Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • February 2018
  • Article
  • Management Science

Laboratory Evidence on the Effects of Sponsorship on the Competitive Preferences of Men and Women

By: Nancy R. Baldiga and Katherine Baldiga Coffman
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Sponsorship programs have been proposed as one way to promote female advancement in competitive career fields. A sponsor is someone who advocates for a protégé, and in doing so, takes a stake in her success. We use a laboratory experiment to explore two channels through which sponsorship has been posited to increase advancement in a competitive workplace. In our setting, being sponsored provides a vote of confidence and/or creates a link between the protégé’s and sponsor’s payoffs. We find 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. As a result, sponsorship does not close the gender gap in competitiveness or earnings. We discuss how these insights from the laboratory could help to inform the design of sponsorship programs in the field.

Keywords

Economics; Behavior And Behavioral Decision Making; Laboratory Experiment; Competition; Organizations; Gender; Behavior

Citation

Baldiga, Nancy R., and Katherine Baldiga Coffman. "Laboratory Evidence on the Effects of Sponsorship on the Competitive Preferences of Men and Women." Management Science 64, no. 2 (February 2018): 888–901.
  • Find it at Harvard

About The Author

Katherine B. Coffman

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • March 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Inclusive Innovation at Mass General Brigham

    By: Katherine Coffman and Olivia Hull
    • Faculty Research

    A (Dynamic) Investigation of Stereotypes, Belief-Updating, and Behavior

    By: Katherine B. Coffman, Paola Ugalde Araya and Basit Zafar
    • Harvard Business Review

    Unconscious Bias Training That Works

    By: Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman
More from the Authors
  • Inclusive Innovation at Mass General Brigham By: Katherine Coffman and Olivia Hull
  • A (Dynamic) Investigation of Stereotypes, Belief-Updating, and Behavior By: Katherine B. Coffman, Paola Ugalde Araya and Basit Zafar
  • Unconscious Bias Training That Works By: Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College