Josephine SchaumburgMen are not better negotiators after all! Clarification and critical analysis of existing theory on gender and negotiation performance

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In business negotiations often high sums are at stake, which is why careful preparation of the negotiation process is necessary. This includes the question of which person should negotiate on behalf of the company and what characteristics this person ideally possesses, for example in terms of gender, in order to achieve the highest possible negotiation outcome.

Despite many contributions on the topic, the theory about the influence of gender on negotiation outcomes remains unclear. The negotiation community answers this question in terms of both generalizations and non-generalizations. On the one hand, it is claimed that men negotiate better on average than women (a generalization), but on the other hand, that the negotiation outcomes of men and women depend on context (a non-generalization). Thus, these statements are based on contradictory assumptions, making them mutually exclusive.

The overarching research question is "Are women really worse negotiators than men?" and two major research contributions are made. In the first part of the study, the author shows that the theory on gender and negotiation performance is problematic: not only is there a lack of clarity about its meaning, but more seriously, the majority of researchers also misinterprets this theory. In the second part of the paper, the author discusses five possible reasons for this problem.

The aim of the paper is to initiate a debate about what the theory about gender and negotiation performance actually means and how it should be spoken about. In doing so, the author challenges the prevailing doctrine that "men are better negotiators on average". The relevance of this dissertation is that it warns against the canonization of false interpretations of both data and theories, as this threatens trust in scientific knowledge as objective truth.

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