Slides from Univ. TX Texas Enterprise Speaker Series presentation by Dr. Emily Amanatuallah on March 28, 2012 Amanatullah explores her research findings that sometimes women are less effective negotiators than men because of social feminine gender constrants. She offers suggestions for how women can change this workplace dynamic

1. Dare to Ask!
Negotiating When it Matters
Emily T. Amanatullah
Assistant Professor of Management
The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business

2. Gender Disparities Still Exist
 Women’s advancement
 14.1% Fortune 500 Corporate Officers
 16.1% Fortune 500 Board seats
 3.6% Fortune 500 CEO’s
 Women’s financial compensation
 Wage gap = 76.6%
 7.6% of Fortune 500 top earners were women

3. Gender & Negotiations
 Conflicting empirical evidence for the
effect of gender on negotiations (for
review, Kray & Thompson, 2005)
 Situational variation is important
 Focus on distributive negotiations
 Women are less competitive than men (Walters,
Stulmacher, & Meyer, 1998)
 Women agree to worse outcomes than men
(Stulmacher & Walters, 1999)

4. Social Constraints
 Traditional gender roles
 Feminine = communality, caring, helpfulness
(Chapman, 1975; Eagly, 1987; Eagly & Karau, 2002)
 Masculine = independence, self-reliance,
assertiveness (Moore, 1984; Schein, 2001)
 Gender roles as social norms (Eagly, 1987)
 Descriptive norms – “how women are”
 Perceived average or typical behavior for the gender
 Expectations are anchored on the perceived average
 Injunctive norms – “how women should be”
 Standard for gender-appropriate behavior in a situation
 Violators of standard are socially sanctioned
 Prescriptive & Proscriptive components

5. Backlash Effect
 Managerial effectiveness (and distributive
negotiation tactics) strongly associated with
masculine characteristics
 Independence, Assertiveness, Self-confidence, etc.
 Inconsistency with feminine gender roles
 1: Women assumed to have less leadership
potential than men
 Likeable but incompetent (Eagly & Karau, 2002)
 Based on descriptive function of gender norms
 2: Women who do demonstrate leadership are
socially punished for violating gender norms
 Competent but unlikeable (Eagly et al., 1992; Heilman,
2001, et al., 2004)
 Based on injunctive function of gender norms

6. Advocacy
 Advocacy Context (Bowles, Babcock & McGinn,
2005; Wade 2001)
 Self: Negotiating on one’s own behalf
 Other: Negotiating on behalf of another
 Other-advocacy moderates
(in)congruence of female gender role with
value claiming negotiation tactics
 Self: Assertive tactics ≠ Female gender role
 Perceived as self-interested and agentic
 Other: Assertive tactics = Female gender role
 Women traditionally other-advocates (Wade, 2001)
 Women more comfortable wielding power for others (Miller,
1991)

7. Your Data:
Comparing Advocacy Contexts
4
Extremely
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
Frequency
3
Comfort
2.8 Success
2.6
Not at all
2.4
2.2
2
Self-Advocacy Other-Advocacy

8. Outline of Studies
 Effect on Outcomes
 Pilot Study – Salary negotiation exercise
 Psychological Mechanisms
 Behavior of Targets
 Study 1 – Conflict resolution style preference
 Study 2 – Concessionary behavior during
negotiation mediated by fear of backlash
 Behavior of Perceivers
 Study 3 – Social Backlash
 Study 4 – Replication of Backlash

9. Pilot Study: Method
 56 upper-level managers (80% male)
 Simulated salary negotiation
 Manipulated advocacy in new hire role
 New hire negotiating own salary
 Substitute filling in due to scheduling conflict
 For control, hiring manager always male
 Wide zone of possible agreements from
$108K to $133K

10. Pilot Study: Results
133
131
Salary ($ thousands)
129
127
125
Male
123
Female
121
119
117
115
113
Self Other
Advocacy Context

11. Outline of Studies
 Effect on Outcomes
 Pilot Study – Salary negotiation exercise
 Psychological Mechanisms
 Behavior of Targets
 Study 1 – Conflict resolution style preference
 Study 2 – Concessionary behavior during
negotiation mediated by fear of backlash
 Behavior of Perceivers
 Study 3 – Social Backlash
 Study 4 – Replication of Backlash

12. Study 1: Method
 115 Executive MBAs (74% male)
 Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument
 The innovation
 Focusing the questions on conflicts in which respondents
were Self- vs. Other-advocacy
 Distributive Index = Competing – Accommodating
 Recent large-sample study found women
score lower on competing than men at all
organizational levels (Thomas et al. 2006)
 Does other-advocacy moderate this effect?

13. Study 1: Results
3
2
Distributive Index
1
0
Male
-1 Female
-2
-3
-4
Self Other
Advocacy Context

14. Your Data:
Negotiation Self-Efficacy
75
Confidence in Negotiation Ability
70
65
60
55
Self-Advocacy
50 Other-Advocacy
45
40
35
30
Distributive Self-Efficacy Integrative Self-Efficacy

15. Study 2: Method
 59 subjects (53% male)
 Computerized negotiation experiment
 Same counterpart for each subject
 Computer-simulated male counterpart
 Hiring manager always same male
 Gender made salient with digital photos
 Presented counterparts with side by side photos
 Dependent variable
 Concessionary behavior
 Mediating variable
 Fear of anticipated backlash
 2-item measure (r = .91)
 “How much do you think you can reasonably ask for without
causing the hiring manager…
 …to perceive you to be a pushy person?”
 …to punish you for being too demanding?”
 Lower score indicates greater fear of backlash

16. Study 2: Results
Anticipated Backlash
52000
Anticipated Backlash
50000
48000
46000 Male
44000 Female
42000
40000
38000
Self Other
Advocacy Context

17. Study 2: Results
Concessionary Behavior
52000
Round 1 Counteroffer
50000
48000
46000 Male
44000 Female
42000
40000
38000
Self Other
Advocacy Context

18. Study 2: Results
Mediation
Anticipated
Backlash
Backlash only: β = .75***
β = .45* Combined model: β = .66***
Counteroffer
Gender * Role
Gender*Role only: β = .45* (Round 1)
Combined model: β = .16
Note: * p < .05; *** p < .001

19. Study 2: Concessionary Behavior
50000
48000
46000
Male - Self
44000 Male - Other
42000 Female - Self
Female - Other
40000
38000
36000
1 2 3 4 5
Round of Negotiation

20. Outline of Studies
 Effect on Outcomes
 Pilot Study – Salary negotiation exercise
 Psychological Mechanisms
 Behavior of Targets
 Study 1 – Conflict resolution style preference
 Study 2 – Concessionary behavior during
negotiation mediated by fear of backlash
 Behavior of Perceivers
 Study 3 – Social Backlash
 Study 4 – Replication of Backlash

21. Study 3: Method
 52 MBA students
 Salary negotiation exercise
 During class focused on value claiming tactics
 Students encouraged to be aggressive
 No differences in salary across
gender/role
 But did self-advocating women suffer backlash at
the cost of financial gain?
 Asked counterparts how
negative/positive of an impression they
formed of their partner after the
negotiation (scale from 1 to 7)

22. Study 3: Results
6
Impression Formed by
5.5
Counterpart
5
Male
4.5
Female
4
3.5
3
Self Other
Advocacy Context

23. Study 4: Method
 226 undergraduate subjects (50% male)
 2 x 2 x 2 Factorial Design
 Gender of Target: Male or Female
 Behavior of Target: Assertive or Non-assertive
 Advocacy Context: Self or Other
 Dependent Variable
 Measured Social Backlash

24. Study 4: Results
5
4.8
Social Acceptance
4.6
4.4
4.2
Male
4
Female
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
3
Self Other Self Other
Assertive Non-Assertive

25. Gendered Attributions
 Double bind: Warmth vs. Competence
 Likable & incompetent OR competent & unlikable
 Greater nuance in injunctive norms
 Prescriptive
 How men/women “should be”
 Men – “Competent”
 Women – “Warm”
 Proscriptive
 How men/women “ought not be”
 Men – “Weak”
 Women – “Dominant”
 Arguably greater sanctions for these violations

26. Follow-up Study: Attributions
 532 students
 Watched video of a negotiation
 Hiring manager was static
 Manipulated Sex, Behavior, Advocacy of Target
 Measured
 Likelihood to backlash against target
 Social backlash
 Leader backlash
 Gendered attributions
 Prescriptions – positive masc/fem attributes
 Proscriptions – negative masc/fem attributes
(For brevity, results from Female Targets only)

27. Attribution Study: Results
Negative Masculine Attributions 5.00
4.50
(Dominant/Arrogant)
4.00
3.50 Self-Advocate
Other-Advocate
3.00
2.50
2.00
Assertive Non-Assertive

28. Attribution Study: Results
3.80
3.60
Negative Feminine Attributions
3.40
3.20
(Weak/Naive)
3.00
Self-Advocate
2.80 Other-Advocate
2.60
2.40
2.20
2.00
Assertive Non-Assertive

29. Negotiating for a group
 Us-advocacy
 What is more salient?
 Self-interested motives – Inconsistency →
backlash present
 Other-interested motives – Consistency →
backlash absent
 Can a woman avoid social sanctions
AND reap financial value IF negotiating
for a group to which she belongs?

30. Us-Advocacy:
Your Frequency Data - again
4
Extremely
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
Frequency
3
Comfort
2.8 Success
2.6
Not at all
2.4
2.2
2
Self-Advocacy Other-Advocacy Us-Advocacy

31. Follow-up Studies: Us-Advocacy
 Negotiation vignette
 Financial hardships leaves annual bonuses smaller than
usual
 Subordinate requests larger bonus
 Manipulated target gender & advocacy (self vs. group)
 Post-vignette questionnaire
 Social backlash: N = 344 (259 MBA + 85 Undergraduate)
 Impression formed about target
 Financial backlash: N = 185 Undergraduate
 Likelihood to increase bonus
 Likelihood to decrease bonus

32. Results: Social Appraisal
3.90
3.70
Social Acceptance
3.50
3.30
Male
Female
3.10
2.90
2.70
2.50
Self-advocacy Us-advocacy

33. Results: No Reward Differences
3.4
Likelihood to INCREASE Bonus
3.2
3
2.8
Male
Female
2.6
2.4
2.2
2
Self-advocacy Us-advocacy

34. Results: Penalty Levied!
2.9
2.7
Likelihood to REDUCE Bonus
2.5
2.3
Male
Female
2.1
1.9
1.7
1.5
Self-advocacy Us-advocacy

35. Summary of Findings
 Self-advocating women
 Fear social backlash for behaving assertively
 And do incur backlash when behaving assertively!
 Seen as overly dominant/arrogant
 Others less likely to want to interact with them
 Negotiate less assertively
 Agree to monetarily worse outcomes
 Other-advocating women
 Do not fear social backlash for assertiveness
 Negotiate assertively
 Agree to monetarily better outcomes (for others)
 BUT…can incur backlash if not assertive enough!
 Seen as weak/naïve/gullible
 Others do not want them as leaders

36. Take-aways & Remedies
 Individual-level
 Blaming vs. Empowering the Victim
 Framing of the negotiation
 Reframe self-oriented negotiations as other-
advocacy
 Or as us-advocacy!
 Organizational-level
 Implementation of compensation systems not
dependent on employee self-promotion
 Objective criteria
 Peer evaluations

37. The Female Advantage
 Women tend to take a more co-operative
approach to negotiations than men.
 Share information.
 Take flexible positions.
 Seek to understand both parties’ goals: Listen!
 Women are more likely than men to act as if
a negotiation has win/win potential.
 Don’t suffer from the “mythical fixed-pie bias.”
 This is especially good for repeated interactions.