This paper reports about a field experiment conducted to estimate the impact of the share of women in business teams on their performance. Teams consisting of undergraduate students in business studies start up a venture as part of their curriculum. The gender composition of teams is manipulated through the random assignment of students to teams. Teams with an equal gender mix perform better than male-dominated and female-dominated teams in terms of sales, profits and earnings per share. We explore various mechanisms and find that mutual monitoring is more intense in mixed teams than in homogeneous teams.
Policy implications
Gender diversity should be encouraged in contexts where individuals tend to team up only with same gender peers, as it might improve team performance.
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Reference
Hoogendoorn, S., Oosterbeek, H. and Van Praag, M., 2013. The impact of gender diversity on the performance of business teams: Evidence from a field experiment. Management Science, 59(7), pp.1514-1528.