Author(s): Randa Diab Bahman, Abrar Al-Enzi
The research set out to investigate gender differences in the way decisions were made in the boardroom. Though there is a plethora of information available on gender differences in decision making in general, there is a dearth of knowledge available when it comes to making decisions inside closed meetings or in a business-to-business setting (B2B). Particularly, such research is rare in the Middle East, where cultural norms and values predominantly dictate the way communication is both sent and received both verbally and physically. In this paper, a survey was administered to 156 respondents of both genders in different sectors of Kuwait’s workforce. Significant differences were found amongst men and women when it came to the way they perceived information in the boardroom and made final decisions accordingly. Also, differences were found between genders regarding the needs and objectives of boardroom meetings. These findings are important for decision making and sales training as they can highly impact final decisions. They are particularly important to the international practitioner as they give insight on how the local culture perceives information and translates it from a gender perspective, in a relatively conservative culture like Kuwait.