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The Effect of Team Gender Composition on Team
Processes and Individual Cooperation Levels
Student: Fatma-Gyuliz Martinova Hadzhieva
Professor: Dr. I. Soraperra, University Of Amsterdam
FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MASTER IN ECONOMICS
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Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Fatma-Gyuliz Martinova Hadzhieva, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no
sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of
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Abstract
In this thesis, the effect of gender composition on team communication, team performance and team cooperation levels is explored. In addition, the effect of gender composition on the individual cooperation levels through a public goods game is investigated. The results find no significant effect of gender composition effect on team communication, team performance and team cooperation levels. Moreover, there is no significant effect of gender composition on participants’ individual cooperation levels. However, a gender difference observed on the contribution levels to the public good within gender imbalanced teams. The results are in line with some of the predictions derived from previous literature. The results also show that gender composition of teams is not a significant factor on team processes by itself and gender balanced teams should be supported from a gender equality perspective.
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Index
I. Introduction……….5
II. Literature Review………...7
1. Gender and Team Composition………..7
2. Cooperation, Gender and Team Composition………9
III. Methodology and Hypothesis……….10
1. Hypothesis 1………...11
2. Hypothesis 2………...12
IV. Results………13
1. Gender, Team Gender Composition and Team Communication……….14
2. Gender, Team Gender Composition and Team Performance………..17
3. Gender, Team Gender Composition and Team Cooperation Levels………...19
4. The Effect of Team Field………21
5. Public Goods Game, Gender and Team Gender Composition………23
6. Results Summary and Limitations of the Analyses……….27
V. Discussion………...28 VI. Conclusion……….29 Bibliography………30 Appendix 1………...33 Appendix 2………...34 Appendix 2………...36 Appendix 2………...37
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I. INTRODUCTION
The participation of women to workforce significantly increased in 20th century countries (Our World in Data, 2018). Even though the number of women participating in labour force increases at different rates in countries with different economic growth depending on the industrialisation of countries, it is one of the crucial elements of socio-economic changes in the highly developed countries (Our World in Data, 2018). With the continuation of this trend in the 21th century, it is expected that the representation of women and men in the workforce will be equalized (Jackson et al., 1995). As a result of this, the success of business management and operations within organizations will be defined by this gender representation changes within the workforce (Jackson et al., 1995). As more and more organizations embrace team-based structures and perceive this structure as an effective way of achieving good results, team dynamics and the communication between team members became the key elements for successful outcomes (Guzzo,1995). Therefore it becomes important to investigate how gender composition affects team dynamics and success of the team (Ivanova-Stenzel and Kübler, 2011). In order to provide the most effective performance outcomes within their teams, the organisations are questioning how to create teams based on gender, race, culture, nationality or age (Ivanova-Stenzel and Kübler, 2011). The question emerges as whether it is better for teams to be more homogeneous in gender, race, age, and other factors or it is better to create teams heterogeneous on these factors? (Ivanova-Stenzel and Kübler, 2011).While the economic theory suggests explanations on teams composed of members with different performance levels, it does not give information about how the team heterogeneity based on gender or culture influences the team work (Ivanova-Stenzel and Kübler, 2011).
There are mixed results from researches on the effect of gender diversity in team composition (Milliken and Martins, 1996). According to some scholars, the gender diversity in teams leads to higher team performance due to a higher variety of perspective on solving problems as a team. However, according to some other scholars gender diversity in teams has negative effects, because it causes team members to be less productive and dissatisfied with their work (Milliken and Martins, 1996). Thus, researches on gender diversity in teams presents mixed evidence in the literature (Milliken and Martins, 1996). The results of the research of Jackson et al., finds a minor influence of gender heterogeneity on team performance, which does not considerably suggest that teams should be gender heterogeneous (Jackson et al., 1995). However, the team collaboration increases with more gender heterogeneity within teams due to an augmentation in team work process (Bear and Woolley, 2011). Even though,
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Jackson et al. (1995) finds no effect of gender heterogeneity in teams and Bear and Woolley (2011) reports a positive effect of it, the empirical literature on the effect of gender diversity in teams shows a negative relationship between gender variety and team performance (Ivanova-Stenzel and Kübler, 2011).
An important dimension of effective team processes is team cooperation and some researches find a correlation between existence of women in teams resulting an increase in team cooperation levels (Bear and Woolley, 2011). According to the psychologist Gillian, women exhibit more cooperative behaviour because of their more morally sensitive perspective. While women think more collectively, men focus more on the individual achievements (Gilligan, 1982) However, this view of Gillian was tested with a public good game experiment (Brown-Kruse and Hummels, 1993). The results of the experiment found that men invested more into the public good compared to women (Brown-Kruse and Hummels, 1993). On the other hand, in another research there is no gender differences found on cooperative behaviour (Kuhlman and Wimberley, 1976). There is also mixed evidence for the effect of gender over cooperation levels in the literature which employs mainly Prisoner’s Dilemma for the measurement (Brown-Kruse and Hummels, 1993).
In this research, I explore the effect of gender composition of teams on team processes. I ask participants working in organizations within different team structures to evaluate team communication levels, team cooperation levels and team performance levels within their team. The participants of this study are independent from each other and work in different organizations, for this reason the sample of my research is natural teams. The participants are asked to fill a survey on the communication, performance and cooperation levels within their team and the gender composition of their team. Another interesting question to ask is how the team cooperation levels rated by team members effect their individual cooperation levels. To measure this, the participants asked to play a simple public goods game after filling the survey.
In the following section, the relevant results of the survey are presented with the evidence on the literature regarding the effect of team gender composition on team processes. A summary of literature is also presented about measuring cooperation through mainly public goods game experiments.
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The forth section reflects the presentation of results for different hypothesises in sub sections and the research ends with the conclusion where a summary of findings and further discussion are presented.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Gender and Team Composition
In an extensive paper on gender diversity within teams by Baugh and Graen (1997) the impact of gender diversity within teams on team performance was investigated. The participants of this study were the members of teams working on different projects within the same organization (Baugh and Graen, 1997). The results of the study showed that that the gender heterogeneity within teams have substantial negative impact on the performance of the teams and on the team members, especially on female team members (Baugh and Graen, 1997). There are mixed views on the effect of gender diversity within teams to the team performance and particularly the effect of gender diversity on female team members is ambiguous (Baugh and Graen, 1997). However, the effect of gender diversity over team members and team performance for both men and women seems to be negative as some evidence suggests (Baugh and Graen, 1997). Similar conclusions are reached based on evidence for gender diversity within teams effecting the organization performance negatively in another research (Adams and Ferreira, 2008). In an experiment made by Apesteguia and Iriberri (2012), the data of a business case competition played by groups of three people was analysed. According to the results all female groups performed worse than any other gender team combination where the participants were asked to form teams of three members (Apesteguia, Azmat and Iriberri, 2012). Moreover, the results showed that the most effective gender combination for a team found to be two males and a female (Apesteguia, Azmat and Iriberri, 2012). Whereas, another experiment which also tested the effect of group heterogeneity with a different task where the participants formed groups of four people, found no significant performance difference between man only and female only groups. On the other hand, the gender heterogeneous groups performed remarkably worse than homogeneous gender groups (Clement and Schiereck, 1973). When the purpose of the task assigned to teams taken into account, teams composed of only females exhibit different levels of success compared to teams composed of males only (Neubert, 1999). A research on the effect of task purpose on female and male team performance shows that female groups are more successful when the task has a social purpose whereas male
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groups are more successful on the tasks with a focus on accomplishing the task (Wood, 1987). Another research also shows that there is a correlation between the number of females in a group and the collective social awareness of the group with a significantly increased level of cooperation within the group (Woolley et al., 2010). The research also found a significant correlation between the number of women in the group and the communication levels between the members of the group by encouraging group members to share and use their expertise and skills effectively (Woolley et al., 2010). The effect of gender composition is also linked to the difficulty of work that the teams have to perform, as reported by Bowers et. Al. (2000). The gender heterogeneity of the team has a positive effect on hard tasks whilst the gender homogeneity has a positive effect on easy tasks (Bowers, Pharmer and Salas, 2000).
In consideration of team members’ team satisfaction and cooperation levels, different levels are observed between women and men (Chatman and O'Reilly, 2004). While women working in female only teams express higher level of satisfaction and cooperation, men working in male majority teams rated higher level of satisfaction and cooperation (Chatman and O'Reilly, 2004). Yet in another research, members of gender heterogeneous teams rated as the lowest team performance level compared to gender homogeneous teams (Baugh and Graen, 1997). Hoffman and Maier (1961) made a laboratory experiment where gender homogeneous and heterogeneous groups were formed by the experimenters for eight sessions of different problem solving tasks. The results of this experiment showed that gender heterogeneous groups were either more successful than the gender homogeneous groups or equally successful on finding effective solutions during different sessions (Hoffman and Maier, 1961). A more recent study supports this outcome by stating that gender heterogeneous teams perform either better than other gender team composition or not significantly better or worse at all (Kochan et al., 2003). Besides, gender balanced teams and female majority teams perform better than only male and only female teams according to another research (Fenwick and Neal, 2001). It is further emphasized that the communication and cooperation levels increase within teams and the teams perform better when the number of female members of teams increase (Bear and Woolley, 2011).
To sum up, it is understood that there are different results on the effect of gender composition to team performance. Researches of Baugh and Graen (1997) report a negative impact of gender heterogeneity within teams on team performance. Nevertheless, there are also positive findings of gender heterogeneity to team performance according to Apesteguia et. Al. (2012). The findings for the effect of gender heterogeneity on the communication and
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cooperation levels of teams are more positive as the results of Hoffman and Maier (1961) and Kochan et al. suggests.
2. Cooperation, Gender and Team Composition
Public goods game is used by researchers to measure the cooperation levels of participants by creating a situation where the participants have to choose between self-interest and group welfare (Brown-Kruse and Hummels, 1993). In their experiment using public goods game in a group of four people Brown-Kruse and Hummels, (1993) measured the contribution to the public account by male and female participants. While the hypothesis was that the female participants would invest more to the public account according to psychologist Gillian (1982), it was male participants who invested significantly more to the public account (Brown-Kruse and Hummels, 1993). In another research where a public goods game was played by the subjects allowing interactions between team members, it was found that the gender does not influence independently the investment levels of participants as the interaction between the team members and the team gender composition does (Sell, 1997). The results showed that while female participants act more cooperative in female-majority groups, male participants acted less cooperative in male-majority groups (Sell, 1997). Another finding of this research was the cooperation level of a participant depended on the cooperation levels of the other team members (Sell, 1997). In a research measuring cooperation level differences between males and females, there was a minor cooperation level difference between two genders where females being slightly more cooperative (Stockard, van de Kragt and Dodge, 1988). In another experiment with public goods game, there was a significant contribution difference between female and male participants on two different scenarios of the experiment (Vugt, Cremer and Janssen, 2007). In the first scenario, the participants only asked to contribute to a public good from their endowments in which female participants were more cooperative. On the contrary, in the second scenario competition across groups were introduced and the male participants were significantly more responsive to rivalry across teams (Vugt, Cremer and Janssen, 2007). The results showed that male participants increased their contribution when the rivalry between across groups increased and contributed more to the public good in the second senario (Vugt, Cremer and Janssen, 2007). In a research focusing on the effect of gender composition of teams to team cooperation levels, female majority team exhibited higher level cooperation levels and lower level of performance than any other gender composition in teams (Busch, 1996). A similar conclusion was reached by yet another research, the teams of only females acted more cooperative than the teams of only males and gender homogeneous teams (Nowell and Tinkler,
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1994). Dufwenberg and Muren explored the effect of female members to group decisions using a dictator game and concluded that while female majority groups are more generous than male majority groups, the most generous gender combination consists of two females and a male (Dufwenberg and Muren, 2006).
Some studies suggests that men are more cooperative in public goods game such as Brown-Kruse and Hummels (1993) concluded in which factors such as team competition and group interaction introduced the results are mixed. According to researches of Busch (1996) and Nowell et. al. (1994) female majority and all-female teams found to be more cooperative.
III. METHODOLOGY AND HYPOTHESIS
For this research, it is observed that in the main researches that were taken as a reference; Campbell et. al. (2013), Lesley et. al. (2013) and Bowers et. al. (2000), the gender composition effect on team processes were analysed by three factors; team communication levels, team performance levels and team cooperation levels. Team performance is described as producing outcomes as a result of team work(Hackman, 1983). Team communication is described as the interaction and sharing of information by different communication channels between team members (Pinto and Pinto, 1990). Team cooperation is described as the collective action of team members to achieve a common objective (Pinto and Pinto, 1990).
The main interest of this research is to measure the effect of gender composition of the teams (in which the participants working in different organizations) on team communication, team performance and team cooperation levels. In order to achieve this objective, a survey to measure team communication, team performance and team cooperation levels were implemented with five questions for each element taken from “Team Effectiveness Diagnostic” created by London Leadership Academy, National Health Services. The survey can be found in appendix 2. The participants were asked to rate the team communication, tem performance and team cooperation levels within their natural teams on a scale of 7.
The effect of gender composition of teams were also measured under consideration of the participants working in their individual tendency to cooperate by using a public goods game. To measure this, the participants were asked to play a standard public goods game after filling the survey. In a hypothetical situation, the participants were endowed with 100 tokens where a token corresponds to 0.25 cents. Then the participants were asked how much of their endowment they would contribute to the public good. In this public goods game settings, there were hypothetical teams of four people and no information regarding the other team members
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such as gender was provided to the participants. The public goods game used in this experiment can be found in appendix 3. The participants were also asked to answer additional questions about their gender, educational background, team field and team size to check for a significant effect of any of these factors to the answers of the participants.
The survey was distributed online through an online survey platform called Qualtrics. Most of the participants of this study was provided by the researcher’s of this thesis internship company and its branches across Europe. Apart from that, the survey was distributed on Linkedin to researcher’s professional connections working in organizations as part of teams The participants of this experiment work in a variety of teams within different organizations. Therefore the teams of this experiment were not formed exogenously. 67 males and 70 females participated to the experiment. 29 of these participants work in a female majority gender team composition, 35 of these participants work in a gender balanced gender team composition and 73 of the participants work in a male majority team composition. The background of participants is concentrated around either engineering or business and economics studies. The team field of participants is concentrated around either technical or business and finance related fields.
1. HYPOTHESIS 1
The first hypothesis is to measure the effect of gender composition of teams on the ratings of team communication, team performance and team cooperation. There is a mixed evidence on the effect of gender composition on team communication, performance and cooperation levels. However, in most of the experiments conducted to measure the effect of gender composition on team processes, the teams were formed exogenously by the researchers, in this experiment the participants work in natural teams. The relation between team composition and team processes were researched in this study by regressing the participants’ responses taken in this survey. The gender differences on the ratings of team communication, team cooperation and team performance were also measured. The dependent variables are team communication ratings, team performance ratings and team cooperation ratings. In order to measure the effect of working in a gender-balanced team, the gender composition of teams are categorized into female-majority, male majority and gender-balanced. The studies that reported negative effects of gender heterogeneity on team processes such as Clement el. al. (1973) and Apesteguia et al. (2012) conducted experiments where the teams are formed by either the experimenters or the teams are asked to perform very specific tasks. On the other hand, the studies such as Bear et. al. (2011) and Campbell et. al. (2013) used samples from a variety of teams across fields and
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found positive effects of gender heterogeneity on teams. Therefore, based on the findings of Bear et. al. (2011) and Campbell et. al. (2013) which both researches prove the positive effect of gender diversity within teams, it is hypothesized that participants working in gender-balanced teams rate higher team communication, team performance and team cooperation levels than the participants working in female majority and male majority teams.
Participants working in a gender-balanced team rate higher team communication levels than participants working in female-majority and male-majority.
Participants working in a gender-balanced team rate higher team performance levels than participants working in female-majority and male-majority.
Participants working in a gender-balanced team rate higher team cooperation levels than participants working in female-majority and male-majority.
2. HYPOTHESIS 2
The other effect was tested regarding team composition, team communication and cooperation levels is on the individual level of cooperation of the participants. The dependant variable is the contribution to the public good. The effect of team composition was measured in which the participants work on their individual contribution levels through a public goods game. In addition to this, the correlation between team communication and cooperation level ratings of the participants and their individual contribution to the public good was investigated. There is evidence for a correlation between the number of females in teams and the cooperation levels of the team such as Busch (1996). The teams of such researches are generally made by the experimenters. Despite the fact that this research was conducted within natural teams, it is expected that participants working in a gender-balanced or female majority team to act more cooperative. The findings of Sell (1997) indicates an effect of team communication and cooperation on individual cooperation levels. Even though, this sample is different from this research, it is expected to find a relation between the team communication and cooperation ratings of participants and their contribution to the public good. Therefore, two main hypothesis are made:
Participants working in a gender-balanced or female majority team composition contribute higher amounts to the public good than participants working in a male-majority team composition.
Participants who rate higher levels of communication and cooperation within their team contribute higher amounts to the public good than participants who rate lower level of communication and cooperation levels within their team.
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IV. RESULTS
The results of this survey are summarized in table 1 in which the team communication, performance and cooperation ratings of male and female participants working in gender-balanced, male-majority and female majority teams are categorized. The cumulative regression results to test first hypothesis are summarized in table 2. In table 3 the gender effect excluding any other factors on team communication, performance and cooperation ratings regression results can be seen.
Table 1. Summary of the team communication, performance and cooperation ratings of male and
female participants. Participants Number of Participants Team Communication ratings Team Performance Ratings Team Cooperation Ratings Male participants working in gender-balanced teams 13 5.84 (0.14) 5.64 (0.16) 5.64 (0.17) Female participants working in gender-balanced teams 22 5.37 (0.17) 5.31 (0.12) 5.48 (0.17) Male participants working in male-majority teams 47 5.73 (0.11) 5.34 (0.13) 5.72 (0.13) Female participants working in male-majority teams 26 5.46 (0.18) 5.2 (0.21) 5.24 (0.19) Male participants working in female-majority teams 7 5.8 (0.20) 5.6 (0.19) 5.51 (0.31) Female participants working in female-majority teams 22 5.16 (0.21) 5.18 (0.24) 4.93 (0.24)
Notes. The ratings are on a scale of 7 and the standard errors are written in parenthesis.
Table 2. Results of the regression analyses of the team gender composition on the team
communication, performance and cooperation ratings.
Regressor (1) (2) (3) gender -.473 (.288) -.327 (.321) -.164 (.324) mmajority -.114 (.258) -.301 (.287) .077 (.290) fmajority -.046 (.905) -.046 (.430) -.131 (.435)
14 gtmale .203 (.565) .183 (.391) -.312 (.396) gtfemale -.162 (.459) -.090 (.511) -.413 (.517) intercept 5.84 (.228) 5.64 (.254) 5.64 (.257) R2 0.0758 0.0242 0.0884 N 137 137 137
Notes. The dependent variable of regression (1) is team communication ratings (on a scale of 7). The dependent
variable of regression (2) is team performance ratings(on a scale of 7). The dependent variable of regression (3) is team cooperation ratings (on a scale of 7). The table represents coefficients from OLS regressions. Independent variables: mmajority(1 if the team gender composition is male-majority), fmajority(1 if the team gender composition is female-majority).Control variable: gender(1,female and 0,male) Interaction terms: gtmale (the interaction term between gender and mmajority), gtfemale(the interaction term between gender and fmajority). Standard errors are in parenthesis.
Table 3. Results of the regression analyses of the gender effect on team communication, performance
and cooperation ratings.
Regressor (1) (2) (3) gender -.421* (.139) -.198 (.155) -.463* (.158) intercept 5.76 (.099) 5.42 (.111) 5.68 (.113) R2 0.0630 0.0119 0.0594 N 137 137 137
Notes. The dependent variable of regression (1) is team communication ratings (on a scale of 7). The dependent variable of regression (2) is team performance ratings(on a scale of 7). The dependent variable of
regression (3) is team cooperation ratings (on a scale of 7). Standard errors are in parenthesis, *p<.05.
1. Gender, Team Gender Composition and Team Communication
The first hypothesis predicts higher team communication ratings of participants working in gender-balanced teams compared to participants working in male-majority and female-majority teams. Firstly, the effect of gender on team communication ratings was measured and then main regression was built in order to test first hypothesis. The regression models used in this analyses are provided below:
The dependent variable in these regression is team communication ratings (tcommunication):
15 tcommunication= α + β0*gender
(gender= 1 if female 0 otherwise; binary variable)
tcommunication= α + β0*gender + β1*mmajority + β2 *fmajority + β3*gtmale + β4*gtfemale
(mmajority=1 if the team is male majority, 0 otherwise; binary variable, fmajority=1 if the team is female majority, 0 otherwise; binary variable, gtmale= gender X mmajority: the interaction term, equals to 1 if gender=1 and mmajority=1, otherwise 0; gtfemale= gender X fmajority: the interaction term, equals to 1 if gender=1 and fmajority=1, otherwise 0.)
Figure 1. The relation between team communication levels and gender
The t-test results of the regression of team communication ratings on gender shows a statistically significant gender difference on team communication ratings where the p value of the coefficient of the gender is 0.003 and significant on % 95 confidence interval for p-values. Male participants of this experiment rate a significantly higher team communication level than female participants of this experiment. The results are reported in table 3 model (1).
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Figure 2. Relation between the team communication levels and gender composition
of teams categorized by gender
After measuring only gender differences on team communication levels, the main hypothesis was tested for which it is the effect of gender composition on team communication levels. First, the effect of gender on participants’ team communication ratings working in the same team gender composition was compared. As it can be seen in table 2, the coefficient of gender is negative. The results report a lower team communication ratings by female participants working in balanced teams than male participants working in gender-balanced teams. The gender effect is almost significant on the %90 significance level (p=.103 > 0.10). When the baseline of the regression to female-majority teams is changed, it is observed that male participants working in female-majority teams reported significantly higher levels of team communication than female participants working in female-majority teams at %90 significance level.(p value of gender in this case is .078<.10) On the other hand, there is no significant difference between male and female participants’ team communication ratings working in male-majority teams. While male participants rated the highest level of team communication in gender-balanced teams, there is no significant difference on male participants’ team communication ratings across different team gender compositions. The female participants working in male-majority teams rated the highest level of team communication but yet again there is no significant difference across teams for female participants. If the coefficients of the interaction terms gtmale and gtfemale from table 3 model
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(1) is looked upon; the ratings difference between male and female participants increases by (-.473) + (-.162) between gender-balanced teams and female-majority teams. Also, the ratings difference between male and female participants decreases by (-.473) + (.20) between gender-balanced teams and female-majority teams. Even though there is an almost significant gender effect on team communication ratings, the effect of interaction terms is insignificant. This regression does not report a significant evidence of the effect of team gender composition on team communication ratings within teams, but the results are in line with the predictions of researcher’s hypothesis since there is also no evidence of a negative effect.
2. Gender, Team Gender Composition and Team Performance
The first hypothesis predicts a higher level of team performance ratings by the participants working in gender-balanced team than participants working in male-majority and female-majority teams. Similar to the process that was followed to find evidence for a gender team composition effect on team communication levels, it was started with checking for a gender difference on team performance ratings and then built the regression equation for the first hypothesis. . The regression equations used in this analyses are provided below:
The dependent variable in these regression is team performance ratings(tperformance):
tperformance= α + β0 * gender
tperformance= α + β0*gender + β1*mmajority + β2*fmajority + β3*gtmale + β4*gtfemale
The average team performance ratings in table 1 shows that female participants rated lower level of team performance compared to male participants in general. However, the regression results in table 3 indicates that even though female participants rated lower team performance levels within their teams, the difference between the ratings of male and female participants is not significant (p=0.204>0.05).
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Figure 4. The relation between team performance levels and gender
Figure 5. Relation between the team performance levels and gender composition
The summary of statistics in table 1 shows that female participants rated lower team performance levels on average than the male participants regardless of the gender composition
0 2 4 6 m e a n o f tp e rf o rm a n c e Female Male 0 2 4 6 m e a n o f tp e rf o rm a n c e
Female Majority Gender Balanced Male Majority
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of their teams. If we look at the coefficients of mmajority(-.301) and fmajority(-.046) on table 2 model (2), it is seen that the difference of team performance ratings between male participants working in gender-balanced teams and male-majority teams or female-majority teams increases. However this difference is minor and insignificant. As for female participants, the coefficient of gender(- .327) shows that the difference between male and female participants’ team performance ratings increases in gender-balanced teams. The interaction term gtmale(.183) indicates that the ratings difference between female participants working in gender-balanced teams and female participants working in male-majority teams decreases as (-.327) + (.183). Also, the interaction term gtfemale(-.090) indicates that the ratings difference between female participants working in gender-balanced teams and female participants working in male- majority teams increases by (-.327) + (-.090). Nevertheless, the effect of the interaction terms are insignificant. Findings in this study shows that there is no significant effect of team gender composition on team performance level ratings of male and female participants. The results are not supporting the researcher’s hypothesis, but the results also do not present an evidence for an opposite view.
3. Gender, Team Gender Composition and Team Cooperation Levels
The last factor influencing team process that was measured is the team cooperation levels. Following the same steps that was realized for the other two factors, it was aimed at first only controlling for a gender difference on team cooperation levels ratings regardless of the gender team compositions in which the participants work. In addition to researcher’s regression analyses with the same explanatory variables that was used for the previous regressions, the team cooperation levels were regressed on the public goods game contribution to see whether the team cooperation ratings of participants are driven by the individual attitude to cooperate. The regression equations used in this analyses are provided below:
The dependent variable in these regression is team performance ratings(tcooperation):
tcooperation= α + β0 * gender
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Figure 7. The relation between team cooperation levels and gender
It can be seen that a similar trend to the team communication and performance levels measured considering only gender effect, as male participants rate higher team cooperation levels than female participants regardless of the gender team gender composition they work in, though the difference is not drastic. If it is looked at table 3 model (3), the coefficient of gender (-.463) is significant on the %95 significance level. Male participants working in male-majority teams rate higher levels of team cooperation than male participants working in female-majority teams and gender-balanced teams but the difference is not significant as the coefficients in table 2 model (3) suggests. Both males and females working in female majority teams rate the lowest team cooperation levels as you can see in the summary statistic of table 1. The team cooperation ratings difference between male and female participants increases with the negative coefficient of the interaction term gtmale (-.312) and gender (-.164). The team cooperation ratings difference between male and female participants increases slightly more with the interaction term gtfemale (-.413) and gender (-.164). But the effect of the interaction terms is insignificant. The results show no significant effect of team gender composition on team cooperation levels.
0 2 4 6 m e a n o f tc o o p e ra ti o n Female Male
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Figure 8. Relation between the team cooperation levels and gender composition
4. The Effect of Team Field
Studies also argue that the field of teams should also be taken into consideration when the effect of gender diversity within teams to be measured (Bear and Woolley, 2011). In the occupations and the teams dominated by male, the impact of gender diversity is more obvious (Kanter, 1977). Female members of the male dominated teams and occupations face difficulty with team interactions and contributing to the team processes, since there is more discrimination against women in these environments (Kanter, 1977). The evidence from literature suggests that, in these male dominated areas, gender diversity within teams influences performance of teams negatively whereas in female-majority and gender balanced work areas, gender diversity influences the team performance positively(Joshi and Roh, 2009). More than half of the participants to this experiment work in male dominated areas such as engineering and information technologies. In the light of existing literature, it was investigated whether there was an effect of team field and team gender composition on team performance levels on my sample. It was also investigated whether there is a gender difference on team performance satisfaction in male dominated fields.
The regression model for the first analyses is explained below:
tperformance= α + β0*tfield + β1*mmajority + β2*fmajority + β3*mteamfield+ β4*fteamfield
0 2 4 6 m e a n o f tc o o p e ra ti o n
Female Majority Gender Balanced Male Majority
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mteamfield= mmajority X tfield, interaction term for the relation between male-majority team and teamfield; 1 if the team field is a male dominant field and the gender composition of the firm is male majority.
fteamfield= fmajority X tfield, interaction term for the relation between female-majority team and team field; 1 if the team field is a male dominant field and the gender composition of the firm is female-majority.
The regression model for the second analyses is explained below; tperformance= α + β0*gender + β1*tfield + β2*gteamfield
gteamfield= gender X tfield, interaction term between team field and gender; 1 if gender is female and the team field is male-dominated.
The regression results for the effect of team field and team gender composition on team performance in table 4 model (1) shows that there is no main effect found. The regression results in table 4 model (2) indicates that male and female team members working in male-dominated fields do not express different team performance satisfaction levels. The coefficients of mmajority(-.058) and fmajority(-.066) implies that male participants working in male-majority and female-male-majority teams rate lower team field on team performance compared to the gender-balanced teams however as it can be seen in table 4 model 1, the coefficients are small and insignificant. The results ofresearcher’s experiment suggest that female members of such teams should not feel discouraged by the field their teams operates in and the gender population of such teams. Moreover, organizations should continue promoting gender equality at workplace policies.
Table 4. Results of the regression analyses of the team field, team gender composition and gender on
the team performance ratings
Regressor (1) (2) gender -.259 (.206) tfield .180 (.336) -.116 (.224) mmajority -.058 (.249) fmajority -.066 (.267) mteamfield -.237 (.401) fteamfield -.376 (.566) gteamfield .130
23 (.320) intercept 5.38 (.188) 5.48 (.154) R2 0.0093 0.0139 N 137 137
Notes. The dependent variables of regression (1) and (2) are team performance ratings (on a scale of 7). The table
represents coefficients from OLS regressions. Independent variables: mmajority(1 if the team gender composition is male-majority), fmajority(1 if the team gender composition is female-majority).Control variable: gender(1,female and 0,male) Interaction terms: fteamfield (the interaction term between tfield and mmajority), gteamfield (the interaction term between gender and fmajority). Standard errors are in parenthesis.
5. Public Goods Game, Gender and Team Gender Composition
The second hypothesis makes two predictions. The first part of hypothesis predicts a higher contribution amount to the public account by participants working in female-majority and gender-balanced teams than participants working in male-majority teams. The second part of hypothesis predicts a correlation between the team communication ratings and team cooperation ratings of the participants and their contribution amounts to the public account. To analyse these predictions, two regression models were made. The regression model to measure the effect of team gender composition on the individual contribution amounts is explained below.
contribution= α + β0*gender
contribution= α + β0*gender + β1*mmajority + β2*fmajority + β3*gtfemale + β4*gtmale
contribution= α + β0*gender + β1*mmajority+ β2*genderbalanced + β3*gtmale+
β4*gtgenderbalanced
contribution= α + β0*gender + β1*fmajority+ β2*genderbalanced+ β3*gtmale+
β4*gtgenderbalanced
(contribution: dependent variable, the amount of tokens contributed to the public account; can be between 0 and 100 tokens.
genderbalanced: if the team is genderbalanced, 0 otherwise; binary variable. gtgenderbalanced: if the team is gender balanced, 0 otherwise; binary variable.)
The regression model to test the second prediction of my second hypothesis is explained below. contribution= α + β0*gender + β1*tcommunication+ β2*gtcommunication
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The gender difference on the cooperation is a popular issue investigated by researchers. The issue was investigated with different experimental designs(Eckel and Grossman, 2008). The results are not consistent(Eckel and Grossman, 2008). There is evidence in the literature for all three possible outcomes(Eckel and Grossman, 2008). In some researches male participants acted more cooperative but some researchers found female participants acting more cooperative(Eckel and Grossman, 2008). There is also evidence for no gender differences on cooperation(Eckel and Grossman, 2008). So, the second hypothesis analyses were started by measuring the gender effect on individual cooperation levels over public goods game played by the participants of this experiment.
The results of regression in table 5 model (1) points out a significant gender difference on the contribution to the public account on the 90% significance level where male participants contributes significantly more to the public account than the female participants regardless of the gender composition of the team they work. Male participants contributed to the public account 59.93 tokens and female participants contributed 48.96 tokens on average during my experiment.
After analysing the gender effect on the contribution amounts of the participants, it was moved to investigating the first part of second hypothesis; whether the team composition of the workplace of the subjects has an impact on the contribution amounts to the public account. While the amount contributed by male participants varied across different team gender compositions, the female participants’ contribution rates stayed around 50 tokens on average in the three different team composition categories as can be seen in figure 12. Male participants working in female majority teams invested more to the public good, whereas female participants working in gender-balanced teams invested more to the public good. The biggest difference between male and female participants on the contribution amount was in the female-majority teams. There is almost a significant contribution difference
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Figure 11. The contribution levels to the public good.
Figure 12. The contribution levels to the public good in relation with the team gender
composition.
between genders in male-majority and female-majority teams. The coefficient of gender in table 5 model (3) has p-value of 0.134 on the 90% significance level for the t-test. And the coefficient of gender in table 5 model (4) has p-value of 0.141 on the 90% significance level for the t-test. The hypothesis stated that the participants working in gender-balanced and female-majority team gender compositions would contribute higher amounts than participants working in male-majority teams to the public good. The results of table 5 model (3) suggests
0 2 0 4 0 6 0 m e a n o f P G G Female Male 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 m e a n o f P G G
Female Majority Gender Balanced Male Majority
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that male participants working in female-majority teams contribute higher amounts to the public good and the model (2) in table 2 suggests that the contribution amounts to the public good are closest across genders in gender-balanced teams. The researcher’s results predicts that the different contribution amounts between genders are driven by gender imbalance groups. However, this experiment does not provide enough evidence to support this. Even though there is a gender effect on contribution levels in female-majority and male-majority teams, there is no significant effect of gender composition on contribution to the public good of participants across teams.
Table 5. Results of the regression analyses of gender, team gender composition, team communication ratings and team cooperation ratings on the contribution amount to the public good. Regressor (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) gender -10.97** (5.73) -1.16 (11.95) -22.85 (15.15) -12.14 (8.20) 12.21 (41.61) -26.63 (37.41) mmajority 9.03 (10.66) -10.12 (14.24) fmajority 19.16 (16.37) 10.12 (14.24) genderbalanced -19.16 (16.37) -9.03 (10.66) gtfemale -21.69 (19.30) -10.71 (17.23) gtmale -10.97 (14.49) 10.71 (17.23) gtgenderbalanced 21.69 (19.30) 10.97 (14.49) tcommunication 0.38 (5.92) tcooperation -2.70 (5.34) gtcommunication -4.31 (7.32) gtcooperation 2.73 (6.64) intercept 59.93 4.11 51.66 (9.45) 70.83 (13.36) 60.70 (4.93) 57.73 (34.50) 75.45 (30.96) R2 0.0283 0.0402 0.0402 0.0402 0.0348 0.0303 N 128 128 128 128 128 128
Notes. The dependent variables of regression (1), (2), (3), (4) and (5) are contribution amount to the public
account (0-100 tokens). The table represents coefficients from OLS regressions. Independent variables: mmajority(1 if the team gender composition is male-majority), fmajority(1 if the team gender composition is female-majority), genderbalanced (if the team gender composition is gender-balanced), tcommunication(team communication ratings on a scale of 7), tcooperation(team cooperation ratings on a scale of 7).Control variable: gender(1,female and 0,male) Interaction terms: gtfemale (the interaction term between gender and fmajority), gtmale (the interaction term between gender and mmajority), gtgenderbalanced(the interaction term between gender and genderbalanced. Standard errors are in parenthesis. Standard errors are in parenthesis, **p<.10.
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Lastly, the last part of second hypothesis was analysed, which predicts a correlation between the team communication and team cooperation ratings and the contribution amount to the public good. The regression results on table 5 model (5) and (6) shows that there is no significant effect of team communication and cooperation ratings on the contribution amount to the public good.
6. Results Summary and Limitations of the Analyses
In this research, the effect of gender composition on team communication, performance and cooperation levels was measured using three main regression models. The results of this study shows that there is no significant effect of gender composition on team communication, performance and cooperation levels. When only the gender effect was measured, there is a significant difference between the team communication and cooperation ratings of male and female participants but there is no significant difference of gender on team performance ratings. The results also show that there is no significant gender difference on team performance ratings within the same gender composition teams. For the team cooperation ratings, there is a significant gender difference according to the results of only gender effect regression model. The results of the main regression for the effect of gender composition on male and female participants working in the same gender composition.
As for the second hypothesis, there is a significant gender difference on the contribution amount to the public good in the regression model measuring only the gender effect on the contribution levels to the public good. When the gender composition effect on individual contribution levels is considered, the contribution amount of male and female participants are almost equal in the gender-balanced teams, however an almost significant difference of contribution amounts is observed in female-majority and male-majority teams. For both male and female participants, there is no effect of team gender composition on individual cooperation levels observed across teams.
In sum, the results of this study finds no effect of gender composition on team communication, team performance and team cooperation levels. Moreover, the findings show no evidence of gender composition of teams on individual cooperation levels across teams.
Omitted variable bias might have occurred in this research. There are more explanatory variables to be considered while measuring the effect of team gender composition on team
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communication, performance and cooperation levels. For instance, job characteristics, the organization settings, the difficulty of the task and the interdependence between team members (Joshi and Roh, 2009). Hence, it could produce more effective results, if these factors are considered in the future researches. This research measured the team communication, performance and cooperation levels across natural teams, however the sample size was only 137. This can harm the external validity of this analysis.
V. DISCUSSION
Taking relevant studies as a reference from previous literature, this study made five predictions. Firstly, it was predicted that participants working in gender-balanced teams would rate higher team communication levels, higher team performance levels and higher team cooperation levels than the participants working in female-majority and male-majority teams. Secondly, it was predicted that participants who work in gender-balanced or female-majority teams would contribute higher amounts to the public good than participants working in male-majority teams. It was also predicted that participants who rate higher team communication and cooperation levels would contribute higher amounts to the public good. The results found no effect of gender composition on team communication, performance and cooperation levels. There was also no effect of gender composition on individual cooperation levels observed. There was only evidence for a difference in the contribution amounts between male and female participants in gender imbalanced teams. There was also no correlation between the team communication and cooperation ratings and the individual cooperation levels.
The study has its limitations and disadvantages. One of them is the exclusion of factors that might have been an explanatory variable on the regression models as explained in the sixth part of the results section. Another limitation is the sample size. For a research aiming to measure team communication, performance and cooperation levels through natural teams and find correlation between team gender composition and individual cooperation levels the sample size is rather small.
sA disadvantage of this study is that the experiment was conducted through online surveys. A laboratory experiment might have different results. Another disadvantage of this study is that the participants were independent of each other. Moreover, the team processes ratings and public goods game were independent from each other as well. The participants were not playing the public goods game with the team that they rate the team communication, performance and
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cooperation levels. Further studies should take this fact into consideration and should design an experiment were the team processes survey and the public goods game are not independent from each other.
VI. CONCLUSION
The main focus of this research was to explore the effect of team gender composition to team processes. In addition, the effect of team gender composition levels on individual cooperation levels was investigated. Overall, no effect of team gender composition on team communication, team performance and team cooperation effect was found. There was also no significant effect of team gender composition on individual cooperation levels. However, in gender-balanced teams, it was observed that the male and female participants exhibited closer individual cooperation levels.
The evidence regarding the team gender composition on team processes is mixed. However, there is a considerable amount of research possessing that gender composition of teams does not have a significant effect on team processes (e.g., Kirkman,Tesluk&Rosen,2004;Kochan et al, 2003) (Joshi and Roh, 2009). This study also finds no significant effect of gender composition on team processes.
Teams play a very important role on producing business and technological outcomes (Bear and Woolley, 2011). The findings of this study implies that gender diversity within companies should be encouraged since building gender diverse teams does not negatively affect the team processes. Women are minority in the majority of fields especially science and engineering and top managerial positions within organizations (Bear and Woolley, 2011). One reason for this fact is the gender inequality between men and women within a work environment in male dominant business and technology fields (Bear and Woolley, 2011).
Therefore the findings of gender composition effect on team processes is important to prove that women presence in teams does not have a negative effect and in certain cases, has a positive effect on team processes. In order to be able to measure the gender composition effect on team processes it is also important to make sure that women are equally represented in these fields as well (Bear and Woolley, 2011).
In sum, the studies on team gender composition do not only have scientific implications but also have socio-economic implications. Therefore, further research should follow on this topic with more explanatory variables and different experimental settings.
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Appendix 1. Introduction part of the experiment General Instructions
Welcome and thank you for taking the time to participate in this experiment.
This experiment is for a thesis on team effectiveness, communication and cooperation levels in organizations.
Please read the instruction that will follow in the next parts carefully.
You can earn money during this experiment. The amount depends on your choices and on the outcome of the experiment.
To be selected for payment you need to fill out the survey and provide your email address at the end of the experiment.
Please answer all questions truthfully and completely.
This experiment has two parts and will last approximately 10 minutes.
The choices you make during this online experiment will remain anonymous and your data will be treated confidentially.
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Appendix 2. The survey on team communication, performance and cooperation levels This part consists of questions related to communication, performance and cooperation levels within your work team. Please answer the questions below by rating from a scale of 7.
Strongly Agree 7 Agree 6 Agree Somewhat 5 Neither Agree Nor Disagree 4 Disagree Somewhat 3 Disagree 2 Strongly Disagree 1 1. Team members clearly understand their roles. (1)
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2. We are able to work through differences of opinion without damaging relationships. (2)o
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3.We address and resolve issues
quickly. (3)
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4.Communication in our group is
open and honest.
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5. Team members take initiaive to resolve issues between themselves without involving the team leader.
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6. Team problem solving results in effective solutions.o
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7. We have the skills we need to do our jobs effectively.o
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35 8.Group meetings are very productive.
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9.We consistently produce strong,measurable results.o
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10. We set and meet challenging goals.o
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11. Our team has established trusting and supportive relationships with other teams.
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12. Teammembers help one another deal with problems or resolve issues.
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13. Team
members seek and give each other constructive feedback.
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14. Team members display high levels of cooperation and mutual support.o
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15. Overlapping or shared tasks and responsibilities do not create problems for team members.36
Appendix 3. Public Good Game Introduction
This part of the experiment is about contribution to a public account. You will be asked to contribute to a public account in a group of 4.
At the end of the experiment, four participants will be randomly selected and matched as a group. The earnings of each participant will be calculated according to their investment choices and they will be paid.
Contribution In this part of the experiment, you are in a group of 4 people. Each of the group members has an amount of 100 tokens to allocate either to a private account or a public account.
Tokens allocated to the private account are kept for yourself and tokens allocated to the public account are multiplied by two and added to the public account. Therefore, the allocation of 1 token to the public account yields to a total of 2 tokens for all of the group members. Your earnings from the public account are based on the total number of tokens allocated by all members of the group.
Each member will obtain 1/4 of the tokens in the public account. The final amount of tokens you obtain is the number of tokens in your private account plus your share of the tokens that are in the public account. If you are selected, the final number of your tokens then will be converted into euro as (1 token=0.25 euros) and paid out.
Example 1: Let's say that you decided to invest 30 tokens of your 100 tokens in the public account and all other group members also decided to invest 30 tokens of their 100 tokens. The contribution to the public account will be 30x4=120 tokens. This will be multiplied by 2 and will become 120x2=240 tokens. These 240 tokens will be divided to four and each member will receive 60 tokens. So, in total your payoff will be 100-30+60=130 tokens.
Example 2: Let's say that you decided to invest 20 tokens of your 100 tokens in the public account and the other 3 group members decided to invest 10, 14, 36 tokens in ascending order out of their 100 tokens. The contribution to the public account will be 20+10+14+36=80 tokens. This will be multiplied by 2 and will become 80x2=160 tokens. These 160 tokens will be divided to four and each member will receive 40 tokens. So, in total your payoff will be
100-20+40=120 tokens.
How much of your endowment would you allocate to the public account? Please indicate
your answer below.
