The Effect of Manager Gender and Performance Feedback: Experimental Evidence from India
通过印度零工经济工人的实验，发现负面反馈（批评）会降低工作态度但提高努力程度，而表扬无显著影响，且管理者性别对反馈效果无调节作用。
We hire 2,228 Indian gig-economy workers for a real-effort transcription task and randomize the gender of the (fictitious) manager as well as the delivery of performance feedback. We find that negative feedback (i.e., criticism) leads to moderate deterioration in worker attitudes, but it increases effort provision in both mandatory and voluntary tasks. By contrast, praise affects neither attitudes nor effort provision. Importantly, feedback effects do not vary between workers assigned to female and male managers. Consistent with this finding, there is no evidence for attention discrimination toward female managers, implicit gender bias, or gendered expectations among workers. By contrast, Abel (J. Human Resources 59, no. 2:470–501, 2024) employs the same research design in the United States and finds substantial gender discrimination and no effect of feedback on effort. This highlights that the effects of feedback and manager gender vary across different contexts.