He Wrote, She Wrote: Gender Similarities and Differences in Written Business Communication

Abstract

The purpose of this research study is to determine whether there are differences between how men and women communicate through written business communication. The study focuses on four aspects of business writing including length of response, readability of the writing, me versus you orientation, and overall positive or negative tone of written communication. No statistically significant differences were found between males and females in the sample used when analyzing the first three variables. However, the use of positive language, as measured by overall positive or negative tone in each writing sample, was more prevalent with women than men