Research published in the Academy of Management found that women are more likely to experience retaliation when voicing concerns. The authors, Timothy Kundro of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Nancy Rothbard of the University of Pennsylvania, came up with four recommendations for organizations to reduce retaliation based on their findings.

According to the journal article summary, in one experiment in the study, 451 participants were tasked with completing a group project using a group chat. “During the project, the experimenters had a fake participant named Kevin or Kate raise a moral objection related to the task the group was completing,” a Forbes article on the study states. “[Kundro] says the objections raised weren’t necessarily illegal or unethical but typically fell into ‘a moral gray zone.’”

The experiment found that “Kate” received more backlash to her objections, which were “worded identically to those from Kevin…even when Kate was said to have power in her organization. In contrast, a powerful position helped protect Kevin from facing retaliation when the objection came from him,” Forbes reports. One member of the group told Kate: “You are a petulant little child. You need to grow up and get a grip.”

“The researchers believe that women face more retaliation because, in raising moral objections, they aren’t adhering to gender stereotypes,” the article states. It explains that some people perceive whistleblowers as acting out of selfishness, “...

Read Full Story: https://whistleblowersblog.org/retaliation/research-points-to-gender-disparit...