Women are an Advantage in Supply Chain Collaboration and Efficiency

Abstract

A large body of literature has documented gender differences in prosocial behaviors, but little is known about the implications of different gender pairings of partner firm agents for supply chain performance. Using a production decision experiment which features asymmetric information and asymmetric risk sharing, we report three key findings. First, women are more collaborative than men in the role of both buying agents and supply agents. Second, information about counterparts’ gender affects behaviors, as both genders are more collaborative when paired with women than when paired with men. Finally, all-women supply chain pairs outperform all other gender pairings in supply chain efficiency. Our results suggest that women exhibit an advantage over men in supply chain collaboration, and that employing women is advantageous irrespective of gender diversity concerns.