GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE STYLE OF USE OF QUALITY COST INFORMATION. EFFECTS ON QUALITY-RELATED LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Past research has analyzed gender differences in many areas of organizational management. However, previous research did not analyze potential gender differences in terms of the use of information. Recognizing and exploiting this research gap, this paper analyzes the possible gender differences in the style of use of information. To this end, we follow the Levers of Control framework (Simons, 1995) that distinguishes between diagnostic and interactive use of information, seeking to understand to what extent there are gender differences in the use of information and how they influence quality-related leaning (QRL) and organizational performance. Using Gender as a control variable, we found significant gender differences in terms of the diagnostic use of QCI. Subsequent multi-group analysis (female vs male) revealed that the diagnostic use of QCI by women had a negative impact on QRL, whereas this effect was positive (although not statistically significant) in the men’s group. In both groups the impact of QRL on performance is positive and statistically significant. However, the effect of QRL on non-financial performance is higher in the women's group. No significant differences were found between groups regarding the impact of QRL on financial performance. Therefore, the results show that women and men differ in the use of QCI and that this has implications for QRL and performance, notably non-financial performance. We will look in depth at these results and analyze their potential impacts on practice and theory.