ESSEC Working Papers,
ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School

Abstract: 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 groups of five students selected at random. We manipulate the gender composition of the management teams to allow for all possible gender combinations. We 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 of the teams, the performance advantage of all-men teams vanishes, while the “residual” economic performance of mixed-gender teams with a majority of women is still positive and strong. Further analysis of “actual” risk-taking behavior shows that in these mixed-gender teams a “risk shift” mechanism is at play, as they take risks beyond what their total tolerance to risk as a group would suggest.

Keywords: group decision; gender studies; risk-taking; business game; performance; governance

JEL-codes: C93; D71; M14

26 pages, September 2015

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