Institute of Economic Policy Institute Search for Persons M.Sc. Nathalie Römer Third-Party Funded Projects
Experimental Studies on the Link between Promotion of Creative Ideas and Gender Discrimination

Third-Party Funded Projects

Experimental Studies on the Link between Promotion of Creative Ideas and Gender Discrimination

Led by:  Prof. Dr. Marina Schröder
Team:  Prof. Dr. Marina Schröder, Nathalie Römer
Year:  2021
Funding:  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Duration:  2021-2024

The aim of this project is to contribute to a better understanding of mechanisms leading to an underrepresentation of women in innovation and to evaluate the effectiveness of affirmative action interventions aiming at reducing this underrepresentation. Previous research explaining gender differences in career success has mainly focused on gender differences in behavior or on discrimination. In this project, we want to bring these two strings of research together by studying whether gender differences in behavior induce gender discrimination. Specifically, the project studies gender differences in the promotion of own creative ideas and links these to gender discrimination in support received in the innovation process. To do so, we are going to conduct a set of real-effort experiments where both female and male participants have to work on a creative task and are incentivized to promote the resulting creative idea to a third party. We are going to evaluate whether there are gender differences in the promotion of creative ideas and whether these differences lead to gender discrimination in support received. Further, we want to analyze the effect of different means of affirmative action on both the promotion of creative ideas and the allocation of support. The insights from the proposed projects will provide an important contribution to the research on diversity and innovation.