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gender and negotiation

What is Gender and Negotiation?

Research on gender and negotiation verifies what many of us already know – women face significant hurdles in negotiations.

In their gender and negotiation research, Professor Hannah Riley Bowles of Harvard Business School, Professor Linda Babcock of Carnegie Mellon University, and Professor Lei Lai of Tulane University found that both male and female study participants were less interested in working with women who attempted to negotiate a better salary than they were with men who tried to negotiate a higher salary. 

Gender discrimination is typically implicit rather than explicit. Yet its persistence in the workplace presents a personal negotiation challenge that asks women to reconcile their needs with how they present those needs to their counterparts. For example, gender and negotiation research shows that women, more often than men, need to legitimize their salary requests during a negotiation.

Unfortunately, women who ask for more tend to suffer a backlash: their coworkers tend to dislike them more than women who don’t ask. Men don’t suffer the same backlash effect.

However, motivated by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s message of empowerment in Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and other recent rallying cries, women increasingly are taking the risk of asking for more in employment contract negotiation—and employers are starting to expect them to do so.

The good news is that gender and negotiation researchers have identified clear strategies that women can undertake to avoid antagonizing colleagues when they ask for more.

Discover how to refine your negotiation skills with this free special report, Negotiation Strategies for Women: Secrets to Success. Download this report from Harvard Law School right now! 

We will send you a download link to your copy of the report and notify you by email when we post new advice and information on how to improve your business negotiation skills to our website.

The following items are tagged gender and negotiation:

Casino Two: Updated Version of Casino Now Available from the TNRC

Posted by & filed under Teaching Negotiation.

Gender can play a complex role in workplace dynamics, and so teaching students about how to approach these issues is critical. The Casino simulation, available from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC), has been widely used to teach participants about the role gender can play in the workplace. Now there is a new, updated version which … Read  

Negotiation research you can use: When men are—and aren’t—more likely to negotiate than women

Posted by & filed under Leadership Skills.

Women can be less likely than men to initiate negotiations, a meta-analysis of existing studies on the topic concluded last year. Because negotiation is widely perceived as requiring stereotypically “masculine” traits, such as assertiveness and independence, rather than stereotypically “feminine” traits, such as concern for others and passivity, women may feel less comfortable launching negotiations than … Read  

Teaching Negotiation: A Symposium On Excellence & Innovation For Teachers & Trainers

Posted by & filed under Teaching Negotiation.

This program is designed for anyone who teaches negotiation, dispute resolution, or conflict analysis across any field (e.g., law, business, international relations, social work, peace studies, public policy, urban planning, environmental studies, and engineering). Negotiation trainers who provide on-site or online training to business or community clients should also attend so they can evaluate potential new … Read