Predictors of parental leave support: Bad news for (big) dads and a policy for equality

We are very pleased to share that our new paper on coworker support for parental leave is now published in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. This article is part of a special issue on addressing gender inequality, edited by Prof. Dr. Michelle Ryan and Dr. Thekla Morgenroth.

Although men typically benefit from widely held gender biases in employment (e.g., selection, promotion, and pay), they are often disadvantaged when it comes to work-life. This interferes with fathers' ability to care for their children, but it may also hinder women's career development, thus reinforcing traditional gender roles and sustaining challenges to balance work and family for men and women. Best practices specify that benefits should be equally available to employees, but such policies may only be effective if there is a work culture to support them. As coworkers' responses have not yet been tested, we examine for whom coworkers show the most (and least) support for parental leave (Study 1), we replicate this finding using different methods and show the process whereby employee characteristics influence coworker support for their parental leave (Study 2), and then we test a policy-based intervention to further increase equality in coworker support for parental leave (Study 3).

Gloor, J. L., Li, X., & Puhl, R. M. (2018). Predictors of parental leave support: Bad news for (big) dads and a policy for equality. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(5), 810-830. doi: 10.1177/1368430217751630

This paper's findings and implications are relevant to our current ForGenderCare project at Professor Peus' chair at TUM. You can find the full publication here.

Fix the game, not the dame: Restoring equality in leadership evaluations

Fresh off the presses in Journal of Business Ethics:

Female leaders continue to face bias in the workplace compared to male leaders. When employees are evaluated differently because of who they are rather than how they perform, an ethical dilemma arises for leaders and organizations. Thus, bridging role congruity and social identity leadership theories, we propose that gender biases in leadership evaluations can be overcome by manipulating diversity at the team level. Across two multiple-source, multiple-wave, and randomized field experiments, we test whether team gender composition restores gender equity in leadership evaluations. In Study 1, we find that male leaders are rated as more prototypical in male-dominated groups, an advantage that is eliminated in gender-balanced groups. In Study 2, we replicate and extend this finding by showing that leader gender and team gender composition interact to predict trust in the leader via perceptions of leader prototypicality. The results show causal support for the social identity model of organizational leadership and a boundary condition of role congruity theory. Beyond moral arguments of fairness, our findings also show how, in the case of gender, team diversity can create a more level playing field for leaders. Finally, we outline the implications of our results for leaders, organizations, business ethics, and society.

This paper was part of my dissertation, coauthored with fantastic people: Manuela Morf (Erasmus University), Samantha Paustian-Underdahl (Florida State University), and Uschi Backes-Gellner (University of Zurich).

Counterintuitive consequences of maternal leave?

“Maybe Baby” expectations motivate subtle employee disrespect and work withdrawal

Pregnancy is…a wonderful thing for the woman, it’s a wonderful thing for the husband, it’s certainly an inconvenience for a business. -Donald Trump, President of the United States

Main Findings
Childfree working women report more subtle forms of disrespect (e.g., being interrupted or ignored) from colleagues and supervisors than childfree men, especially in organisations that offer more maternal leave than paternal leave. These uncivil experiences at work also predict employees' career withdrawal one year later.

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Comparison to the General View of the Topic
A wealth of research has highlighted mothers’ many employment disadvantages compared to childfree women and men; however, "actual motherhood is not necessary for young women to experience motherhood penalties” concludes study author Dr. Jamie L. Gloor. Although maternal leave is ostensibly intended to benefit working women (e.g., enhance their economic returns and job security), this might come at the cost of their subtle social mistreatment. Finally, states Dr. Gloor, "if these employees leave, then targeting female leaders and professors for study or intervention may be too late if women have already withdrawn at an earlier career stage."   

Data
Two waves of quantitative survey data were collected one year apart from 474 early career academics (i.e., PhD and post-doctoral students, assistant professors) from all federal and cantonal universities in Switzerland. 

Implications
"Maybe baby” expectations–highlighted by the organizational inconveniences that pregnancy may entail–may be another explanation for the gender gap in leadership and professorships. Thus, "to retain highly educated women in the workforce, reduce "brain drain" and turnover costs,” recommends Dr. Gloor, “organizations might consider making parental leave more accessible to men to reduce or balance out these maybe baby expectations and feelings of potential parental inconvenience toward young female and male employees.” She added, “of course the onus should not be on women to reduce others’ biases towards them, but they, too, can proactively clarify their career committment to reduce these negative efects.”

Reference
Gloor, J. L., Li, X., Lim, S., & Feierabend, A. (in press). An inconvenient truth? Interpersonal and career consequences of "maybe baby" expectations. Journal of Vocational Behavior.*

*This paper was recently honored with the "Emerald Best Paper Based on a Dissertation Award" (Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division) at the 2017 Academy of Management Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, as well as being included in the 2017 Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings. 

Best Paper in EURAM Paris!

After 4 days in Paris, plenty of new people, a plethora of papers, and so many socials, another EURAM has now come to a close. We had super Swiss scholar representation from the University of Zurich (e.g., Drs. Christian Voegtlin and Matthias Beck) and CDI in St. Gallen (Dr. Kyrill Bourovoi). It was a lot of fun presenting my new paper (with coauthors Xinxin Li and Sandy Lim from NUS in Singapore, and Anja Feierabend from UZH), 

 “Maybe Baby” in Everyday Employment:
Incivility at the Intersection of Gender and Parenthood

which was nominated as "Most Inspirational Paper" of the entire conference (from 1,500 submissions) and won "Best Paper" of the Organisational Behaviour Strategic Interest Group (from 183 submissions). We're excited and honored for the recognition-I guess we better hurry and get this paper published now... ;-)

Looking forward to seeing some of these now familiar faces from across Europe (and the world) next year in Glasgow!  

Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management

I attended the the 75th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management held August 7-11, 2015 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The program theme was Opening Governance. The 2015 theme invites members to consider opportunities to improve the effectiveness and creativity of organizations by restructuring systems at the highest organizational levels, and to try to answer the many questions organizational governance faces in today's digital and informational climate.

Together with colleagues from Germany (Aline Hernandez Bark, Goethe), Switzerland (Levke Henningsen, UZH psychology), and the United States (Avina Gupta, NYU), we also presented a symposium on gender and leadership with our stellar discussant from Yale Business School, Professor Victoria Brescoll (see below). I also presented a paper coauthored with Tyler Okimoto, Anja Feierabend, and Bruno Staffelbach on Young women are risky business? The “Maybe Baby” effect in employment decisions. 

Pictured left to right: Dr. Alina Hernandez Bark (Goethe Institute), Jamie Gloor, Professor Tori Brescoll (Yale University), Levke Henningsen (UZH) and Dr. Avina Gupta (Deloitte Consulting).