A recent study published in the Strategic Management Journal reveals that female managers are equally competitive when advocating for their subordinates – male or female, while men tend to advocate more strongly for other men. Several researchers in the past have long demonstrated that men generally approach the workplace with a more competitive mind-set than women.
The authors of the study at the University of Maryland (Cristian Deszö, Nathan Barrymore and Ben King) in a series of experiments concluded that when rewards accrue to protégés, female managers would become more competitive, regardless of whether they’re advocating for a man or a woman.
“In essence, these results suggest that female managers are effective sponsors: they are willing to go to bat for their protégés at levels similar to those of their male colleagues,” said Desző. “And that is not because male managers become less competitive when the rewards accrue to their protégés, it is because female managers are more competitive.”
However, even though male managers’ competitiveness remains essentially unchanged when rewards would accrue to protégés, they were much more competitive when the protégés were male. According to the authors that disparity, was notable – and closer examination revealed that the disparity would essentially disappear when male managers knew their protégés risk preferences. “While there are small differences in average risk preference across gender in our sample, male managers behave as if they believe, incorrectly, that these differences are large,” the researchers wrote. “Our findings, thus, point toward a novel strategy to improve the effectiveness of sponsorship programs in organizations and hopefully stimulate more research,” the research concluded.