Source: hr daily subscription (27.05.2026)
The findings imply that "policies designed to counteract gender discrimination should not only target biases in beliefs, but also the differential criteria that evaluators may use in their subjective evaluation of men and women," the researchers say.
Involving academics from the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and University of Exeter, the study asked almost 600 participants to make investment decisions in scenarios where the outcomes were jointly determined by actions and luck. Then, the cohort was divided into groups of three; one person in each group was appointed the leader and their investment decision was implemented for the group.
The other group members' beliefs about the leader's investment choice was recorded before and after they observed the investment outcome, and they were asked to make decisions about discretionary payments for the leader.
Our findings indicate that luck plays a bigger role in the evaluation of female leaders.
Nisvan Erkal, Lata Gangadharan and Boon Han Koh
"Our results reveal gender differences in discretionary payments," the researchers report in their paper.
"Strikingly, we do not detect any gender differences in evaluators' beliefs about leaders' investment choices. Hence, we show that gender biases in beliefs are not the channel through which gender differences emerge in discretionary payments."
However, the researchers found that while male leaders' discretionary payments were determined by both the outcomes of their choices and evaluators' beliefs about their choices, female leaders' discretionary payments were predominantly determined by outcomes.
This suggests that "male and female leaders are subjected to different evaluation criteria".
Male leaders were also more likely than female leaders to receive both the maximum penalty, and the maximum bonus.
"Moreover, there is a gender difference in leaders' expectations of discretionary payments, with male leaders being optimistic and female leaders being pessimistic about the payments they will receive," the researchers say.
The results suggests that for both male and female leaders, incentive structures don't reward them based on the merits of their actions; "however, in the case of female leaders, the deviation is such that evaluators do not use their beliefs at all in determining discretionary payments".
"Our results are in line with previous research in psychology which has shown that leadership potential is preferred as a criteria when evaluating men, while potential is overlooked when evaluating women and performance is emphasised instead," the researchers say.
They note that the criterion gap is a "marker of discrimination", implying that in the labour market, high outcomes are necessary for women to get high discretionary payments, while men can receive high discretionary payments for low outcomes – as long as evaluators hold them in high regard.
"More broadly, our findings indicate that luck plays a bigger role in the evaluation of female leaders. While outcomes are determined by both luck and the actions taken, beliefs about the actions taken by female leaders are disregarded.
"This distinction is consequential because when evaluators rely on outcomes alone, actions are not interpreted through the lens of effort or intent, and female leaders are fully exposed to outcome risk."
Monash University Professor Lata Gangadharan adds: "Imagine a scenario where there's so much uncertainty and the outcomes are predominantly luck driven. If you're only rewarding women for successful outcomes, then this can disproportionately hurt them. They're going to be punished for bad luck in a disproportionate way."
The researchers say the "significant gender difference in the weight placed on beliefs" offers a new perspective on how beliefs contribute to gender biases in the evaluation of leaders.
"Beliefs are important in our setup not because they are biased, but because they play differential roles in the determination of male and female leaders' discretionary payments."
The findings underscore the importance of providing clear guidance to evaluators on the criteria to be used in performance evaluation processes, the researchers say.
The fact the gender criteria gap was "exhibited primarily by female evaluators" also has important ramifications. "[It] suggests that while increasing the representation of women on hiring committees or company boards may have benefits due to, for example, the role-model effect, it may not necessarily mitigate other biases that may be present in evaluations."
Gender criteria gap in evaluation: Role of Perceived Intentions and Outcomes, Gangadharan et. al, International Economic Review, May 2026