If men fight harder than women at the negotiation table, they perhaps also fight dirtier
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Male misbehaviour in negotiations is rooted in our evolutionary history.
Men are generally considered to be fiercer, more ruthless competitors than women in the workplace. These gender differences are more pronounced in the realm of negotiation, where men achieve better outcomes on the whole. Yet if men fight harder than women at the negotiation table, they perhaps also fight dirtier, more often employing unethical tactics such as outright deception.
The possible ethical risks of masculine hyper-competitiveness are serious enough to warrant attention from firms. Managing male immorality entails knowing where it comes from, how common it is and what specific circumstances trigger it. If it were to stem from social influence, then firms could try to counteract that influence so as to benefit from male competitiveness without risking the unwanted ethical side effects.
My recently published paper in Academy of Management Journal (co-authored by Margaret Lee and Madan M. Pillutla of London Business School and Marko Pitesa of Singapore Management University) finds that sex differences in negotiations derive from a much more primal place: men’s and women’s respective roles in the evolution of the species.
[This article is republished courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge, the portal to the latest business insights and views of The Business School of the World. Copyright INSEAD 2024]