Gender based bias in performance assessment - A study of supervisor subordinate pairs in Vietnam

Attitudes and values are integral to a nation's culture and, along with other cultural features, distinguish societies from each. The relationship between each gender in the family, society and the workplace and the value placed on each by the other are also affected by cultural attitudes in each country. This research uses 'performance assessment' to measure an interaction between pairs of managers and subordinates of the same or different genders. It posits that higher scores may result from positive bias and lower scores at least in part from gender prejudice. The study is informed by theoretical research in the areas of Cultural Dimensions, Stereotyping, Social Learning Theory, Self-Concept Theory, and Attribution Theory. Findings indicate that national cultural characteristics appear to increase gender bias in Vietnam, the country where the study is located and so an exploratory study was designed to test this hypothesis. The study investigated over 700 supervisors to subordinate combinations in a large number of companies in Vietnam. The measures refer to performance assessments between the supervisor-employee dyad, and thus the influence of gender is only one variable in the performance measure. When examined, correlations support the view that regardless of the gender of the supervisor, male subordinates score higher on the variable 'Drive to Learn'. When the genders of the pair are the same, then scores for 'Collaboration across Departments' was highly significant.