Introduction

Gender often appears to have economically material implications in negotiations in organizations and markets. But researchers’ attempts to tie the phenomenon down in the lab have produced a tangled web of largely contradictory results.

By the mid-1980s, the leading experimental researchers in negotiation had tossed the gender variable into a heap of discarded individual difference predictors—ranging from race to authoritarianism—which had failed over scores of tests to produce consistent results. “From what is known now,” one review concluded, “it does not appear that there is any single personality type or characteristic that is directly and clearly linked to success in negotiation” Contemporary feminist ideals of minimalist sex differences further reinforced this perspective.

Much of the relevant feminist research of that era sought “to shatter stereotypes about women’s characteristics and change people’s attitudes by proving that women and men are essentially equivalent in their personalities, behavioral tendencies, and intellectual abilities”.

There are multiple explanations offered for the gender gap in venture funding, ranging from quality of life choices to ownership preferences. However, some with direct experience point to differences in the way men and women entrepreneurs have approached their negotiations with prospective investors. According to some, for successful venture capital deals; women are often not comfortable talking about what they are worth. They'll go in to pitch a project and naturally put a lower value on it than men do.

PREVIOUS APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF GENDER IN NEGOTIATION

There have been two major streams of research on gender in negotiation. The first surged and largely subsided with trends in psychological research on individual differences in the 1970s and 1980s.