Dr Sebastian Tideman explains why companies need to be aware that male analysts are more aggressive in their questioning of female CEOs – and what can be done about it
It’s nothing new that women leaders face more challenges than men. We already know women are less likely to become CEOs – the FTSE 100 contains just eight female chief executives – and that when women do reach the C-suite, it is more often than not at a poorly performing firm.
But in a research paper I recently published, my colleagues and I uncovered a new frontier of unfairness facing women leaders who do make it to the top: earnings conference calls.
Analyzing transcripts of 39,209 earnings conference calls, including with Apple, Microsoft and Facebook, we found that male analysts’ questions to CEOs were more aggressive than those of female analysts and that this contrast doubled when the CEO was female. We also found that when male analysts challenged female CEOs, they were more aggressive than when questioning men.
Our findings lay bare yet another challenge female leaders face in the workplace, and with workplace gender diversity linked to everything from increased productivity to improved performance, staff retention and collaboration throughout a business, the ramifications are enormous.
The findings are of particular relevance to the finance industry and investors, as the way analysts ask questions sends signals to the capital markets. When investors following earnings conference calls witness analysts asking verbally aggressive questions, it could signal to them that the analysts are not happy with a company's performance.
We also believe the findings to be a classic example of ‘in-group bias’, the psychological theory of giving preferential treatment to those we regard as belonging to the same group as us – so when male analysts question female CEOs more aggressively it is because they see them as outsiders and a threat to their sense of identity and self-esteem.
This backs up previous research on gender bias in analysts’ interactions with management in earnings conference calls, which found that male analysts make lower earnings forecasts for firms with female CEOs, and that women are perceived as less knowledgeable than men.
Our key insight is that men and women do communicate differently, even in the workplace, so leaders of companies should be aware of these gender-based differences when it comes to evaluating the performance of their employees.
Our advice is that if you’re a chief executive or team leader taking part in any event with a Q&A set-up, it’s important to make sure these events are gender-diverse. Also, within companies it makes a lot of sense to have diverse teams when you have meetings or are setting up committees so that they can benefit from different linguistic styles.
And for broker firms and other financial institutions that send analysts to specific company events such as earnings conference calls, they really need to be aware of gender-related differences and make sure they are sending both male and female analysts so that investors and other stakeholders can benefit from different questioning strategies.
We know men, in general, tend to be more competitive and see it as more acceptable to show that in the workplace. And there’s a lot of research that finds men to be more verbally aggressive in non-professional settings. Our research here shows that the values we have based on our society, our education and our cultural backgrounds translate to a professional setting as well.
Dr Sebastian Tideman is a lecturer in finance and accounting at the University of Exeter Business School. His research paper The role of gender in the aggressive questioning of CEOs during earnings conference calls was co-authored with Professor Joseph Comprix from Syracuse University and Professor Kerstin Lopatta from the University of Hamburg