Organizational Contexts and Conversation Patterns

Abstract

We investigate whether the larger organizational context affects conversation patterns in informal same-sex task groups. We draw on Ridgeway's recent extension of status characteristics theory to make predictions about the effects of the social composition of an organization's authority structure and gender on conversation variables. Using a quasi-experimental design, we compare conversation patterns in all-male and all-female task groups at a coeducational college with a male-dominated authority structure to conversation patterns in all-female groups at a women's college with a female-dominated authority structure. We examine tentative and supportive forms of speech. In keeping with Ridgeway's extension, women at the women's college show lower rates of tentative behaviors than women at the coeducational college; contrary to her approach, however, they register higher rates of tentative behaviors than men at the coeducational college. Results of the analysis of supportive behavior show that women attending the women's college are more supportive in their groups than both coeducational men and coeducational women.