When selecting colleagues to collaborate with on a daily basis, males and females are both significantly more likely to choose someone of their own gender, according to an analysis by Innovisor, a Copenhagen-based management consulting firm.
The study, based on a survey of 5,000 employees from 60 large public companies around the world, asked respondents to list the names of colleagues they cooperate with every day.
While both men and women said they collaborated with an average of eight colleagues, the makeup of their peer groups – later confirmed independently by the consultancy – skewed heavily towards their own gender, the findings show. (Direct superiors, who tended to be male, were dropped from the results to filter out relationships based on influence.)
"We prefer to collaborate with people who look just like us," says Jeppe Hansgaard, a managing partner at Innovisor. "That's a management issue, because you want your employees to collaborate with the right people, not just people who look like them."
The gender bias existed in all 29 countries involved in the study, from developed nations like the U.S., U.K. and Australia to emerging markets like China, India and Brazil, the findings show. Anecdotal evidence suggests similar biases may also exist when it comes to ethnicity and religion, though more analysis is needed, Hansgaard adds.
Often, these biases go unnoticed because collaborative relationships are forged informally between individuals rather than being assigned by a boss, he says. But as a growing body of research suggests diverse groups perform better, companies should more actively manage their collaboration efforts, he says.
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