Gender-Neutral Performance Management: Unfair Competition Intensifying Organizational Conflict?

The purpose of this contribution is to share the very first results of a nationwide research carried out through my PhD course that highlights how the merit system adopted by Italian Public Administrations in the past twenty years has contributed to foster gender inequalities.

In this system, based on what is called “performances cycle”, which sets goals, tasks and rewards of both offices and individuals, evaluations are generally conducted by managers with a gender-neutral approach, aiming to make such evaluations as effective and objective as possible. This means that managers do not consider specific gender-based factors, like unpaid care workload of children, disabled and elder relatives due to gender stereotypes, nor sex-based factors, such as pregnancy and birth.

The research is currently examining, through a longitudinal study, the performance evaluations of employees of 12 Italian municipalities. The first results are confirming the existence of gender inequalities patterns, such as fatherhood bonus (Correll et al., 2007) and leaky pipelines (Gaiaschi, 2022) despite Italy has a whole legislation about gender equality.

Therefore, in this contribution I will link the results of the above-mentioned research with the literature on competition, showing how the unequal baseline of the “game” is perpetuated throughout the careers of men and women and how the gender legitimated neutrality used in Italian Public Administrations performance management is fostering organizational and social conflict.