T2 - can changing the default break the glass ceiling?
AU - Erkal, Nisvan
AU - Gangadharan, Lata
AU - Xiao, Erte
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the Editor (John Antonakis), two anonymous reviewers, Tim Cason, Daniel Houser, Ragan Petrie, Maria Recalde, Bob Slonim, Rebecca Taylor, Tom Wilkening, seminar participants at George Mason University, RMIT, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, and participants at the 2016 North American Meeting and 2018 International Meeting of the Economic Science Association (ESA), the 11th Annual Australia New Zealand Workshop on Experimental Economics (ANZWEE), the 2016 Xiamen University International Workshop on Experimental Economics, the 2018 Applied Behavioral Conference at the University of Sydney, the 2018 Melbourne Gender Workshop, and the 2019 Australian Gender Economics Workshop for their comments and feedback. We are grateful to Anny Lytle for helping with the survey study with the MBA students. Boon Han Koh has provided excellent research assistance. We also would like to thank the Australian Research Council ( DP1094676 ) for its financial support.
Funding Information:
We would like to thank the Editor (John Antonakis), two anonymous reviewers, Tim Cason, Daniel Houser, Ragan Petrie, Maria Recalde, Bob Slonim, Rebecca Taylor, Tom Wilkening, seminar participants at George Mason University, RMIT, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, and participants at the 2016 North American Meeting and 2018 International Meeting of the Economic Science Association (ESA), the 11th Annual Australia New Zealand Workshop on Experimental Economics (ANZWEE), the 2016 Xiamen University International Workshop on Experimental Economics, the 2018 Applied Behavioral Conference at the University of Sydney, the 2018 Melbourne Gender Workshop, and the 2019 Australian Gender Economics Workshop for their comments and feedback. We are grateful to Anny Lytle for helping with the survey study with the MBA students. Boon Han Koh has provided excellent research assistance. We also would like to thank the Australian Research Council (DP1094676) for its financial support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Inc.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - Leadership selection often requires candidates to actively choose to express their interest. Using a series of incentivized experiments with more than 1000 participants, we compare such an Opt-in mechanism with an Opt-out mechanism where everyone qualified for the position is in the candidate pool by default, but individuals can choose to opt out of the selection process. The results reveal a gender gap in participation decisions under the Opt-in mechanism. The gender gap exists even when individuals know they are the top performers, suggesting helping women improve their performance may not necessarily reduce gender gaps. Importantly, women are more likely to participate under the Opt-out mechanism and gender gaps in leadership selection are reduced.
AB - Leadership selection often requires candidates to actively choose to express their interest. Using a series of incentivized experiments with more than 1000 participants, we compare such an Opt-in mechanism with an Opt-out mechanism where everyone qualified for the position is in the candidate pool by default, but individuals can choose to opt out of the selection process. The results reveal a gender gap in participation decisions under the Opt-in mechanism. The gender gap exists even when individuals know they are the top performers, suggesting helping women improve their performance may not necessarily reduce gender gaps. Importantly, women are more likely to participate under the Opt-out mechanism and gender gaps in leadership selection are reduced.
KW - Defaults
KW - Gender inequality
KW - Glass ceiling
KW - Laboratory experiments
KW - Leadership selection
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85112499382&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.leaqua.2021.101563
DO - 10.1016/j.leaqua.2021.101563
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85112499382
SN - 1048-9843
VL - 33
JO - Leadership Quarterly
JF - Leadership Quarterly
IS - 2
M1 - 101563
ER -
