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Laboratory Evidence of the Effects of Sponsorship on the Competitive Preferences of Men and Women with Katie Coffman
How
can women get ahead in competitive fields? One proposed way is through
sponsorship programs – where a person (the sponsor) advocates for a protégé,
and in doing so, takes a stake in her success. While these types of programs
have received popular attention, little empirical evidence exists on their
effectiveness. Coffman uses a laboratory experiment to explore two channels
through which sponsorship has been posited to increase advancement in a competitive
workplace. In the experimental setting, being sponsored provides a credible
signal of one’s ability and/or creates a link between the protégé’s and
sponsor’s payoffs. She finds that both features of sponsorship significantly
increase willingness to compete among men on average, while neither of these
channels significantly increases willingness to compete among women on average.
Similarly, sponsorship has a directionally more positive effect on the earnings
of male protégés than female protégés. Therefore, sponsorship does not close
the gender gap in competitiveness or earnings. This seminar will explore how
these insights from the laboratory could help to inform the design of
sponsorship programs in the field. Speaker:
Katie Coffman, Assistant
Professor, Department of Economics, Ohio State University
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By Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard Kennedy School
4
77 ratings
How
can women get ahead in competitive fields? One proposed way is through
sponsorship programs – where a person (the sponsor) advocates for a protégé,
and in doing so, takes a stake in her success. While these types of programs
have received popular attention, little empirical evidence exists on their
effectiveness. Coffman uses a laboratory experiment to explore two channels
through which sponsorship has been posited to increase advancement in a competitive
workplace. In the experimental setting, being sponsored provides a credible
signal of one’s ability and/or creates a link between the protégé’s and
sponsor’s payoffs. She finds that both features of sponsorship significantly
increase willingness to compete among men on average, while neither of these
channels significantly increases willingness to compete among women on average.
Similarly, sponsorship has a directionally more positive effect on the earnings
of male protégés than female protégés. Therefore, sponsorship does not close
the gender gap in competitiveness or earnings. This seminar will explore how
these insights from the laboratory could help to inform the design of
sponsorship programs in the field. Speaker:
Katie Coffman, Assistant
Professor, Department of Economics, Ohio State University
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