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DOI: 10.1177/0149206311431307
2012 38: 1387 originally published online 29 December 2011Journal of Management
Carol T. Kulik and Mara Olekalns
Organizational Behavior Literatures
Negotiating the Gender Divide : Lessons From the Negotiation and
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Journal of Management
Vol. 38 No. 4, July 2012 1387-1415
DOI: 10.1177/0149206311431307
© The Author(s) 2012
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Negotiating the Gender Divide:
Lessons From the Negotiation and
Organizational Behavior Literatures
Carol T. Kulik
University of South Australia
Mara Olekalns
University of Melbourne
Employment relationships are increasingly personalized, with more employment conditions
open to negotiation. Unfortunately, personalization may disadvantage members of some demo-
graphic groups. Women, in particular, routinely negotiate less desirable employment terms than
men do. The gender gap in employment outcomes is frequently attributed to differences in the
ways that men and women negotiate. The authors review the negotiation research demonstrating
that women are disadvantaged in negotiations and the organizational behavior research examin-
ing the backlash experienced by agentic women. They use the stereotype content model and
expectancy violation theory to explain why “best practice” negotiation behaviors benefit male
negotiators but backfire for female negotiators. Gender-counternormative behaviors create
negative expectancy violations for women, generating backlash and negatively affecting women’s
outcomes. The authors’ integration suggests two distinct avenues for enhancing women’s nego-
tiation outcomes. The first strategy set ensures that agentic negotiation behaviors stay below
a negotiation partner’s threshold for perceiving negative violations; the second strategy set
ensures that behaviors signaling warmth and likeability exceed a partner’s threshold for per-
ceiving positive violations.
Keywords: gender; stereotyping; fairness/justice; negotiation
1387
Acknowledgments: This article was accepted under the editorship of Talya N. Bauer. This article was supported
by a grant from the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project 0877700). We thank Elissa Perry and Sanjee
Perera for their helpful feedback on earlier versions.
Corresponding author: Carol T. Kulik, School of Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South
Australia, Australia 5001
E-mail: carol.kulik@unisa.edu.au
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1388 Journal of Management / July 2012
Employment relationships today are more personalized than ever before. An international
decline in union membership has reduced the ability of collective bargaining to impose
standardized wages and employment terms on large groups of employees (Farber & Western,
2001). Skill shortages have motivated employers to offer more attractive terms of employment
to their most talented and experienced job candidates (Cappelli, 2008). Simultaneously,
employees have become more proactive in voicing career goals and demanding personalized
training from their employers (Hornung, Rousseau, & Glaser, 2008). As a result, the packages
that employers offer to job candidates are increasingly differentiated and individualized.
In theory, customized terms of employment should result in employment relationships
that are more satisfying and that encourage employee retention (Lawler & Finegold, 2000).
In practice, an unintended consequence of this greater emphasis on negotiable employment
terms may be that some segments of the labor market are systematically disadvantaged
(Kelly, 2000). There is accumulating evidence that women represent one such segment,
routinely negotiating lower salaries and less desirable employment terms than men do (Blau
& Kahn, 2007; Dey & Hill, 2007). For example, analyses conducted by the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that, in all OECD countries, the
median earnings of men are higher than those of women, with an average difference of
around 18% (OECD Social Policy Division, 2010). Over the long run, salary shortfalls
constrain women’s retirement savings, which are on average only about half those of men
(Hoffman, 2008).
The opportunity to customize employment terms places a greater responsibility on the
employee to negotiate a “good” deal. However, female negotiators face a series of obstacles
in negotiations. The first obstacle is that women are reluctant to initiate negotiations (Babcock
& Laschever, 2003; Bowles, Babcock, & Lai, 2007; Small, Gelfand, Babcock, & Gettman,
2007), thereby depriving themselves of the opportunity to improve their employment terms.
The second obstacle stems from the link between agentic traits and the stereotype of effective
negotiators. When masculine traits are linked to negotiation performance, women question
whether they have the necessary skills to succeed. Experiencing self-doubt and anxiety,
women expect to perform more poorly in the negotiation, set lower goals for the negotiation,
make fewer demands during the negotiation, and obtain poorer negotiation outcomes than
men do (Kray, Galinsky, & Thompson, 2002; Kray & Thompson, 2005; Kray, Thompson &
Galinsky, 2001). The third obstacle is that when women negotiate, they frequently adopt an
accommodating style (Kray & Thompson, 2005; Stuhlmacher & Walters, 1999; Walters,
Stuhlmacher, & Meyer, 1998) that is less likely to deliver the economic benefits of a more
competitive negotiation style.
If women’s inability to match their male counterparts’ negotiation outcomes resulted only
from an overreliance on accommodation, a natural inference might be that women would
benefit from adopting more competitive—and more agentic—negotiation strategies. This
recommendation, however, ignores the social contexts within which women negotiate (Gray,
1994; Kolb, 2009; Kolb & McGinn, 2009). We use two theoretical frameworks, the stereotype
content model (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002) and expectancy violation theory (Burgoon,
Stern, & Dillman, 1995), to better understand the role that social context plays in shaping
women’s outcomes and to explain why traditional “best practice” negotiation behaviors
frequently backfire for women. In particular, we explore why women’s efforts to negotiate
better economic outcomes frequently incur social costs in the form of damaging relationships
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Kulik, Olekalns / Negotiating the Gender Divide 1389
with their coworkers and supervisors (Rudman & Phelan, 2008). If women are unable to
establish high-quality organizational relationships, they are likely to have less access to
resources, to be given less challenging work assignments, and to obtain poorer performance
evaluations (Dienesch & Liden, 1986; Harris, Kacmar, & Witt, 2005). Therefore, unsuccessful
negotiations at organizational entry may have important downstream consequences for
women’s ability to forge successful organizational careers.
Our goal in this article is to explain why negotiation opportunities do not consistently
benefit women and to identify strategies by which women could benefit from such
opportunities. We first review the negotiation literature demonstrating that women are
frequently disadvantaged in negotiations—but demonstrating also that women’s negotiation
behaviors and outcomes are impacted by the negotiation context. We then integrate the
negotiation research demonstrating when women are more and less effective in negotiations
with the organizational research examining the backlash experienced by women who engage
in gender-incongruent behavior. The impact of agentic behaviors is central to this integration:
Effective negotiators are characterized as strong, dominant, assertive, and rational (Kray &
Thompson, 2005). But these are agentic qualities, and agentic qualities are strongly linked to
prescriptive male stereotypes (Rudman & Phelan, 2008). The backlash literature demonstrates
that women who engage in agentic behaviors incur both economic and social penalties
(Rudman & Glick, 2001). Finally, we use our integrated framework to identify two sets of
strategies that women can use to improve their employment outcomes.
The Gender Dilemma
The strategies used by negotiators affect not only their economic outcomes but also their
social outcomes (Pruitt, 1981). As shown in Figure 1, economic outcomes, such as the terms
and conditions of employment, are best advanced through competitive behavior, whereas
social outcomes, such as liking, trust, and reputation, are best advanced through accommodating
behavior. Both competitive and accommodating strategies incur costs when used in isolation:
Negotiators who unwaveringly compete will progressively erode their social outcomes,
whereas those who consistently accommodate will fail to accrue economic outcomes. In
many negotiation contexts, negotiators strive to maximize both social and economic outcomes
through a judicious blend of competitive and accommodating strategies (Lax & Sebenius,
1986; Pruitt, 1981). The curved double-headed arrow in Figure 1 (Link A) reflects the fact
that both sets of outcomes are relevant to negotiators’ assessments of the overall success of
a negotiation and are reflected in the overall subjective value of the outcomes negotiators
have obtained (Curhan, Elfenbein, & Xu, 2006).
A problem-solving style that integrates competitive and accommodating behaviors is
usually the most effective means for maximizing economic and social outcomes. However,
women’s behavior is often more consistent with an accommodating style: They are more
reluctant to initiate negotiations (Bowles et al., 2007), and when they do initiate negotiations,
they ask for less, are more willing to accept offers, and make more generous offers to their
negotiation partners than men do (Eckel, de Oliviera, & Grossman, 2008). They report
feeling intimidated by negotiations and express more relief than men do at having their first
offers accepted (Kray & Gelfand, 2009). These accommodating behaviors invite exploitation:
Believing that women will accept less than men, negotiation opponents routinely make lower
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1390 Journal of Management / July 2012
opening offers to women (Glick & Croson, 2001; Solnick, 2001). As a result, female
negotiators obtain poorer individual outcomes than male negotiators do (Amanatullah, Morris,
& Curham, 2008; Stuhlmacher & Walters, 1999), and two women negotiating together build
less total value than do two male negotiators (Curhan, Neale, Ross, & Rosencranz-Engelmann,
2008; Miles & LaSalle, 2009). Moreover, the gender disadvantage in negotiation is observed
across a variety of contextual factors, including the relative power of the female negotiator
and the integrative potential of the negotiating task (Stuhlmacher & Walters, 1999).
The general tendency for women to engage in more accommodating behavior than men
may reflect women’s greater concern for relationships (Gelfand, Major, Raver, Nishii, &
O’Brien, 2006; Kray & Gelfand, 2009) or women’s awareness that competitive behaviors
will damage their social outcomes (Greig, 2010). Either way, women and men enter
negotiations with different social utility functions (Loewenstein, Thompson, & Bazerman,
1989; Novemsky & Schweitzer, 2004): Women weight social outcomes more heavily than
economic outcomes, whereas men weight economic outcomes more heavily than social
outcomes. These different social utility functions suggest that women will be more sensitive
to perceived social costs than men are, favoring strategies that protect their social outcomes
at the expense of their economic outcomes (Amanatullah et al., 2008; Niederle & Vesterlund,
2008). The differences in social utility functions also suggest that, in assessing their overall
outcomes, women may experience greater subjective value (Curhan et al., 2006) and be more
satisfied than men when they end negotiations having preserved relationships without
improving their economic outcomes. The problem is that, if women do implement competitive
Figure 1
The Relationship Between Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Outcomes Viewed
Within a Stereotype Content Model–Expectancy Violation Theory Framework
Compeve
Agenc
Behavior
Accommodang
Relaonship-Building
Behavior
Percepons of
Competence
Economic
Outcomes
Social
Outcomes
Percepons
of
Warmth
Link B
Link C
Negave Violaons
Posive Violaons
Link A
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Kulik, Olekalns / Negotiating the Gender Divide 1391
negotiation strategies to improve their economic outcomes, they are likely to damage their
social outcomes and therefore may leave the negotiation feeling less satisfied than women
who choose not to negotiate or who consistently accommodate. Ideally, women might find
ways to negotiate that contribute to subjective value by simultaneously preserving relationships
and improving economic outcomes.
Despite some empirical evidence that women engage in accommodating behaviors in
negotiations, Walters et al.’s (1998) meta-analysis showed that gender accounted for less than
1% of the variance in negotiating competitiveness. This already small gender difference in
competitiveness was further reduced in contexts that constrained negotiators’ strategy choices
(e.g., in prisoner’s dilemma games) and was even reversed when negotiators had greater
freedom to communicate (Walters et al., 1998). This meta-analysis suggests that women’s
greater sensitivity to social outcomes is not the sole explanation for their poorer economic
performance in negotiations. It is not what women do but when and where they do it that
affects their social and economic outcomes (Sondak & Stuhlmacher, 2009). This shift in
perspective has generated a greater research focus on the context within which negotiations
take place, with the goal of better understanding when and how woman can negotiate without
incurring either social or economic costs.
Some of the research on contextual moderators suggests that women may be particularly
disadvantaged when negotiations take place within an employment context (e.g., between an
employee and an employer). Stuhlmacher and Walters (1999) found that gender effects in
negotiation were smaller in studies in which there was no interaction outside the experiment;
gender effects were larger in studies in which negotiators anticipated some future interaction.
Women’s relational concerns are particularly likely to be activated when there is a strong
bond between negotiators and an expectation of ongoing interdependence (Gelfand et al.,
2006). These conditions are salient in employment negotiations when an employee expects a
long-term working relationship with his or her negotiation opponent (e.g., when the person
on the other side of the table is a supervisor or an upper level manager).
However, research also suggests that some organizational contexts may minimize gender
differences in negotiations. For example, providing normative information about the
appropriateness of negotiation increases the weight women assign to economic outcomes
in their utility functions (Kray & Gelfand, 2009, Study 2) and changes their subsequent
negotiation behaviors. Bowles, Babcock, and McGinn (2005, Study 2) demonstrated that
when negotiators knew their negotiating limits and had clear and specific information about
what would be a good agreement price in their negotiations, there were no gender differences
in prenegotiation targets, intended first offers, or final negotiated outcomes. In contexts that
prime negotiators to feel powerful, women experience less aversion to negotiation (Small
et al., 2007) and their economic outcomes improve (Kray, Reb, Galinsky, & Thompson, 2004).
These findings highlight that women’s behavior is not static but dynamic and highly
responsive to cues in the situational context (Bowles & McGinn, 2008; Small et al., 2007).
Therefore, our aim in this article is to identify strategies that women can use to improve their
employment outcomes, but we also suggest ways that organizations can modify negotiation
contexts to reduce gender differences in negotiated outcomes. As a result, our analysis helps
to move the literature beyond a “fix the woman” approach (Kolb, 2009) to identify the
responsibilities that organizations have in addressing the gender gap in employment terms.
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1392 Journal of Management / July 2012
The Stereotype Content Model: Social and Economic Backlash
Understanding why women are disadvantaged in organizational negotiations requires
both a consideration of gender stereotypes and an appreciation for how these stereotypes
operate within organizational contexts. According to the stereotype content model (SCM;
Fiske et al., 2002), social groups are positioned within a two-dimensional space composed of
competence and warmth. Both women and men belong to “mixed valence” groups. Women
are generally seen as low in competence but high in warmth, and men are seen as high in
competence but low in warmth (Eckes, 2002; Fiske et al., 2002). More specifically, research
on gender stereotypes generally shows that women are perceived as more communal (e.g.,
caring and interdependent) than men, whereas men are perceived to be more agentic (e.g.,
ambitious and self-reliant) than women (Rudman & Phelan, 2008). These gender stereotypes
are both descriptive (describing how men and women usually behave) and prescriptive
(describing how men and women should behave). Further, gender stereotypes are regularly
reinforced in men’s and women’s daily interactions. Many occupations display sex
segregation, such that women are more likely to occupy organizational roles that require a
person to be sensitive to the needs of others (e.g., secretary or nurse) and men are more
likely to occupy organizational roles that require agentic behavior (e.g., manager or doctor).
Individuals who hold low-status occupations are perceived as more communal and less
agentic than their high-status counterparts (Conway, Pizzamiglio, & Mount, 1996). As a
result, men and women most often observe one another in organizational contexts that cause
men to appear as higher status, agentic, and competent, while women appear as lower status,
warm, and communal (Ridgeway, 2011).
The fact that the female gender stereotype is not strongly associated with competence and
agentic behavior creates a fundamental challenge for women in organizations. In the absence
of clear and unambiguous performance information, women in organizational contexts are
perceived as less competent and less achievement-oriented than men (Heilman, Wallen,
Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004, Study 1). When women occupy high-status roles, they are perceived
as unusual relative to other women and construed as less communal and more agentic than
other women (Conway et al., 1996). But even in these high-status roles, women are
characterized as less agentic than men (Heilman, Block, & Martell, 1995). Further, any
benefits women might derive from occupying a high-status role are easily lost. Brescoll,
Dawson, and Uhlmann (2010) demonstrated that female police chiefs, CEOs, and chief judges
who made a single mistake were perceived as less agentic and less competent than males in
the same roles who made the same mistake. This research suggests that women may need to
present themselves as unambiguously agentic (e.g., ambitious, competitive, and capable) in
order to be perceived as competent as men are (Phelan, Moss-Racusin, & Rudman, 2008).
The dilemma presented by prescriptive gender stereotypes is evident—and even magnified—
in negotiations: The competent characteristics associated with the male gender stereotype
and the warm characteristics associated with the female gender stereotype are perfectly
aligned with characteristics of effective and ineffective negotiators (Kray & Thompson,
2005). Effective negotiators are expected to be strong, rational, and assertive (displaying
competence but not necessarily warmth); ineffective negotiators are expected to be weak,
submissive, and accommodating (displaying warmth but not competence; Kray & Thompson,
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Kulik, Olekalns / Negotiating the Gender Divide 1393
2005). As shown in Figure 1, negotiators who engage in competitive agentic behaviors are
likely to be perceived as competent; negotiators who engage in accommodating relationship-
building behaviors are likely to be perceived as warm.
Unfortunately, displays of competent, agentic behavior simultaneously generate perceptions
of greater competence and inferences of less warmth (see Link B in Figure 1). The twin
dimensions of competence and warmth are tightly connected (Fiske, Xu, Cuddy, & Glick,
1999), so evidence of gender-counternormative behavior on the competence dimension can
drive a corresponding adjustment in perceived warmth, generating a “communality deficit”
(Heilman & Okimoto, 2007). For example, Rudman and Glick (1999) demonstrated that an
agentic female job applicant who was self-confident and direct and who provided specific
examples of her achievements was rated as less socially skilled than a male applicant who
behaved identically. Similarly, Heilman and Okimoto (2007) showed that a successful female
manager was liked less and was seen as a less desirable boss relative to a similarly described
male manager. Perceivers judge competent, agentic women as less friendly, helpful, sincere,
trustworthy, and moral, and as more hostile, selfish, devious, and quarrelsome (Heilman et
al., 1995). In short, agentic women are disliked (Heilman, 2001).
Further, being disliked has economic consequences (see Link C in Figure 1). Both
competence and likeability are considered in ratings of performance (Heilman et al., 2004,
Study 3), and so a competent but unliked woman is less likely to be hired (Rudman, 1998),
especially when the job is described as requiring feminine attributes such as being helpful,
sensitive, and a good listener (Rudman & Glick, 1999, 2001). When considering a single
applicant, perceivers will shift hiring standards away from competence and toward social
skills in order to avoid hiring an agentic female (Phelan et al., 2008). Backlash against women
who engage in gender-incongruent behavior is also reflected in lower wages (Brescoll &
Uhlmann, 2008) and lower recommendations for organizational rewards (Heilman & Chen,
2005). Backlash is particularly likely when the evaluator is a woman. Both men and women
endorse prescriptive gender stereotypes that specify women should engage in warm and
likeable behavior while abstaining from competent, agentic behavior (Eagly & Karau, 2002;
Prentice & Carranza, 2002), but women exhibit more resistance to, and greater derogation of,
“black sheep” colleagues who violate gender norms (e.g., Kulik & Holbrook, 2000; Parks-
Stamm, Heilman, & Hearns, 2008; Rudman, 1998).
Backlash is triggered when women actively engage in gender-incongruent behaviors,
such as self-promotion (Rudman, 1998), competitiveness (Rudman & Glick, 1999), task-
oriented speaking styles (Carli, LaFleur, & Loeber, 1995), authoritative leadership styles
(Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992), criticism (Sinclair & Kunda, 2000), anger displays
(Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2008), or intimidation tactics (Bolino & Turnley, 2003). Backlash can
also be triggered simply by evidence of success on a male-typed task (Rudman & Fairchild,
2004) or in a male-typed job (Heilman et al., 2004, Study 2). As a result, a woman who
attempts to improve her economic outcomes by negotiating competitively is likely to engage
in behaviors that violate prescriptive gender stereotypes and trigger backlash. Even initiating
a negotiation may be enough to generate backlash. In a series of studies, Bowles et al. (2007)
demonstrated that a negotiating woman was perceived as competent but also was perceived
as less nice and more demanding than a non-negotiating woman. These perceptions decreased
evaluators’ interest in hiring and working with the negotiating woman.
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1394 Journal of Management / July 2012
The SCM describes both male and female gender stereotypes as displaying a competent–
warm trade-off. However, research suggests that the social and economic costs of violating
these stereotypes are different for women and men. Men who display gender-counternormative
behavior (e.g., by succeeding at a female-typed task or on a female-typed job) sometimes
generate disapproval, but the intensity of backlash directed at women who display gender-
counternormative behavior is far greater (Heilman & Wallen, 2010; Rudman & Fairchild,
2004). Women inspire derogation and even sabotage when they engage in gender-
counternormative behavior (Heilman & Wallen, 2010; Rudman & Fairchild, 2004). Women
in organizations are conscious of their vulnerability to backlash and behave defensively to
avoid it (Moss-Racusin & Rudman, 2010). For example, women who feared backlash for
scoring well on a male-typed knowledge task concealed their success from others and
increased their conformity to gender norms, compared with women who did not fear backlash
(Rudman & Fairchild, 2004). And the more backlash women anticipated, the more nervous
they felt about initiating negotiations about their salaries and benefits (Bowles et al., 2007).
Displaying accommodating behavior in negotiations protects women against very real
negative consequences that might accrue from engaging in competitive behavior.
Expectancy Violation Theory: Positive and Negative Violations
Expectancy violation theory (EVT; Burgoon et al., 1995) explains why gender-incongruent
behavior is particularly problematic for female negotiators—and why gender-incongruent
behavior interferes with the social and economic outcomes women achieve at the bargaining
table. Perceivers bring stereotyped expectations into a negotiation, and gender stereotypes
are among the most potent sources of these expectations (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). But these
generalized expectations are modified as the perceiver acquires individuating information
about a target. According to EVT, individuating behavior is especially salient when it exceeds
perceptual thresholds established by stereotype-based expectations. Expectancy violations
attract attention and elicit more detailed information processing, so they have a particularly
strong impact on overall judgments (Burgoon et al., 1995).
In negotiation, positive violations occur when individuals who are expected to behave
competitively behave cooperatively (Hilty & Carnevale, 1992). Positive violations elicit less
opposition from the other negotiator and improve his or her mood—consequently increasing
the negotiators’ joint creativity, information sharing, and concession making (Carnevale &
Isen, 1986; Forgas, 1998). Because the male gender stereotype does not imply other-directed
behavior, men who display warmth and a concern for others during a negotiation are likely
to create positive expectancy violations (see the Positive Violations box in Figure 1; Burgoon
et al., 1995). Their cooperative behavior is a welcome surprise (Heilman & Chen, 2005)
that can initiate a virtuous, self-sustaining cycle of trust and problem solving (McKnight,
Cummings, & Chervany, 1998; Olekalns & Smith, 2005).
But sometimes individuals who are expected to be cooperative or accommodating behave
competitively in their negotiations. These negative violations increase opposition and
encourage deception (Forgas, 1998; White & Burgoon, 2001). They also generate negative
emotions such as anger and resentment (Fiske et al., 2002) and discourage the other party
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Kulik, Olekalns / Negotiating the Gender Divide 1395
from continuing the negotiation. The female gender stereotype strongly suggests other-directed
behavior. As a result, women who engage in gender-counternormative negotiation behaviors
create negative expectancy violations that are likely to initiate a vicious, self-sustaining cycle
of mistrust and competition (see the Negative Violations box in Figure 1; Hilty & Carnevale,
1992; Olekalns, Roberts, Probst, Smith, & Carnevale, 2005; Olekalns & Smith, 2005).
Avoiding Backlash in Negotiations
The dilemma faced by women who choose to negotiate is how to reap the social benefits
of an accommodating style (maintaining warmth) while improving their economic outcomes
(by acting competently). While the literature on backlash clearly suggests that agentic,
competent behavior puts women at risk, a few studies provide provocative evidence that
women can be perceived simultaneously as competent and warm. Heilman and Okimoto
(2007) found that a successful female manager in a male-typed job could avoid backlash if
perceivers received explicit unambiguous information conveying that the manager was
communal (e.g., caring, sensitive, and supportive). Parks-Stamm et al. (2008) used a company
letter describing a female vice-president as understanding, concerned, and supportive to
mitigate the usual backlash experienced by women who succeed in male-typed jobs.
In this section, we identify strategies that individual women and their organizations can
use to minimize the likelihood of backlash in negotiation. Drawing on SCM and EVT, we
describe two avenues for enhancing women’s economic and social outcomes. Both avenues
derive from the fundamental idea that women can prevent expectancy violations by
influencing the perceptual threshold against which their behaviors are assessed. The first
strategy set (minimizing negative violations) ensures that gender-counternormative behaviors
stay below the negotiation opponent’s threshold for perceiving a negative violation. The goal
of this strategy set is to recalibrate the opponent’s behavioral expectations so that the female
negotiator’s competitive behaviors are perceived as normative. This strategy set works within
the Negative Violations box in Figure 1—the strategies are designed to reduce the likelihood
that competitive agentic behaviors are perceived as negative violations. If the competitive
behaviors are perceived as normative, perceptions of competence and perceptions of warmth
are decoupled (Link B) and backlash is avoided.
The second strategy set (maximizing positive violations) ensures that gender-normative
behaviors exceed the opponent’s threshold for perceiving positive violations. In this
strategy set, the female negotiator draws her opponent’s attention away from competitive
counternormative behaviors by emphasizing her warm normative behaviors. This strategy set
works within the Positive Violations box in Figure 1—the strategies are designed to boost the
impact of gender-normative behaviors and evoke positive violations that will compensate for
any negative reactions triggered by competitive behaviors.
Women’s behavior is interpreted within the workplace-specific norms of their organizational
contexts (Kolb & McGinn, 2009). Consequently, we focus on how the behavior of women
and their organizations can help female employees avoid backlash, either by minimizing
negative expectancy violations or by maximizing positive violations. The individual and
organizational strategies are summarized in Table 1.
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1396 Journal of Management / July 2012
Table 1
Alternative Strategies for Female Negotiators and Their Organizations
Minimizing Negative Violations (reduce the
impact of gender-counternormative
behaviors)
Maximizing Positive Violations
(increase the impact of gender-normative
behaviors)
Individual Strategies Individual Strategies
• Anticipatory excuses
I need to talk with you about my salary package; my
mentor suggested that would be a good idea.
• Anticipatory justifications
My professional association just released a salary
survey. It looks like I am below the average salary
for my experience. . . . I’m only asking for what the
association says is fair.
• Evidence of warmth and communality
I’ve always been a team player. . . . My references
describe me as a colleague who is always ready to
help out.
• Tentative language
Mmmmm, it’s kinda difficult to talk about salary, but
umm, I do bring some pretty important skills to the
job, don’t I?
• Inclusive language
I really hope we can find a solution that works for
both of us.
• Influence tactics that convey warmth and neediness
Maybe you can help me. . .
• Advocate on behalf of others
I don’t know how you can expect the team to con-
tinue our good work for this amount.
• Turns rather than moves
I think we could use a break.
I’m a little puzzled. . . . Let’s take a step back.
I think what you mean is. . . . Could you tell me
more about that?
Organizational Strategies Organizational Strategies
• Establish zones of negotiability
• Establish conditions required to negotiate employ-
ment terms
• Actively prime positive aspects of female gender
stereotypes
• Regenerate stereotypes to include feminine attributes
Minimizing Negative Violations
Agentic competitive behaviors will evoke negative reactions if the behaviors are attributed
directly to the female negotiator (“She’s pushy”) rather than to the negotiating context (“The
offer is below industry standards”). Because dispositional attributions are automatic (Kunda,
2000), counternormative behaviors displayed by a woman are more likely to be attributed to
her personal characteristics than to external variables. This effect is amplified during
negotiations because negotiation contexts present a great deal of ambiguity about what might
be appropriate behavior (Bowles et al., 2005). In such “weak” situations, individual behavior
is likely to be attributed to personal characteristics (Bowles et al., 2005; Mischel, 1977). As
a result, when a woman employs competitive tactics, her negotiation partner is likely to
conclude that she has deliberately chosen to violate prescriptive norms and to perceive her as
dispositionally unlikeable and pushy. To prevent negative violations, women and organizations
need to redefine what is normative behavior within a negotiation. Below, we suggest several
specific actions women and organizations can take.
Individual actions. To minimize negative violations, women can encourage external
attributions for their competitive behaviors, using anticipatory impression management
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(Elsbach, Sutton, & Principe, 1998). In one form of anticipatory impression management,
anticipatory excuses, individuals provide ready-made explanations for future behaviors that
are likely to be controversial. Excuses provide information that the actor is not personally
accountable for his or her behavior and identify alternative causal factors or agents. A female
negotiator can implement this strategy by signaling the behavior in which she is about to
engage (“I need to talk with you about my salary package”) and providing an explanation for
the behavior (“I attended a professional workshop last week and the speakers recommended
that we discuss salaries with our supervisors”). Bowles and Babcock (2008) found that when
women generated external attributions for their negotiation behavior by saying their mentors
encouraged them to negotiate, the women were perceived as less demanding and more
likeable.
An alternative form of anticipatory impression management involves providing
anticipatory justifications for behaviors that are likely to be perceived negatively (Elsbach et al.,
1998). A justification maintains the link between the actor and the behavior but suggests that
external factors forced or constrained the actor’s behavior. Anticipatory justifications may
involve appealing to external standards of fairness (Kolb, 2004; Ury, Brett, & Goldberg,
1993). Pointing out discrepancies between an offer on the table and an external standard
implies that the competitive behavior was “prescribed” by ethical or moral considerations
(Gollan & Witte, 2008) and reduces the likelihood of dispositional or personal explanations
for a negotiator’s competitive behavior. For example, female negotiators can use information
from professional associations, government databases, and other external bodies that report
appropriate remuneration for specific skills, qualifications, and positions. Because appealing
to external standards is a well-recognized mechanism for justifying and legitimizing claims,
it is also likely to be one that employers recognize and accept. The use of external standards
protects a female negotiator from negative violations because it provides a clear justification
for competitive behaviors.
It might also be possible for female negotiators to ward off negative violations by producing
explicit evidence of their warmth and communality during the negotiation, for example, by
describing their experiences in teams (Tinsley, Cheldelin, Schneider, & Amanatullah, 2009)
or highlighting their parental status (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007). If a female negotiator can
provide convincing evidence that she is generally a warm person, it is harder for the negotiating
partner to blame her competitive behaviors on a “pushy” disposition. In this situation, the
negotiating partner must seek out alternative external explanations for the female negotiator’s
agentic behavior. However, the linked dimensions of competence and warmth (Fiske et al.,
1999) make this a very tricky strategy to implement effectively. Explicit information about
the negotiator’s warmth will benefit negotiation outcomes only if it is accompanied by
incontrovertible evidence about the negotiator’s competence. When competence is ambiguous,
the same information that conveys warmth may be used to infer low competence (e.g.,
parenthood—Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2004; Heilman & Okimoto, 2008; teams—Heilman &
Haynes, 2005).
Organizational actions. Organizations can minimize negative violations for negotiating
women by creating strong situations (Mischel, 1977) that clearly specify when it is legitimate
to pursue improved economic outcomes and signal that negotiation behaviors are normative
for both men and women. When organizations create strong situations, they develop
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transparent criteria for negotiated deals and reduce the potential for under-the-table
“preferential” deal making that favors some employees over others (Rousseau, 2004). For
example, researchers have recommended that organizations clearly establish a “zone of
negotiability” (Rousseau, 2005) that specifies the conditions of employment that can be
negotiated without violating workplace norms. When a zone has not been explicitly defined,
employment negotiations take on a political tone (Rousseau, 2005) and women may be
particularly reluctant to initiate a negotiation (Small et al., 2007), especially around pay and
other employment terms (Bear, 2011). But when the negotiation terms are made explicit,
male and female employees are equally likely to recognize opportunities for successful
negotiation (Rousseau, Ho, & Greenberg, 2006) and women may incur fewer penalties for
negotiating. Clarifying the zones of negotiability is important because they define what is
negotiable (Rousseau, 2005). Because women are uncertain about what they are entitled to
(Barron, 2003), organizations that provide transparent information about what is negotiable
are more likely to narrow the gender gap in salary: Women are most likely to act on salary
discrepancies when salary ranges and appropriate standards are clear and unambiguous
(Bowles et al., 2005).
Zones of negotiability also define how much is negotiable by specifying the range across
which employment terms might vary. Women are particularly oriented to asking for the
same as, but not more than, what others receive (Barron, 2003). Organizations usually do
not systematically disseminate information about the customized deals employees have
negotiated, and therefore employees’ perceptions of the negotiable range depend on the
fragmented information they can piece together from their social networks. But men and
women have different social networks, and so they access different information (Ely &
Meyerson, 2000; Sturm, 2009). Without reliable organizational data on negotiable ranges,
women are likely to base their negotiations on the economic outcomes of other women—
these women, however, may constitute a disadvantaged in-group and establish an artificially
low standard (Bylsma & Major, 1994).
Further, zones of negotiability specify when to negotiate by clarifying the conditions (e.g.,
performance criteria) the organization requires to negotiate certain employment terms
(Rousseau, 2005). When organizations are explicit about “what it takes” to negotiate
alternative levels of employment terms, idiosyncratic deals can be discussed openly among
coworkers and fairness across employees can be maintained. In these situations, women may
be more motivated to negotiate economic outcomes because they know they are operating
within a legitimate organizational framework for outcome distribution. Further, aggressive
tactics (e.g., threats to reject the offer or generating counteroffers) may be less necessary in
these situations (Rousseau, 2005), requiring female negotiators to engage in behavior that is
less gender counternormative and generating less backlash.
Finally, organizations may be more successful in eliminating gender gaps if they frame
opportunities as “asking” zones rather than zones of negotiability. Small et al. (2007, Study
2) demonstrated that explicitly telling research participants that “payment is negotiable”
increased women’s negotiation rates but not to the level of men’s rates. Only when participants
were instructed that they could “ask for more” and told that “many participants” asked did
women negotiate at the same rate as men (Small et al., 2007, Study 4).
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While most of the research evidence for these strategies has been obtained from laboratory
investigations, there is also field evidence suggesting that the gender gap is reduced when
organizations pay attention to zones of negotiability. Deloitte & Touche generated a major
cultural change and improved female retention when the company became explicit about the
criteria it was using to provide developmental and promotion opportunities to employees
(McCracken, 2000). Roth (2009) demonstrated that women experienced more success in
obtaining equitable salaries when they specialized in financial products—areas in which
performance could be directly measured and quantified. And in fact, there are no gender
differences in male and female MBA starting salaries in industries in which there are explicit
norms about salary ranges and appropriate standards for deviations from that base (Bowles
et al., 2005, Study 1).
Maximizing Positive Violations
Alternatively, women and organizations can work within gender stereotypes to increase
a female negotiator’s perceived warmth during the negotiation. A distinct benefit of this
strategy is that working within a stereotype preserves and strengthens ongoing relationships.
One function of communication is to build social connections, that is, to establish and
maintain relationships (Clark & Kashima, 2007). Stereotype-consistent communication,
which provides confirmation to a negotiation opponent that the parties engaged in a negotiation
share norms and expectations, is especially powerful in creating social connections (Clark &
Kashima, 2007). Therefore, an alternative strategy set for women is to enhance positive
violations: Women may be able to distract the perceiver’s attention away from gender-
counternormative competitive behaviors by emphasizing and amplifying their gender-
normative behaviors. Organizations may be able to emphasize the positive value that
gender-normative behaviors bring to the organization. This approach involves strategies that
are aimed at redirecting the negotiation process or redefining the negotiating context to
highlight congruence with female gender stereotypes (Kolb & Williams, 2000; Kray et al.,
2002; Kray et al., 2001).
Individual actions. Women can create positive violations by using a gender-congruent
powerless communication style that communicates likeability (Mulac & Bradac, 1995;
Tannen, 1994). Powerful, assertive speech patterns usually convey high competence and
high status (Fragale, 2006). But when a woman negotiates employment conditions with her
employer, there is an expectation of a long-term interdependent relationship and communality
expectations are likely to be salient. In interdependent contexts where communality is
valued, powerless speech is status enhancing because negotiators heavily weight communality
in their assessments of an opponent’s performance potential (Fragale, 2006). Consequently,
a “powerless” communication style can be a surprisingly powerful tool for a female
negotiator to present persuasive arguments and protect her perceived competence. Because
the status hierarchy operating in society and in most organizational contexts positions
women as lower in status relative to men, a woman’s use of tentative language can suggest
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deference to that hierarchy and generate greater liking (Loyd, Phillips, Whitson, &
Thomas-Hunt, 2010; Reid, Palomares, Anderson, & Bondad-Brown, 2009). People report
higher levels of liking and greater feelings of comfort when their social behavior is
complementary, that is, when one person displays dominance and the other displays
submissiveness (Tiedens & Fragale, 2003). Further, deferring to a high-status opponent
facilitates coordination so that negotiators are more likely to problem solve and successfully
conclude the negotiation (de Kwaadsteniet & van Dijk, 2010). Reid et al. (2009)
demonstrated that a female speaker who used disclaimers (e.g., “I suppose”), hedges (e.g.,
“Sort of”), and tag questions (e.g., “Don’t you think?”) was more effective in persuading
men to adopt her position than a female speaker who delivered the same content without the
disclaimers, hedges, and tag questions. Jointly, these findings suggest that women who use
a powerless speech style will enhance liking and coordination within the negotiation so that
their persuasive arguments are given greater consideration (Carli, 1990, 2001; Carli et al.,
1995; Reid et al., 2009).
Using inclusive language provides a second strategy for creating positive violations. For
example, using “we” and “us” reduces social distance and subtly encourages the other
negotiator to engage in problem solving (Donnellon, 1994). Negotiators obtain better
outcomes in negotiations when they talk in terms of “we” rather than “I” (Simons, 1993).
Expressing a desire to stay with the current employer, which acknowledges the underlying
relationship, also provides some protection against social backlash (Bowles & Babcock,
2009, Study 1). This strategy is part of a broader communication pattern, positive politeness,
that conveys the value that a negotiator places on the relationship and the negotiator’s desire
to maintain social harmony (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Rousseau, 2005). Positive politeness
incorporates many of the features that help negotiators build agreement and engage in
problem solving: Speakers attend to the other person’s needs and interests, express their
understanding of the other’s point of view, emphasize perceived similarities with the other
person, and engage in rapport building (Brown & Levinson, 1987). These communication
patterns are consistent with the gender stereotype expectations that women emphasize
relationships, so they promote female negotiators’ warmth.
Third, women can create positive violations by using influence tactics that emphasize
their gender-normative warmth rather than their gender-counternormative competence
(Bolino & Turnley, 2003; Guadagno & Cialdini, 2007). These tactics include flattery (Gordon,
1996), projecting modesty (Wosinska, Dabul, Whetstone-Dion, & Cialdini, 1996), and even
flirting (Kray & Locke, 2008). For example, Kray and Locke (2008) found that flirtatiousness
boosted a female negotiator’s warmth without detracting from her perceived competence.
Supplication (an acknowledgement of one’s own weaknesses or limitations) may also impact
warmth indirectly. An appeal to the other party’s sympathy (“Can you help me?”) highlights
the importance of maintaining the relationship and encourages the other person not to disrupt
it. By using these gender-normative influence tactics (Guadagno & Cialdini, 2007), women
promote their warmth during the negotiation.
Advocating on behalf of others (e.g., a protégé or a client) or a collective (e.g., a work
team) is a fourth strategy for creating positive violations. While self-promotion is associated
with the male gender stereotype and contradicts the female gender stereotype, advocating on
behalf of other people aligns with gender stereotypes prescribing that women should help
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others (Amanatullah & Tinsley, 2010; Bowles et al., 2005). Female negotiators spontaneously
modify their behavior as a function of being assigned a representative role, negotiating more
assertively and making smaller concessions when they negotiate on behalf of another person
(Amanatullah & Morris, 2010) and achieving better economic outcomes as a result (Bowles
et al., 2005). Negotiators not only react more positively to other-advocating women but
actually punish other-advocating women who do not negotiate assertively on behalf of their
clients (Amanatullah & Tinsley, 2010). Further, research suggests that other-advocacy is
effective both when the female negotiator is acting as an agent for another person (Amanatullah
& Tinsley, 2010, Study 1) and when the female negotiator is representing a collective to
which she belongs (Amanatullah & Tinsley, 2010, Study 2).
Finally, women can subtly redirect the negotiation to a problem-solving approach. One
particular strategy for redirecting the negotiation process is to place greater emphasis on
“turns” rather than on “moves” (Kolb, 2004). Moves are initiated by a negotiator who is
trying to control his or her opponent. Moves might include demeaning the opponent’s offer,
challenging the opponent’s expertise, or making threats. Moves present the recipient with a
choice to either make a countermove or turn it. Countermoves are generally not effective for
female negotiators. When women respond to threats with threats or when they counterargue,
they reinforce the appropriateness of these tactics and they may become locked into an
escalatory cycle of arguments and power displays. Turns, in contrast, are indirect tactics that
women can use to deflect their negotiation partners’ power plays without violating gender
stereotypes. They ignore the power play inherent in a preceding move and invite the negotiator
to engage in a different—and more problem-solving—process. A wide variety of actions can
work as turns (Kolb & Williams, 2003). A female negotiator can interrupt the action by
suggesting a break, taking a drink of water, or getting up from the table (Kolb & Williams,
2003). Questioning an opponent’s move suggests puzzlement and throws responsibility back
to the opponent to explain his or her position (Kolb, 2007). An invitation to participate might
be a particularly effective type of turn. For example, Kolb (2007) described how a female
negotiator deflected an ultimatum by saying, “I think what you mean is that you’d like me to
think over your last offer and that we can continue tomorrow.” The turn provided the opponent
the space to back down from his threat, and the negotiation concluded successfully the
following day.
Organizational actions. Organizations can promote the warmth of female negotiators by
consistently priming the positive aspects of female gender stereotypes and the role they play
in negotiation. Successful managers are frequently described as having predominantly
masculine attributes (Heilman, 2001; Heilman, Block, Martell, & Simon, 1989). Similarly,
successful negotiators are frequently described as displaying predominantly masculine
characteristics (Kray et al., 2002; Kray et al., 2001). However, organizations can contribute
to stereotype regeneration (Kray et al., 2002) by redefining the desirable behaviors and traits
associated with negotiation.
In a series of studies, Kray and her colleagues demonstrated that women are disadvantaged
when a male gender stereotype is activated by linking male-typed behaviors (e.g., being
assertive, rational, and unemotional and having a high regard for their own interests) to a
negotiator’s performance (Kray et al., 2002; Kray et al., 2001; Kray et al., 2004). However,
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the male advantage can be reversed when men and women are told that stereotypically
feminine traits (e.g., expressing thoughts verbally, having good listening skills, and having
insight into the other negotiator’s feelings) are linked to negotiation performance. Specifically,
Kray et al. (2002) found that linking these stereotypically feminine traits to effective
negotiating led women to have higher aspirations, to make more aggressive opening offers,
and to negotiate more profitable agreements for themselves than did men. But, even more
important for avoiding backlash, negotiation opponents have a more positive impression of
female negotiators when feminine skills are made salient (Kray et al., 2002). Further, Kray
et al. (2004) demonstrated that linking stereotypically feminine traits to negotiation
effectiveness motivated both male and female negotiators to approach the task with a more
“feminine” style and be more effective at trading off their low-priority issues for a preferred
outcome on high-priority issues. In other words, stereotype regeneration has the potential to
change not just the way women approach a negotiation but the way negotiations in general
are enacted within organizations.
Ely and Meyerson (2010) describe how an organizational initiative regenerated stereotypes
on two male-dominated offshore oil production platforms. The initiative was designed to
promote organizational safety, but it had the unintended consequence of highlighting the
importance of “feminine” behavior such as asking for help, sharing responsibility,
acknowledging mistakes, and expressing emotions. The value of these feminine behaviors
was actively promoted through leadership modeling, newcomer socialization, and
performance standards. If gender stereotypes can be effectively regenerated on an oil
platform, an extremely dangerous and masculine organization, it should be possible to
regenerate stereotypes in other organizational contexts. For example, organizations regularly
train managers to engage in effective recruitment and negotiation of initial employment
contracts. One of the most common goals of these training programs is making participants
aware of the benefits associated with various negotiation styles (Taylor, Mesmer-Magnus, &
Burns, 2008) and their consequences for maintaining long-term relationships (Susskind,
2004). These training efforts should actively try to regenerate negotiator stereotypes to
highlight feminine characteristics and skills. Managers who have participated in such training
are more likely to be receptive to a female negotiator’s efforts to build relational capital and
to reciprocate with their own collaborative tactics.
Research Agenda
Research on gender and negotiation has documented the catch-22 experienced by female
negotiators. Women’s accommodating behavior protects social outcomes at the expense
of economic outcomes. But women who try to improve their economic outcomes by
incorporating agentic, competitive behaviors into their negotiation repertoires evoke
backlash—they fail to achieve economic benefits and jeopardize their relationships.
Unfortunately, while there is no shortage of research demonstrating that gender impacts the
effectiveness of negotiation strategies (Babcock & Laschever, 2008; Bowles et al., 2007;
Kray & Thompson, 2005), our understanding of why traditional “best practice” negotiation
behaviors backfire for women has been hindered by the lack of a clear theoretical framework.
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Our integration of SCM (Fiske et al., 2002) and EVT (Burgoon et al., 1995) suggests that the
consequences of agentic behaviors depend on how they are interpreted by a woman’s
negotiation partner. A female negotiator’s competitive agentic behaviors are gender
counternormative and usually interpreted as negative violations. But a female negotiator may
be able to avoid backlash if she guides her negotiation partner’s interpretation of her behavior,
either by generating external attributions for the gender-counternormative behaviors she
displays (avoiding negative violations) or by increasing the salience of gender-normative
behaviors (generating positive violations).
The interpersonal processes we have described are most clearly visible in discrete
negotiation events, such as the negotiation of employment terms between a new employee
and her supervisor. However, such negotiations represent only a small proportion of the
negotiations that take place inside organizations on a daily basis. Therefore, the organizational
solutions that we have suggested also extend beyond interventions focused only on employment
negotiations. Whether a woman is negotiating her starting employment conditions, coordinating
team members, lobbying for her proposals, or defining the specific tasks associated with
her work role, her agentic competitive behaviors put relationships with coworkers and
supervisors at risk (Moss-Racusin & Rudman, 2010).
The research that forms the foundation for Figure 1, and the strategies for avoiding
negative violations and generating positive violations, was conducted largely within Western
businesses and usually involved White, middle-class women. The content of prescriptive
gender stereotypes is consistent across many different cultures (e.g., Fullagar, Sumer, Sverke,
& Slick, 2003; Schein, Mueller, Lituchy, & Liu, 1996) and the basic principles of SCM have
been demonstrated to be robust across cultures (Cuddy et al., 2009). However, women’s and
men’s roles are influenced by culture (Hofstede, 1998; Williams, Satterwhite, & Best, 1999).
In societies that display greater overlap between men and women’s roles, the impact of
prescriptive gender stereotypes might be weaker and there might be fewer differences
between men’s and women’s negotiated outcomes.
Cultural differences might also impact the usefulness of our recommended strategies.
Research suggests that North Americans are more likely than Asians to make dispositional
rather than situational attributions about individuals’ behaviors and outcomes (Cuddy et al.,
2009; Morris & Peng, 1994). Therefore, the strategies that we identified to minimize negative
violations might be unnecessary or ineffective in Asian contexts. There are also clear
differences across cultures in the negotiation strategies that are perceived as normative (Adair
& Brett, 2004). These cultural variations establish different normative thresholds against
which behaviors are assessed, creating greater or lesser opportunities for expectancy
violations. In collectivist cultures that focus on social harmony, for example, we might
observe effects that parallel those associated with stereotype regeneration (Kray et al., 2002;
Kray et al., 2004): Women might generate better negotiation outcomes because effective
negotiators in collectivist cultures are people who can maintain and develop social
relationships. We encourage researchers to use diverse samples to examine the basic processes
depicted in Figure 1 and the effectiveness of the strategy sets.
Developing a better understanding of how and when women’s negotiation strategies
improve their outcomes is a research task best addressed from multiple angles. We recommend
that research on gender and negotiation directly assess the behavior–impression link
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1404 Journal of Management / July 2012
suggested by the SCM-EVT integration. Further, we recommend that research pay greater
attention to contextual variables. Table 1 describes a variety of tactics a female negotiator can
use to influence her opponent’s interpretation of her behavior, but those interpretations are
also shaped by the interpersonal and organizational contexts within which the negotiation
is taking place. We outline here a research agenda that addresses these components (the
behavior–impression link, the interpersonal context, and the organizational context).
Behavior–Impression Link
We deliberately emphasized the consequences of negotiation strategies for the SCM
warmth dimension because trust and goodwill are key components in negotiation (Ross &
LaCroix, 1996). Moreover, backlash results from a loss of warmth—a “communality deficit”
(Heilman & Okimoto, 2007)—rather than a loss of competence. However, a credible case for
improved economic outcomes in the form of salary and career opportunities rests on the
female negotiator’s effectiveness in demonstrating her competence. People are sensitive to
negative information about warmth, but they are simultaneously sensitive to positive
information about competence (Reeder, 1993). Consequently, the female negotiator must
endeavor to make a “bilingual” impression (Rudman & Glick, 2001), presenting herself as
both nice and able. This is a tall order—SCM suggests that it is difficult for women to be
perceived as simultaneously competent and likeable (Fiske et al., 2002). Therefore, research
on the effectiveness of our two strategy sets needs to examine their concurrent impact on a
negotiation opponent’s perceptions of warmth and competence.
As well as understanding how women should present information about their competence
and warmth, we need to consider when this information should be presented. Timing is
critical because the impressions formed in the opening minutes of a negotiation affect the
negotiator’s bottom line (Curhan & Pentland, 2007). Women may benefit from first
establishing their warmth credentials by using tactics in the maximizing positive violations
strategy set, particularly if the negotiation takes place at the start of an employment
relationship—stereotypes exert their strongest influence early in the impression formation
process (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Once a positive relationship has been established, women
may experience greater freedom to display gender-counternormative behaviors during later
negotiations (Flynn & Anderson, 2008). These subsequent negotiations may represent better
opportunities to experiment with tactics in the minimizing negative violations strategy set by
highlighting behavioral standards other than gender stereotypes that change the position of
the negotiation opponent’s behavioral threshold. Research is needed to understand how
the timing and sequencing of information about warmth and competence shape women’s
economic and social outcomes.
Moreover, impressions from one negotiation episode spill over and affect subsequent
negotiations (O’Connor, Arnold, & Burris, 2005), suggesting that we need to understand
both the impact of initial impressions and the way impressions evolve over time. However,
most negotiation research involves discrete negotiations within a compressed time period in
which negotiators have little expectation of a long-term relationship (Movius, 2008). Our
analysis of gender effects in employment negotiations calls for a dramatically different
research approach—one that examines real-time negotiation over an extended period.
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Researchers need to examine the ongoing give-and-take of negotiators’ behaviors (Olekalns
& Weingart, 2008; Weingart, Olekalns, & Smith, 2005) to better understand how women’s
behavior shapes impressions of warmth and competence both within a discrete negotiation
episode and across negotiation episodes. This suggests a greater need for experience sampling
methodologies (to see how perceptions of a female negotiator’s warmth and competence
change over the course of a single negotiation; Barry & Fulmer, 2004) and diary methodologies
(to track a female negotiator’s experiences with the strategy sets across negotiations; Hyers,
Swim, & Mallet, 2006).
Further, researchers who want to understand the backlash effect for women may need to
examine how changes in behavioral repertoires affect the social and economic outcomes of
both genders. Our SCM-EVT integration suggests that perceivers interpret female negotiators’
gender-counternormative behaviors as negative violations. These violations elicit retributive
behaviors that worsen women’s outcomes. This same SCM-EVT integration suggests that
men who violate gender stereotypes will generate positive violations and reap double benefits
of improved economic and social outcomes. While there is growing evidence that women do
incur both social and economic penalties for violating their gender stereotype (Rudman &
Phelan, 2008), there has been less attention to documenting whether men garner social and
economic rewards for violating theirs. Researchers are already tracking men’s and women’s
salaries and career progression within alumni cohort groups (e.g., Dey & Hill, 2007). Our
analysis suggests that these studies need to include both objective measures of salary and
subjective measures of relationship quality.
Interpersonal Context
To fully understand the social impact of alternative negotiation strategies, it is important
to expand our research focus beyond an individual woman’s behavior to consider the context
within which she is negotiating. Factors inherent in the immediate negotiation environment,
including the gender of the negotiation partner and the medium through which the negotiators
are communicating, may make it more or less likely that gender stereotypes are spontaneously
activated—and influence the standards against which a female negotiator’s behavior is judged.
Both the gender of the negotiation opponent and the medium through which the negotiation is
conducted can be manipulated in laboratory settings and measured in field settings.
First, we need to better understand how the effectiveness of the two strategy sets is affected
by the sex of the negotiation partner. Recent research suggests that women may experience
greater backlash in negotiations with other women than in negotiations with men. Women
judge people who negotiate more harshly than men do, and women report lower levels of
trust in their negotiation opponents than men do (Bowles et al., 2007; Buchan, Croson, &
Solnick, 2008). In trust and investment games, negotiators report higher levels of frustration,
higher rates of retaliation, and higher levels of competition in same-sex than in mixed-sex
dyads, suggesting that women elicit stronger (and more negative) reactions when they
negotiate with other women than with men (Sutter, Bosman, Kocher, & van Winden, 2009).
Women also react differently to male and female opponents who say “no”: They back off in
a negotiation when a female opponent says “no,” but when a male opponent says “no” they
adopt an indirect (and gender-congruent) communication style by expressing their disappointment
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1406 Journal of Management / July 2012
with their male counterparts through nonverbal cues (Bowles & Flynn, 2010; Feldman,
Forrest, & Happ, 2002). Women’s reluctance to pursue a failing female–female negotiation
may reflect their awareness that greater social costs are incurred in negotiations with other
women (Olekalns, Kulik, Simonov, & Bradshaw, 2011; Sutter et al., 2009). Therefore,
research examining the effectiveness of negotiating strategies needs to systematically vary
the sex of the negotiation opponent.
Second, we need to better understand how the effectiveness of the two strategy sets is
impacted by the communication channels used by negotiators. For example, virtual
environments provide less opportunity for subtle communication and relationship building;
in these environments, women adopt a negotiation style that is significantly more hostile than
the style they use face-to-face (Stuhlmacher, Citera, & Willis, 2007). However, computer-
mediated communication appears to activate gender stereotypes (Heilman, Caleo, & Halim,
2010), making it more likely that these hostile behaviors will be perceived as gender
counternormative. As a result, women who negotiate by e-mail may experience a backlash
“double whammy”—the virtual context simultaneously evokes gender-counternormative
behavior and increases the likelihood that behavior will be evaluated against normative
gender standards. Research on the effectiveness of negotiating strategies should examine
their impact across both face-to-face and computer-mediated contexts.
Organizational Context
Organizational practices can enhance or mitigate gender violations, depending on the
extent to which the organizational context automatically activates prescriptive gender
stereotypes (Perry, Davis-Blake, & Kulik, 1994). We have presented two alternative avenues
by which organizations can help female negotiators to achieve satisfying employment terms
that encompass both economic and social outcomes. On the one hand, organizations can
protect female negotiators from negative violations by creating environments that give
women more freedom to display gender-counternormative competitive behavior. On the
other hand, organizations can facilitate positive violations by creating environments that
explicitly value gender-normative accommodating and relational behavior. One factor to
consider in making the strategic choice between these two intervention options is the
organization’s culture. Culture is an important source of information about how individuals
should behave in their workplace relationships, and unless organizations are willing to
introduce radical culture changes (see Ely & Meyerson, 2010, for such a case study), the
most benefit to female negotiators is likely to derive when organizational intervention
strategies are consistent with the values of the underlying culture. For example, stereotypes
may be particularly impervious to regeneration in organizations (e.g., the military, the police
force) that have masculine attributes deeply embedded and reinforced within their
organizational cultures (Heilman, 2001; Metz & Kulik, 2008). In these contexts, the
organizational strategies designed to minimize negative violations may represent a faster
road to assisting women to negotiate effectively. Masculine cultures tend to be rule oriented
with formally defined procedures. In these contexts, it may be possible for managers to create
strong settings and to explicitly define zones of negotiability that provide clear rules that
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Kulik, Olekalns / Negotiating the Gender Divide 1407
apply equally to male and female negotiators. Conversely, strategies designed to maximize
positive violations may be more successful in organizations whose cultures are already
oriented to communal, team-based, and problem-solving behaviors. In these cultures, it may
be easier for organizations to highlight the value of a “feminized” relationship-focused,
problem-solving approach to negotiation because gender-normative communal behaviors are
already valued within the local culture.
Similarly, the relative success of our individual-level strategy sets is likely to depend on
the organizational culture, particularly on the culture’s relative emphasis on agentic versus
communal behaviors (Chatman & Barsade, 1995; Kabanoff, 1991). The values of an agentic
organizational culture align neatly with the behaviors attributed to successful negotiators
(Kray et al., 2002; Kray et al., 2001). In agentic culture organizations, therefore, negotiating
might be more normative and a female negotiator may be able to minimize negative violations
by using the culture as an external justification for her competitive behavior. However,
agentic cultures are also likely to be male dominated, and skewed gender distributions will
activate gender stereotypes (Perry et al., 1994). In such organizations, a female employee’s
behavior is more likely to be automatically gauged against gender stereotypes and she may
need to be especially cautious about engaging in gender-counternormative behavior that may
elicit punitive actions (Guadagno & Cialdini, 2007). Under these conditions, women may
experience greater success if they work within the traditional stereotype to create positive
violations and enhance likeability during the negotiation. Future research needs to directly
examine how contextual variables like demographic distributions and organizational culture
impact the effectiveness of our recommended strategy sets. For example, organizational
culture can be manipulated in negotiation simulations (Olekalns et al., 2011) or measured by
content analyzing annual reports and other public documents (Kabanoff & Daly, 2000).
Because organizational culture is embodied in organizational policies, future research
should also examine how variations in organizational policies (e.g., policies around negotiable
terms and conditions) contribute to gender equity in negotiated outcomes. For example,
public universities that make salary data freely available to staff members might be
establishing clearer norms about what is negotiable than private universities do. Therefore, a
comparison of male and female faculty members’ negotiation outcomes in public and private
universities could provide a test of our prediction that strong situations generate greater
gender equity. Organizational procedures and policies may appear gender neutral and yet
subtly discriminate against women because they do not explicitly signal when it is appropriate
to initiate a negotiation or provide explicit information about compensation or performance
standards (Kray & Gelfand, 2009; Rousseau, 2005). In addition, research should directly
examine how variations in organizational settings (e.g., the demographic distribution of
women in the workforce or the organizational culture) impact the activation of gender
stereotypes (Perry et al., 1994) and make our proposed strategies more or less effective for
the female negotiator.
Conclusion
The gender salary gap is a problem for women—but it is also a problem for their employers.
The gender salary gap is visible within cohorts of graduating seniors, but it widens as careers
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1408 Journal of Management / July 2012
advance (Dey & Hill, 2007). As women become dissatisfied with their employment conditions
and leave for other opportunities, organizations face skill shortages and incur turnover costs
(Babcock & Laschever, 2003; Stroh, Brett, & Reilly, 1996).
A problem of this scope deserves focused research attention. As our review indicates,
traditional “best practice” negotiation strategies are unlikely to reduce the gender salary gap.
Our review has identified two sets of alternative strategies that have been demonstrated to be
more effective for women. Now, research that systematically examines the effectiveness of
these strategy sets across a variety of contexts is sorely needed. Most importantly, the research
needs to examine the impact of the strategy sets on perceptions of competence and warmth
and the way these perceptions generate tangible outcomes such as salary, developmental
opportunities, recommendations, and promotions.
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