Group Gender Composition and Economic Decision-Making

This paper analyses data collected in 2012 and 2013 at the ESSEC Business School from Kallystée, a proprietary mass-attendance business game. Company boards are simulated by teams of five students selected at random. The design manipulates the gender composition of the boards to allow for all possible gender combinations. Data show that all-men and mixed teams with four women perform significantly better than all-women teams. However, when controlling for the average tolerance to risk score of the teams, the performance advantage of all-men teams vanishes, while the team-specific economic performance of teams with four women is still positive and strong. Teams with four women take more risks than the team tolerance to risk score would predict, which suggests some form of team specific action bias or risk-shift.