Collaboration and gender focality in stag hunt bargaining

Abstract

Knowing the gender of a counterpart can be focal in the willingness to collaborate in team settings that resemble the classic coordination problem. This paper explores whether knowing a co-worker’s gender affects coordination on the mutually beneficial outcome in a socially risky environment. In an experimental setting, subjects play a one-shot stag hunt game framed as a collaborative task in which they can “work together” or “work alone.” We exogenously vary whether workers know the gender of their counterparts pre-play. When gender is revealed, female players tend to gravitate to collaboration and efficient coordination regardless of the knowledge. Males, when knowingly paired with another male, tend to collaborate less, and thus, are less likely to coordinate on the Pareto optimal outcome. These results demonstrate one way that gender focality can lead to inefficient outcomes and provide insight for organizations looking to induce collaboration among workers.