Gender, persuasion techniques, and collaboration

This essay reports on the relationship between persuasion techniques used by collaborators and possible gender influences. To examine this relationship, the authors observed four proposal developers (two males and two females) as they collaborated with several groups at Southwestern Bell Telephone company. The authors examined preconceptions about three factors: effective and ineffective collaboration, gender's effect on collaboration, and gender's effect on persuasion. They also examined persuasion techniques used by the proposal developers.