Oh my, this required some digging. The article relies on an experiment that basically presented a gender stacked (70% male, 30% female) panel of MBA students w

Oh my, this required some digging. The article relies on an experiment that basically presented a gender stacked (70% male, 30% female) panel of MBA students with hypotetical company with a set of hypothetical "core values" and then looked at how these influenced managerial bonus allocation decisions. They test three sets of "core values", A,B and C (see below). They labeled A as "meritocratic values" and B and C as "non meritocratic. They find there is a male bias under A, a female bias under B and no bias under C. They then conclude their pre-assumed hypothesis, that meritocratic values (A) favors males, is valid. When they stumble upon as strong a female bias in their "non-meritocratic" value set (B), they they decide it might be down to wording and look for a wording to make that disappear (C) They never try to do a similar rewording of (A). They never seem to see how they are fishing for the desired outcome, never consider alternative explanations (people that are prompted they "earned" their position tend to look for similar traits in subordinates) etc. The conclusion we can draw is MBA students seem to be potentially influenced by the wording of value statements in hypothetical reward games. As promised, here are the 3 hypotetical "core value" sets as worded: Set A: labeled "meritocratic" (1) "All employees are to be rewarded fairly"; (2) "whether employees deserve a raise is determined by their performance"; (3) "raises and bonuses are based entirely on the performance of the employee"; (4) "promotions are given to employees when their performance shows that they deserve it"; (5) "ServiceOne's goal is to reward all employees equitably every year. Set B: labeled "non-meritocratic" (1) "All employees are to be evaluated regularly"; (2) "whether an employee deserves a raise is determined by their manager"; (3) "raises and bonuses are to be given based on the discretion of the manager"; (4) "promotions are to be given to employees when their manager decides that they deserve it"; (5) "ServiceOne's goal is to evaluate all employees every year Set C: labeled "non meritocratic" (1) "All employees are to be evaluated regularly"; (2) "performance evaluation forms include a quantitative as well as qualitative component about the employee's performance"; (3) "performance evaluations are part of the employee's official personnel file"; (4) "performance evaluations are discussed with each employee every year" (5) "ServiceOne's goal is to evaluate all employees every year