Swiss Summit on Leadership, Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity (2023) in Zurich

Thanks again to the 52 folks from universities (e.g., University of St.Gallen, University of Zurich, University of Geneva, London Business School, DCU Business School, Purdue University, Copenhagen Business School, ETH Zürich, University of Lausanne - UNIL, University of Konstanz, etc.) and practice (e.g., PwC, Femmes Juristes Suisse - Juristinnen Schweiz, & Adecco) who joined our inaugural, interdisciplinary summit on leadership, diversity, and inclusion last week in Zurich! 🙌

We explored questions related to emotional diversity, work-family, women's charisma, going beyond the gender binary, virtual inclusive leadership, mature workers, humor/well-being in flat hierarchies, sexual harassment, maternity & "maybe baby" bias, interventions for more equity at work, (male) allyship, authenticity (when, why, & for whom?), sustainable leadership, new methods (e.g., avatars and prospective meta-analyses), and more! 🤓

Our aim was to share knowledge and foster connections--especially for our early career scholars--within and beyond 🇨🇭, within and beyond academia 💡. Check out this amazing video summary of the event from the talented Sophie Moser’s perspective (PhD student at the University of Konstanz).

Thanks again to all who joined--especially our super bright PhD students and post-docs 🌟 (all here with their talk titles and affiliations: https://lnkd.in/e7ghkEV3), experienced moderator and expert panelists (e.g., Gudrun Sander, Prof. Dr., Franciska Krings, Liana Melchenko, Joséphine Marmy, Christiane Löwe, & Jacques Berent, PhD), stellar keynotes by Janine Bosak, Thekla Morgenroth (+ special shout-out to Florence Villesèche)--and last, but not least, my ever-engaged and talented co-organizers: Lauren Howe & Clara Kulich. 🙏 (2 of us shown here, since Lauren was unfortunately sick.)

Gratitude for all involved, especially our funding from SNSF Swiss National Science Foundation, University of Zurich, Geneva School of Economics and Management - UNIGE, Competence Centre for Diversity & Inclusion (CCDI-FIM) - University of St.Gallen (HSG), assistance from UZH Digital Society Initiative, & Brice Olivier Mbigna Mbakop. 🙏 While every one did a stellar job, I was particularly proud of my team’s stellar representation from the PLAID lab at CCDI (FIM-HSG; see below).

On the far left, you also see our new post-doc: Huong Pham. She finished her dissertation at LMU and brings methods expertise and interests in leader-follower granting processes. Dr. Pham will lead a paper on leader signalling via sports in our Swiss National Science Foundation Project. Welcome to the team, Huong!

#leadership #diversity #inclusion #dei #futureofwork #futureofleadership #sustainability #management #psychology #business #ethics #philosophy

Subtle Biases & Structural Change for Gender Equality at UZH

A recent article published in the University of Zurich (UZH) journal featured the 8 projects of the UZH Gender Equality Action Plan (2013-2016). For more information about the Action Plan, the individual projects, or specific results from several of the projects, see here.

As 1 of these 8, our "Assistant Professor Project" (together with Professor Bruno Staffelbach, Dr. Anja Feierabend, and Susanne Mehr, MA UZH) at the faculty for business, economics, and informatics was also featured. In this project, we examined the career and life stages leading up to and including the Assistant Professorship, to determine if this position is a suitable springboard for a professorship. Given that family formation overlays this critical career period, an event that entails more negative gender-based career stereotypes and expectations for women than for men, we also examined if achieving an Assistant Professorship (or higher) differs according to scholar gender, parenthood, or both factors.

Examining gender, parenthood, and the interaction of gender and parenthood (i.e., childless women and men, mothers and fathers) is key in light of the "maybe baby" bias, namely, expectations of risk that a young childless woman might have a child soon. In other words, scholar age is used as a proxy for childbearing chance, which triggers gendered expectations of uncertainty pertaining to temporary (during parental leave) or longer-term (drop-out from the labor market) cost and inconvenience for young female scholars, but not young male scholars.

In 2 peer-reviewed papers presented (2015) or accepted for presentation (2017) at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, a yearly gathering of 10,000+ international management scholars, my coauthors and I argue that even potential parenthood can be hazardous for young women striving to get ahead in their careers: we show that "maybe baby" expectations contribute to gender biases in employment through decision-makers' hiring decisions towards young childless women (here) and coworkers' and supervisors' interpersonal treatment of young childless women (here).

Our central recommendation for an evidence-based structural change to reduce "maybe baby" bias is to more evenly allocate parental leave to both women and men. Currently, women are allotted significantly more parental leave than men at the national- and organizational-levels in Switzerland. Although likely well-intended to aid new mothers' work-life integration, these gender-based discrepancies in parental leave allocation asymmetrically increase the expected cost and inconvenience of women's (potential) childbearing, but not men's. For more information about the Assistant Professor project or our other recommendations, see our final report here.