Women are worse than men at turning networks to their advantage.

在将人脉转化成优势上，女性不如男性。

IN THE rarefied world of the corporate board, a good network matters. Recruitment often involves word-of-mouth recommendations: getting on a shortlist is easier if you have the right connections. New research suggests men use contacts better than women.

在公司董事会的小圈子中，拥有良好的人脉非常重要。 招聘经常会有口头推荐：如果你有一个好的引荐人，你会更容易进入候选人名单。一项新的研究表明，男性比女性更善于利用他们的人际关系网络。

Marie Lalanne and Paul Seabright of the Toulouse School of Economics measure the effect of a network on remuneration using a database of board members in Europe and America. They find that if you were to compare two executive directors, identical in every way except that one had 200 ex-colleagues now sitting on boards and the other 400, the latter, on average, would be paid 6% more.. For non-executives the gap is 14%.

卢兹经济学院的玛丽.拉兰内和保罗.西布赖特利用一个关于欧洲和美国董事会成员的数据库，分析了人际关系对薪酬的影响。他们发现，如果你比较两个行政主管，其中一位的前同事中有200个现在是公司董事，而另一位则为400个，二者其他条件都相似，那么后者的薪酬平均会比前 者高6%。 而对于非高层管理人员来说，薪酬差距会达到14%。

The really juicy finding concerns the difference between the sexes. Among executive-board members, women earn 17% less than their male counterparts. There are plenty of plausible explanations for this disparity, from interruptions to women’s careers to old-fashioned discrimination. But the authors find that this pay gap can be fully explained by the effect of executives’ networks. Men can leverage a large network into more senior positions or a seat on a more lucrative board; women don’t seem to be able to.

真正令人惊讶的发现在于性别之间的薪酬差距。 在高管中，女性的薪酬比男性低17%。从女性因家庭等原因导致的事业中断，到旧时的对女性的歧视等观点似乎都可以解释这种差异。 但是研究人员发现用高管们人脉的影响可以完美地解释这种差距现象。 男性能够充分利用一个庞大的人际网络来使自己的的职位得到晋升或者进入一个薪酬更高的董事会；女性则往往做不到。

Women could just have weaker connections with members of their networks. Women seem more inclined to build and rely on only a few strong relationships, says Mr Seabright. Men are better at developing passing acquaintances into a network, and better at maintaining a high personal profile through these contacts. Women may, of course, also be hurt by the existing dominance of men on boards and a male preference for filling executive positions with other men. But a tendency to think of other men first will be amplified if talented women don’t stay on the radar.

女性与她们的关系网络之间的联系更脆弱一些。 女性似乎更倾向于建立并且依赖一小部分紧密的人际关系，西布赖特说道。男人则更善于将仅仅几面之交的人变成自己关系资源的一部分，并且通过这些关系保持一个更高的私人关注率。 当然，女性也可能受到当下由男性统治的董事会排挤，因为这些董事们会更偏好一位男性的经理。但是如果有能力的女性本身并不在这些董事的关系网络之内，那么他们也就更倾向于将主管的位置留给一位男性了。

Interestingly, there is only a marginal pay difference between men and women when it comes to non-executive directors, and no difference in the effectiveness of their networks. It is possible that this reflects pressure for gender quotas on corporate boards. Women are able to find their way onto shortlists for lower-paid, non-executive positions. But that’s not where the real power lies.

有意思的是，对于非高级管理人员来说，不同性别职员的薪酬差距很小，而他们人脉对薪酬的差距则没有影响。 也许这只是公司董事会中性别配额压力的体现。女性有能力进入低薪、非高管职位的候选名单。 但是那些职位并没有实权。