Is there *suddenly* a lack of demand for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I) and sustainability?

We’ve all heard this myth echoed by lots of loud people and many media headlines lately. But, as critical thinkers and scholars, let's review some evidence:

1. Meta's Zuckerberg loudly claims to be dismantling DE&I programs and embracing "masculine energy" now (whatever that means 🤷‍♀️), while telling investors they still value (and seek) diversity! https://lnkd.in/eZGk5p8q Moreover, Meta still somehow managed to meet (and exceed!) its DE&I goals anways... 😲

2. Companies like Costco (which remained committed to DE&I) are faring better #financially in terms of customer traffic and market share compared to companies like Target (which rolled back their DE&I commitments) https://lnkd.in/e9K6_RwP. So, while we still need larger scale analyses (which takes time), initial evidence shows the financial advantage of #DEI. 💰

3. ResearchGate, a social networking site for 160 million+ research papers and 25 million+ scholars, informed me that my research (largely focused on #DEI and #sustainability) is the most read of the School of Management SoM-HSG or perhaps the whole HSG (it's unclear how they define "department") every week this year (so far...) 🏆 Hence, people still seem to be very interested in reading the research, too! 🤓

In short, no, it doesn't seem like the demand has suddenly decreased for sustainability or DE&I. What would be the alternative for the latter, anyways, Conformity, Inequity, & Exclusion? 😅 (as cleverly put by Mayor Pete)

As Joan C. Williams wrote, some may call their initiatives something else now to avoid putting a "target on [their] back" https://lnkd.in/egzpg8Rm or avoid backlash from the term (driven by a lot of this hype) https://lnkd.in/en9DPKnK or to navigate new legal implications (in the U.S.)

But as I tell my students at University of St.Gallen, let's keep our critical thinking hats on to cut through the hype here (and beyond!) 💪

The future of DE&I?

You might be asking yourself this question based on the recent flurry of media attention on the topic. But as with many issues in the media these days, perhaps we should first start with what DE&I means before we explore DE&I's present--and it's potential future. Here, I did the work for you to review the key concepts and examples based on decades of evidence.

For the short video, click here.

For the resources mentioned in the video (click the resources below for more information):

George et al. (2016) “Understanding and tackling societal grand challenges through management research” in Academy of Management Journal

Gloor et al. (2022) “Maybe baby? The employment risk of potential parenthood” In Journal of Applied Social Psychology

King et al. (2011) “When organizational and community diversity matter: Representativeness and the emergence of incivility and organizational performance” in Academy of Management Journal *Amazing paper which I should have cited for the “D” or “E” instead of the I

Kristal et al. (2023) “Reducing discrimination against job-seekers with and without employment gaps” in Nature Human Behaviour

Markman et al. (2019) “E Pluribus Unum: Impact entrepreneurship as a soluion to grand challenges” in Academy of Management Perspectives

Nishii (2013) “The benefits of climate for inclusion for gender-diverse groups” in Academy of Management Journal

Nishii & Leroy (2020) “Inclusive leadership: Leaders as architects of workgroup climate“ Routledge

Roberson et al. (2017) “The evolution and future of diversity at work” in Journal of Applied Psychology

Roberson & Perry (2022) “Inclusive leadership in thought and action: A thematic analysis” in Group & Organization Management

Ruggs & Holmes (2014) “Why dropping the “E” in Equity is a mistake” in Harvard Business Review

Shore et al. (2011) “Inclusion and diversity in workgroups: A review and model for future research” in Journal of Management

van Dijk et al. (2020) “Meritocracy is a myth? A multilevel perspective of how inequality accumulates through work“ In Organizational Psychology Review

More in 2024

As we near the end of the year, we take time to reflect on our journey together as the PLAID Lab and “More with Jamie Gloor” (evidence-based consulting, keynotes, and wokshops)—separate entities with overlapping interests and visions for a more inclusive world of responsible leadership. Here are some highlights:

More research and insights on leadership and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI): We were delighted to publish a new paper analyzing the advice top scholars received—and the advice they took—with an all-star lineup of scholars in a top outlet here in the field: Journal of Management. In doing so, we hoped to paint a more inclusive and responsible picture of what it takes to become and be a successful management scholar while also providing “meta advice” on how to give better advice.

Eugenia Bajet Mestre and Prof. Dr. Jamie Gloor (led by Prof. Dr. Brooke Gazdag, coauthored with Profs. Drs. Cecile Emery and Sebastian Tidemann) explored women’s representation in management research over time, analyzing ±400,000 data points from 11 top management journals over 33 years. Results revealed few women (23.7%) leading top management journals; there was also little evidence that these women directly or consistently influenced women’s representation at lower levels (i.e., "trickle-down effects"). However, the patterns revealed a particularly "leaky pipeline" in the transition from associate to editor-in-chief. For more information, see the full text here.

As editors of the upcoming special issue, Prof. Dr. Jamie Gloor (together with Profs. Drs. Fabiola Gerpott, Brett Neely, and Scott Tonidandel) published a call for papers on gender and leadership here in The Leadership Quarterly. Send your best work using diverse methods, from various disciplines, using different approaches by May 4, 2025.

Dr. Mihwa Seong also published a paper from her PhD (with Simon Parker at Ivey) on how gendered wording can affect joiners of start-ups here in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.

Finally, while research tends to attribute changes to team diversification to the new members (i.e., women), this overlooks the if and how of existing members’ (i.e., men) changes. “Shifting the gaze,” Profs. Drs. Corinne Post, Jamie Gloor, and Kris Byron (with stellar research assistance from Eugenia Bajet Mestre) published a new review piece here in Current Opinion in Psychology.

Huong Pham, Mihwa Seong, and Jamie Gloor at Academy of Management in Chicago (among 10,000+ other management scholars and practitioners)

More changes to our team:

After a whirlwind Academy of Management Conference in Chicago (and the PLAID Labbers except for Tamara + Prof. Dr. Isabelle Engeler surprisingly winning the prestigious “Phillips & Nadkarni Best Paper on Diversity & Cognition Award” 🏆 as shown to the left with Burac Oc and Beth Livingston from the AOM MOC leadership)…

…our 2 amazing PLAID Lab post-docs were both promoted to Assistant Professors in different countries! Dr. Mihwa Seong (second from the left below) took a post at Kings College London in England while Dr. Huong Pham (in the middle) accepted an offer at Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt in Germany. The first branches of our academic family tree are strong and we we wish them well as we also look forward to continuing our collaborations on playfulness to bridge diversity, how ambiguous behaviors (e.g., humor, flirting, and compliments) shape well-being, follower responses to leader work-family conflict, and upward inclusion.

Eugenia Bajet Mestre, Mihwa Seong, Huong Pham, and Jamie Gloor in front of HSG’s Haus Washington in St.Gallen

Our external PhD candidate, Tamara Kern (first on the left), also moved from Munich to the U.S. as part of her duties at Magna but will continue working with us from abroad to finish her PhD analyzing an inclusive leadership intervention.

Eugenia Bajet Mestre (second from the right) and Prof. Dr. Jamie Gloor (first from the right) moved on up at the University of St.Gallen, joining the inspiring Institute of Responsible Innovation (IRI; most of the members shown on our recent team hiking event in Appenzell below). In addition to being 3 floors up (our offices were formerly in CCDI at FIM: thanks again for hosting us—especially the folks in the photo above and the CCDI management team), IRI is more focused on cutting-edge research under the direction of leading scholars: Profs. Drs. Charlotta Siren (front) and Vivianna He (center with Charlie the dog). Follow us on LinkedIn here or find out more information about the institute, our research, and our courses here.

Several of the IRI folks for our fall team event: a hike and a meal together in lovely (but rainy) Appenzell.

Jamie Gloor was also honored to present her research on sustainable leadership and narcissism at Oxford University (Said Business School) and actively participate in the Responsible Research in Business and Management Summit at Cambridge University.

More challenges to doing the work of DEI: Some loud voices might want you to think that diversity, equity, and inclusion are “dead”—they are unnecessary, unfair, and without value in modern organizations or leadership. Yet now more than ever do we need to band together, because diversity is already a given while equity and inclusion are the pathways to recruiting and retaining talent and leveraging the value of our ever-increasing employee diversity. See here for a short talk Jamie Gloor gave on the topic for the St.Galler Diversity & Inclusion Day in September.

Curious for more? See here for a longer (47min.) talk on the “Science of DEI” Prof. Dr. Jamie Gloor gave this fall at the EAWAG Aquatic Research Institute.

More exchange with practice: In their service as active University of St.Gallen employees, Eugenia Bajet Mestre and Jamie Gloor offered talks and workshops on topics such as allyship and “breaking the ice on microaggressions,” including one together in St.Gallen SQUARE with the HSG WASH student group (see photos above). Jamie Gloor and coauthors also published a practical compliment to their piece which is now published in print in the Journal of Management on how bystanders can act as allies to reduce subtle, interpersonal discrimination toward women at work here in the Harvard Business Review.

Thanks to photographer Raphael Schnell.

In addition, as part of her activities with “More with Jamie Gloor", Jamie Gloor keynoted on (male) allyship for international pharmaceutical companies in Luzern and Visp. As part of her PLAID lab activities, Jamie Gloor discussed how smart leaders are funny leaders (for Smart Government Day at Google Zurich), talked about the nexus between humor and DEI (e.g., for FernUni Schweiz), and—you guessed it—more!

Eugenia Bajet Mestre spoke for Hello 50:50 world advocating for more women in STEM, while Tamara Kern and Dr. Huong Pham also contributed “Inclusive Leadership: A Dynamic Dialogue on DE&I Resistance Between Research & Practice” here (also below) at the St.Galler Diversity & Inclusion Week.

More teaching today’s (and tomorrow’s) talents: Together with Prof. Dr. Anna Elsner, Prof. Dr. Jamie Gloor developed and delivered a new course called, “Time is Money?” for bachelors students. Starting in Kunsthaus Zurich and including field trips to St.Gallen Hospice and up the Climate Stairs, they critically explored the idiom from interdisciplinary perspectives and what it means for them as they begin their academic and professional careers. Eugenia Bajet Mestre also guest lectured on diversity for a sustainability course at the University of St.Gallen while new Asst. Profs. Seong and Pham launched their teaching at their new unis—off to a running start!

For leaders and executives, Jamie Gloor also offered a custom, on-site program on inclusive leadership for an international refractory products/servies supplier in Vienna, as well as impluse keynotes in St.Gallen on hot topics for SMEs such as humor and Artificial Intelligence in St.Gallen.

Jamie Gloor was also lucky to coach several outstanding thesis students, including Emily Cognet Fante (on humor and well-being, with valuable assistance from Dr. Mihwa Seong), Romyna Wirth (on humor and leadership), and Leandra Schulin (on “maybe baby” bias).

Finally, Jamie Gloor discussed how children should stand up for each other in tough times to prevent bullying at school, including guest speaker and FC St.Gallen player Franziska Gauss, while Eugenia Bajet Mestre and Judith Scholtz (both of IRI-HSG) helped with crowd (and paper airplane) control. ;-) Hoping to have inspired some of these to “be the light” in the darkness to curb bullying and its negative effects, because as Franziska underlined, we need all kinds of people to be successful.

More community and bridge building: Academia can be lonely with days spent reading, writing, and reviewing: just you and your laptop. But "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives" (Annie Dillard)--and we were so incredibly lucky to spend 3 days of our lives together with stellar scholars in an awe-inspiring, 838-year-old Swiss monastery! We pomodoroed, science slammed, caught up, and critically discussed our research and careers. Amazing women traveled from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and beyond to join us and support our dual mission of rigorous, responsible management research and fostering more encouraging, inclusive research communities. Thanks to the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF for Jamie Gloor’s scientific exchange grant that made all of this possible.

From left to right in the main photo (above) are some of our participants: Jamie Gloor, Kris Byron, Mary Hausfeld, Enrica Ruggs, Anna Jasinenko, Laura Giurge, AK Ward, Lauren Howe, and Laura Little. In the photos below, you can also find Deanne Den Hartog, Corinne Post, Vivianne He, Charlotta Siren, Silvia Strohe, Samira Nazar, and Ivona Hideg.

More reviewing and service: Often invisible in academia, what we do requires a great deal of service to our universities and scholarly communities. For example, Jamie Gloor and Mihwa Seong were elected as Representatives at Large for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) division of the Academy of Management. And, Eugenia Bajet Mestre and Jamie Gloor play active roles in the Positive Impact Collaboration and other sustainability activities at HSG. Finally, we all also review others’ research, conference submissions (e.g., for the Academy of Management) and grants—including more than 50 (!) reviews this year alone among us—as well as Jamie Gloor’s roles on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and Journal of Management.

More still to come: We have several more exciting developments, invited revisions, upcoming events, as well as innovative projects in the works. Stay tuned!

Last but not least, more gratitude, too: Thank *YOU* for being a part of our journey! To name a few specific people and groups: special thanks to the HSG SOM dean’s office for putting in the admin muscle, to HSG HR with all of our personnel changes, as well as to Thomas Remplfer and Felix Germann for their invaluable help from HSG finance with our accounting and reporting admin. Thank you to Profs. Charlotta Siren and Vivianna He and team in IRI for the warm welcome, and to Jule Schulz for the support in getting set-up.

Thank *YOU* for being a collaborator or reader of our work, a fellow scholar, a participant in our studies, an ally, a leader putting in the work for more DEI at work, an organizational partner inviting us for exchange or to share the science about evidence-based DEI and leadership, and/or supporter more broadly. And if you’re not yet one of these, reach out to join us on this journey today.

It takes a village—thanks for being part of our village! ❤️

Academy of Management 2024: A breathtaking whirlwind in the windy city!

*GASP!* Learning we won the "Phillips & Nadkarni Best Paper on Diversity & Cognition" Award 🏆 today at the Academy of Management was truly breathtaking! (No, really--I nearly passed out! 😅)

People tend to prefer people who are like them (i.e., homophily), which can perpetuate inequalities in organizations. For example, in many contexts, leaders have historically been men; so, if they tend to interact and network more with other men, this locks men into (and women out of) critical professional networks. Instead of revealing more bias, we develop and test a new way to network: playfulness. 💡 Across 5 mixed methods studies comprising 4,461 data points from interviews, vignettes, archival data, and recalled scenarios, we found that men and women--as well as lower and higher status persons--are more likely to interact in more playful situations. So, the next time you're planning a networking event or just want people to mix at a mixer, make it more playful (i.e., spontaneous, pleasurable, and interactive) to facilitate interactions across differences as a step toward more social inclusion and professional equity in organizations. 🌟

Above, Dr. Huong Pham, Mihwa Seong, and I accepted/hold our plaques from these 2 terrific MOC leaders, BURAK OC and Beth A. Livingston, in Chicago. The award is named in honor of the late scholarly greats, Katherine W. Phillips (Columbia Business School) and Sucheta Nadkarni (Cambridge Judge Business School)--both of whom I briefly met at past AOM meetings--who have deeply shaped the field and inspired thousands with their research in #DEI and behavioral strategy.

We are absolutely honored and utterly thrilled; this work would not be possible without our amazing coauthors (Mihwa, Eugenia, and Huong below) and unpictured coauthors: Isabelle Engeler, and Raina Brands, and the generous funding from Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF. 🙏

Of course, we (re)connected will colleagues new and known, attended scholarly sessions and presented our own research, supported the DEI division where Mihwa and I are both members of the Executive Committee, and continued our education in professional development workshops, too. But, winning this award (and presenting this paper among an all-star session of network scholars) was truly a highlight!

Trust in Scientists: Many Labs Study

I’ve studied trust in leaders (and if it differs by team gender diversity and leader gender; here) and if humor affects trust in job interviews (here). But trust in scientists?

As part of the Swiss contingent of scholars working in a massive, Many Labs study led by Viktoria Cologna (Harvard) and Niels Mede (UZH), we surveyed more than 70,000 people across 67 countries to explore public trust in scientists.

Results show that average trust was high; people also agreed that scientific methods are the best way to test if something is true. However, these effects differed by country (e.g., trust in scientists was highest in Egypt, India, and Nigeria but lowest in Albania, Kazakhstan, and Bolivia) and political orientation (e.g., “left-leaning” orientation was positively associated with trust in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, and China).

These findings have important and timely implications for scientists’ successful involvement in public policy as well as their engagement with areas of public concern (e.g., global pandemics and other grand challenges such as climate change).

For the pre-print, see here; the data will also be made publicly available after our paper is published (it’s current status is “revise and resubmit”).

We were delighted to see the paper awarded “Best Data Collection: Quantitative” at the Market Research Society conference, as well as featured by Nature News (and several German news outlets).

Exchanging & Inspiring with International & Interedisciplinary Scholars

We were delighted to share some of our research in the prestigous and selective “Organization Science Winter Conference” in Zurich (below). We discussed the work-in-progress with a range of scholars from Switzerland, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, and the U.S.

Thanks again to the organizers from ETH Zurich and to all of the participants for the warm welcome of our more micro-research in this historically more macro research community. We’re integrating the feedback and hoping to submit our paper soon.

Our core PLAID lab team were also delighted to share a new paper (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) on how playfulness can facilitate interactions and networking across diversity (e.g., men and women, lower and higher-status persons) in organizations. In total, 31 research groups from across HSG shared their sustainability-related insights. See here for more information.

Do you want to measure your DEI impact (and more)?

We’re looking for organizational partners for our research on men’s role in workplace gender equity.

In this collaboration, we will assess your employees’ perceptions of diversity and inclusion. Over one year, we will send short surveys to your employees to learn about inclusion practices, well-being, and leadership (3 times, <10 min).

What’s in it for you?

1.       You will receive an executive summary with customized, practical recommendations from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) experts.

2.       You can add additional, customized items to the surveys (e.g., to assess aspect of engagement, flex-work/-time, relevant to your needs).

3.       This is a unique opportunity to advance—and evaluate—your commitment to DEI while also contributing to the newest scientific insights on the topic.

This research collaboration is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and is free of charge for you.

Interested? Please contact Eugenia Bajet Mestre, Project Manager and Research Assistant.

Male Allyship Description

For more information on male allyship or our new and highly-rated hybrid training, see our video (above) or our website here.

(Un)Conscious Bias: Name, Frame, and Tame the Dragon!

As a scholar with decades of experience specializing in DEI, leadership, and workplace culture, Jamie Gloor is often invited for keynotes and workshops in for- and non-profit groups to explore the idea of bias:

1. When is bias conscious vs. unconscious?

2. What effects does bias have at work?

3. How has bias changed over time?

4. What can we do to create more transparency and fairness (e.g., by design)?

For more details about the content and approach, see the short teaser video below.

(Un)Conscious Bias Course Teaser Video

"Time is Money?" Innovative, New Interdisciplinary Lecture

We’re delighted to announce our innovative, new BA lecture, “Time is Money?”

The course is co-taught by Profs. Anna Elsner (left) and Jamie Gloor (right) from the University of St.Gallen’s Conextual Studies and School of Management (respectively).

Students started the course with a guided tour with curator Cathérine Hug through the Kunsthaus Zurich’s exhibit, “Time,” followed by an interdisciplinary panel with artist Sinzo Aanza, ETH physicists and mathmaticians Caroline Dorn and Josef Teichmann, alongside Profs. Elsner and Gloor.

Course Teaser Video

We’re delighted to welcome a diverse group of students including backgrounds in law/politics, management, contextual studies, and economics—as well as nationalities such as Swiss, French, Indian, and exchange students from Babson College in the United States. These students will present and moderate key ideas in the course, visit St.Gallen hospice (to explore the time before we die and ideas of care time), experiment to see how different kinds of music affect our subjective ideas of time and time to complete tasks, and more!

Reconnect, refocus, and re-search to close the year

This week, we all met in the scenic and serene Kloster Kappel for a writing retreat.

We set goals and shared our values, enjoyed several productive pomodoro sessions, hosted a research presentation by YeJin Park (NYU), cruised the Christmas market in Zug, meditated, stretched, and enjoyed several healthy meals and conversations.

Feeling very grateful for this group and this opportunity.