Differences in Ethical Thinking Between Male and Femal Managers
Throughout the twentieth century, a substantial body of research has been devoted to exploring gender differences in various cognitive processes. With more and more women entering the labor force and holding positions that require decision-making skills, it is surprising how few (if any) research studies have been published that explore specifically gender differences in decision making. The purpose of this paper is to examine gender differences in information processing and decision making behavior. The sections that follow will provide a brief overview of psychological and biological gender differences, as well as gender differences in decision strategy selection.Psychological and Biological Gender Differences Everyone knows that men and women are different. But, aside from external anatomical, primary and secondary sexual differences, the research indicates that there are many subtle differences in the way men and women process language, information, emotion, cognition, etc. The largest differences appear in the way men and women estimate time, judge the speed of moving objects, process language, carry out mental mathematical calculations, orient in space and visualize objects in three dimensions4. In all these tasks,
As a general rule, men tend to focus on one thing at a time12. Research shows that men are good at compartmentalizing their attention and their thinking process is, on average, more channeled12. Faced with a business problem, men tend to focus on the immediate dilemma rather than putting the issue in a larger context. Unless facts are obviously pertinent, men are inclined to dispense with them. Then they progress in a straightforward, linear, causal path toward a specific goal: the solution. As a result, men are generally less tolerant of ambiguity. They like to weed out what appears to be extraneous, unrelated data to focus on the task at hand. Charles Hampden-Turner, a business consultant and member of the Global Business Network believes that American business managers epitomize this male perspective. He and his colleague Alfons Trompenaars conducted research on the values and business practices of American male and female executives. Hampden-Turner reports, “that men ! Gender Differences In Decision Strategy Selection Research has shown that gender differences are already apparent from just a few months after birth, when social influence is nominal18. A controversial book "Brain Sex" offers explanations for these very early differences in children18. "These discernible, measurable differences in behavior have been imprinted long before external influences have had a chance to get to work. They reflect a basic difference in the newborn brain which we already know about -- the superior male efficiency in spatial ability, the greater female skill in speech." But now, after many careful controlled studies where environment and social learning were ruled out, scientists learned that there exists a great deal of neuropsychological differences between the brains of males and females6. During the development of the embryo in the womb, circulating hormones have a very important role in the sexual differentiation of the brain8. The presence of androgens in early life produces a "male" brai
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Approximate Word count = 1356
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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