Gender-role Incongruity and Audience-based Gender Bias: An Examination of Networking among Entrepreneurs

Abstract

While most research explaining the persistence of gender inequality has focused on how decision makers’ own biases perpetuate inequities, a growing body of work points to mechanisms of bias that may arise when a decision maker is concerned with satisfying a third party or audience. Using data from 2007 to 2013 on 2,310 members of a popular networking organization for entrepreneurs, I examine the extent to which the presence of third parties leads to gender inequality in resource exchange, or connections to potential clients. I show that decision makers are most apt to favor male network contacts in exchanges involving a third party when considering whether to connect a contact in a male-typed occupation. Decision makers do not display this gender bias in exchanges that do not involve a third party or when sharing connections to potential clients with contacts in gender-neutral or female-typed occupations. This setting offers a unique opportunity to compare gender inequality in exchanges involving a third party with cases that do not involve a third party, providing direct evidence of the effects of audiences or third parties for gender inequality.

The Value of Communication: Evidence From a Field Experiment With Entrepreneurs in Togo

“…Existing research has focused primarily on the structural characteristics of dyads to explain the formation of business relationships (Rivera, Soderstrom, and Uzzi, 2010). This work has identified factors such as homophily (Abraham, 2019), proximity (Hallen, 2008;Dahlander and McFarland, 2013;Bagde, 2015), mutual ties (McFarland et al, 2014), and common organizational membership (Feld, 1981) as significant predictors for the formation of peer business relationships. We build on this literature by examining a non-structural factor related to relationship formation: communication.…”

“…Prior research has highlighted that advice from peers can help entrepreneurs resolve this problem of information access (Zuckerman and Sgourev, 2006;Kacperczyk, 2013;Abraham, 2019).…”

The value of communication: Evidence from a field experiment with entrepreneurs in Togo

“…Existing research has focused primarily on the structural characteristics of dyads to explain the formation of business relationships (Rivera, Soderstrom, and Uzzi, 2010). This work has identified factors such as homophily (Abraham, 2019), proximity (Hallen, 2008;Dahlander and McFarland, 2013;Hasan and Bagde, 2015), mutual ties (McFarland et al, 2014), and common organizational membership (Feld, 1981) as significant predictors for the formation of peer business relationships. We build on this literature by examining a non-structural factor related to relationship formation: communication.…”

“…This information is all the more crucial in developing countries, where formal institutions that encourage information flows are often weak. Therefore, a key challenge for entrepreneurs in developing countries is how to access new, accurate, and timely information.Prior research has highlighted that advice from peers can help entrepreneurs resolve this problem of information access (Zuckerman and Sgourev, 2006;Kacperczyk, 2013;Abraham, 2019).Relationships with peers can serve as important sources of information about how to manage a business, identify market opportunities, and learn new practices (Sorenson, Rivkin, and Fleming, 2006;Stuart and Ding, 2006;Chatterji et al, 2018). However, research also suggests that entrepreneurs' portfolios of peer relationships are frequently far from optimal in terms of providing access to information.…”

Sociability Closure and Gender Inequalities in Earnings, Promotions and Job Tenure

“…These interactions then, in turn, reproduce the power relations that inform them. Harassment, for example, leads to differential job turnover by gender (Antecol and Cobb-Clark 2006;Laband and Lentz 1998;McLaughlin et al 2017), while the distribution of network resources depends on the gendered frames of brokers and the perceived gender biases of audiences (Abraham 2020;Brands and Mehra 2018).…”