Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers Creation-Date: 2011-04-11 Revision-Date: 2014-05-01 Number: 11-074/3 Author-Name: Sander Hoogendoorn Author-Workplace-Name: University of Amsterdam Author-Name: Hessel Oosterbeek Author-Workplace-Name: University of Amsterdam Author-Name: Mirjam van Praag Author-Workplace-Name: University of Amsterdam Title: The Impact of Gender Diversity on the Performance of Business Teams: Evidence from a Field Experiment Abstract: This discussion paper resulted in an article in Management Science. Volume 59 issue 7, pages 1514-1528.

This paper reports on 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. We manipulated the gender composition of teams and assigned students randomly to teams, conditional on their gender. We find that teams with an equal gender mix perform better than male-dominated teams in terms of sales and profits. We explore various mechanisms suggested in the literature to explain this positive effect of gender diversity on performance (including complementarities, learning, monitoring, and conflicts) but find no support for them. Classification-JEL: J16, L25, L26, M13, C93 Keywords: Gender diversity, team performance, entrepreneurship, field experiment, entrepreneurship education, board effectiveness File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/11074.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 271877 bytes Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20110074