Gender, professional services pricing and Glass Cliffs

This week's news that Indra Nooyi will take over the reins of PepsiCo will bring the inevitable re-focus on the ROI of female corporate leadership.   

Most of the pundits will look at PepsiCo's large size, its recent financial successes, and the likelihood (or not) of this particular woman to keep moving the ball down the field. 

But I'll bet their commentary will miss a nugget about the relationship between women and the way they price their services.  It appears, according to Kirsten Osolind's blog post about "A Behavioral Study of Pricing Decisions: A Focus on Gender," women do a better job of linking the price of their services to the "relationship cost."   Even though the study corroborates the common perception that women make less money than men, it finds:

The upside is that while women professionals may sacrifice some income in the short term, striving to develop customer loyalty may lead to greater income stability and profitability in the long run.

Fascinating stuff, and it all brings me back to the question of female business leadership. Will businesses allow women to re-focus them on long-term profits and relationships rather than short-term revenues (and especially in professional services, inflexible "always-up" prices)?

Is Indra Nooyi going to be the next Glass Cliff victim?