TY - JOUR
T1 - Transformative Women, Problem-Solving Men? Not Quite
T2 - Gender and Mediators' Perceptions of Mediation
AU - Nelson, Noa
AU - Zarankin, Adi
AU - Ben-Ari, Rachel
PY - 2010/7
Y1 - 2010/7
N2 - A large field study examined female and male mediators' perceptions of their jobs, looking in particular at their attitudes toward mediation styles lying on the continuum between instrumental and transformative. Based on scholarship on gender and negotiation literature that has portrayed women as more interpersonal and somewhat less task oriented than men, we expected female mediators to be more transformative and less instrumental in their practice than their male peers.Our study was both qualitative and quantitative: we formulated the content of twenty in-depth interviews into an extensive questionnaire, answered by a representative sample of 189 Israeli mediators. Compared with their male counterparts, we found female mediators to be more transformative, but no less instrumental, in their view of mediation's goals and orientation. They were also somewhat more facilitative in preferred style, while male mediators were somewhat more directive. We also found additional intriguing gender differences, including that women mediators reported higher job satisfaction than did male mediators, but they also displayed a greater readiness to perceive failure in mediation.
AB - A large field study examined female and male mediators' perceptions of their jobs, looking in particular at their attitudes toward mediation styles lying on the continuum between instrumental and transformative. Based on scholarship on gender and negotiation literature that has portrayed women as more interpersonal and somewhat less task oriented than men, we expected female mediators to be more transformative and less instrumental in their practice than their male peers.Our study was both qualitative and quantitative: we formulated the content of twenty in-depth interviews into an extensive questionnaire, answered by a representative sample of 189 Israeli mediators. Compared with their male counterparts, we found female mediators to be more transformative, but no less instrumental, in their view of mediation's goals and orientation. They were also somewhat more facilitative in preferred style, while male mediators were somewhat more directive. We also found additional intriguing gender differences, including that women mediators reported higher job satisfaction than did male mediators, but they also displayed a greater readiness to perceive failure in mediation.
KW - Mediation
KW - Mediator gender
KW - Transformative versus instrumental mediation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77955161968&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1571-9979.2010.00274.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1571-9979.2010.00274.x
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AN - SCOPUS:77955161968
SN - 0748-4526
VL - 26
SP - 287
EP - 308
JO - Negotiation Journal
JF - Negotiation Journal
IS - 3
ER -