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!

Award-Winning Research

Our new research on a motherhood resume intervention, recently presented by lead author Ariella Kristal (Harvard Business School) at the Academy of Management (virtual) meeting, won a Best Paper award from the Gender Diversity in Organizations division.

The paper is coauthored by Leonie Nicks (Behavioral Insights Team), myself (University of St.Gallen), and Oliver Hauser (University of Exeter).

Award-Winning Research

Our research on work-family conflict and shocks/set-backs seems to have resonated with reviewers at the Academy of Management 2020.

“Help when dads need somebody? Follower reactions to leader work-family conflict” has won “Best Paper” from the Organizational Behavior (OB) division. This work was authored by Jamie Gloor (University of Exeter & University of Zurich), Susanne Braun (Durham University), Jenny Hoobler (University of Pretoria), and Claudia Peus (Technical University of Munich).*

“Critical events at a critical time: Setbacks and shocks in early academic career stages” has won “Best Symposium” from the Management Education and Development (MED) division. This work was organized by Stephanie Rehbock (Technical University of Munich) and Jamie Gloor (University of Exeter & University of Zurich); it also included a paper, “Men and Women’s Identity Work in response to Private- and Work-Shocks Over Time” (also coauthored by Stephanie Rehbock, Jamie Gloor, & Ronit Kark - Bar Ilan University).*

*Unfortunately, the latter two could not be listed in the formal program due to AOM’s rule-of-three.

Dissertation Award for Jamie Gloor at Academy of Management 2017

Dr. Jamie L. Gloor has just been honored with the Emerald Best Dissertation Award. (Gender & Diversity in Organizations Division). She will be recognized at the upcoming Academy of Management annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) this August. This is the largest international conference in the field of management with 10,000+ scholar and practitioner attendees annually and 18,000+ members.  

The winning paper based on her dissertation completed at the chair in HRM at the University of Zurich is titled, "An inconvenient truth? Interpersonal and career consequences of 'maybe baby' expectations;" this paper was also recently selected for inclusion in the prestigious Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management. It is coauthored with Xinxin Li (NUS), Prof. Sandy Lim (NUS), and Dr. Anja Feierabend (UZH) and based on a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and swissuniversities' SUK Program 4 as part of the University of Zurich’s Action Plan Gender Equality (2013-16).