Business Commons^™

Competent And Likeable? Protecting And Promoting Women’S Likeability In Employment Negotiations, Mara Olekalns, Carol Kulik

Mara Olekalns

Professional women earn less than their male counterparts and this salary gap largely results from the ways men and women negotiate employment terms. We integrate the Stereotype Content Model and Expectancy Violation Theory to explain why traditional “best practice” negotiation behaviors benefit male negotiators but backfire for female negotiators. Gender counter-normative behaviors create negative expectancy violations for women, generating cognitive and emotional backlash from their negotiation partners. We use this theoretical integration to identify alternative strategies that female employees and their employers can use to avoid negative expectancy violations and ensure that women are not disadvantaged in workplace negotiations.