Using Social Recognition to Address the Gender Difference in Volunteering for Low-Promotability Tasks
中文摘要
研究表明，对于人们希望由他人完成的任务，女性的志愿参与程度显著更高。这类任务因其性质本身而几乎不带有金钱激励。我们采用志愿者困境博弈的改进版本，考察非货币干预尤其是社会认可能否用于缩小与这类任务相关的性别差距。我们开展了一项包含三种处理条件的实验室实验：(a) 志愿者获得正向社会认可，(b) 非志愿者获得负向社会认可，(c) 志愿者获得正向社会认可而非志愿者获得负向社会认可。结果表明，社会认可提高了个体志愿参与的整体概率。正向社会认可缩小了基线处理中观察到的性别差距，正向与负向社会认可的组合亦如此。这些发现表明，对此类任务的志愿参与给予公开认可，既能改变组织中的默认性别规范，又能同时提高效率。本文由行为经济学与决策分析领域编辑Yan Chen接收。资助：本研究主要由印度管理学院班加罗尔分校资助[种子基金7399FW]。补充材料：在线附录与数据文件可在 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.04017 获取。
Abstract
Research shows that women volunteer significantly more for tasks that people prefer others to complete. Such tasks carry little monetary incentives because of their very nature. We use a modified version of the volunteer’s dilemma game to examine if nonmonetary interventions, particularly social recognition, can be used to reduce the gender gap associated with such tasks. We conduct a laboratory experiment with three treatments where (a) a volunteer receives positive social recognition, (b) a nonvolunteer receives negative social recognition, and (c) a volunteer receives positive social recognition but a nonvolunteer receives negative social recognition. Our results indicate that social recognition increases the overall probability that an individual volunteers. Positive social recognition reduces the gender gap observed in the baseline treatment, and so does the combination of positive and negative social recognition. These findings suggest that public recognition of volunteering for such tasks can change the default gender norms in organizations and increase efficiency simultaneously. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: This research was primarily funded by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore [Seed Grant 7399FW]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.04017 .