Joining disconnected others reduces social identity threat in women brokers

• We examine gender differences in brokerage approaches in the domain of creativity. • Joining brokerage is stereotypically female; separation brokerage is stereotypically male. • Women undertaking a separation approach to brokerage experience lower creative self-efficacy than men undertaking the same approach. • Women undertaking a separation approach experience greater stereotype threatand fear of backlash than men undertaking the same approach. ; this gender difference is not apparent among individuals who undertake a joining approach to brokerage. Fear of backlash mediates the link between gender, creative self-efficacy and creative performance among individuals who undertake separation brokerage but not among individuals who undertake joining brokerage. This article examines gender differences in social network brokerage. We theorize that whether women brokers experience social identity threat with downstream consequences for their creative performance depends on whether they use a separation (intermediating between network members) or a joining (bringing disconnected network members together) approach. Using a survey (Study 1), a pilot field study and an experiment (Study 2), and another experiment (Study 3), we demonstrate the following, respectively: (1) there are stereotypes favoring men in separation brokerage and stereotypes favoring women in joining brokerage; (2) women (vs. men) who take a separation approach to brokerage experience reduced creative self-efficacy, whereas no gender difference emerges among individuals who undertake a joining approach; and (3) women (vs. men) experience greater social identity threat when undertaking separation brokerage, with fear of backlash mediating the link between gender, creative self-efficacy and creative performance, whereas no gender difference emerges among individuals who undertake a joining approach to brokerage.