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!

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

Why the future is…funny? (TEDx Zurich talk)

Wow! I’m incredibly grateful for the organizers, coaches, hosts, translators, 100(ish) volunteers and folks behind the scenes, 800(ish) attendees (including some of my family, team, and friends!), and 9 other speakers who bravely shared their big ideas at a very inclusive TEDx Zurich yesterday! What a powerful and unforgettable experience with loads of creative and inspiring ideas and individuals.

In my 12-min. talk, I wove a narrative through my years of research on diversity, (social) sustainability, and humor—condensed into 3 key points—pointing to why the future is (or rather should be) funny.

***Want to know more? Check out the video here.***

As our team grows and we remain active in countless ways across HSG (and beyond), please follow us on LinkedIn or our CCDI page for a more complete and current overview of our team, engagements, research, and impact.

To slow down climate change, speed up gender equity?

On behalf of my coauthors Eugenia Bajet Mestre, Corinne Post, and Winfried Ruigrok, we’re delighted to share our new article on the nexxus between gender/diversity, leadership, and sustainability.

Gender equity and environmental sustainability may seem like unrelated issues, but research shows that they are in fact closely intertwined. Women and other underserved groups are disproportionately impacted by the global climate crisis, but they are also uniquely positioned to lead the fight for sustainability. We offer six strategies to help business and political leaders empower women and address environmental challenges through an intersectional approach to sustainability. To tackle climate change (as well as the myriad other sustainability challenges that face today’s organizations), we argue that leaders must acknowledge the complexity and interconnectedness of these issues — and work to develop integrated solutions that will improve them all.

Artwork accompanying our article in HBR by the talented Lars Leetaru.

See here for the original article in Harvard Business Review (in English).

See here for the television interview with Jamie Gloor in TVO (in German).

We’re delighted to see our work featured as “Strategic Intelligence” by the World Economic Forum and gaining above-average traction for Harvard Business Review articles with 22,000+ hits after only 1 month published.

But what do you think? Share your comments here—let’s keep the discussion going as we aim for awareness and positive impact in the areas of gender/diversity, leadership, and (social) sustainability.

Women in Leadership Micro-Conference in St.Gallen

Just before Easter, we welcomed an all-star group of keynotes and early-career scholars from the the US, the UK, Canada, Germany, Switzerland—and beyond—in the beautiful Weiterbildungzentrum (WBZ) in sunny St.Gallen. These scholars and practitioners are working across psychology, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, and operations management on topics related to gender/diversity and leadership.

It’s already a few weeks later now, but I’m still feeling inspired by conversations with and presentations by Raina Brands (UCL), Aneeta Rattan (LBS), Corinne Post (Villanova), Alyson Meister (IMD), Amanda Shantz and Charlotta Siren (HSG), our incoming post-doc (Mihwa Seong, Ivey Business School), CCDI scholars and practitioners (Eugenia Bajet Mestre, Theresa Goop, Nicole Niedermann, and Giannina Faktor), the fantastic social innovation duo from practice (Cynthia Hansen and Liana Melchenko at Adecco), Lauren Howe (UZH), Regina Dutz (TUM), Caren Goldberg (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow), and Eva Lin (LBS)!

Thanks again to SNF for funding this event, to our amazing attendees who shared their research and stories behind it, and to Eugenia Bajet Mestre for her extraordinary effort facilitating hybrid participation and organization.

Non-traditional paths for non-traditional leaders

Check out the new teaser for our new project (below).

Leadership: Exclusively human?

What would the world look like if socially-skilled robots stepped into the roles normally reserved for humans?

Together with Lauren Howe, David De Cremer, and Sam Yam, we explore these questions–and more–in this thought piece on how “soft skills” such as humor–often touted as exclusively human skills for future workers–may power robots’ rise into leadership roles. (See here in The European Business Review).

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.

My future of work in the future of work

My future of work will be researching the future of work and leadership at the University of Exeter Business School in Exeter, England, as Senior Lecturer (tenured).

If the name doesn’t sound familiar because of it’s well-ranked research and teaching programs, it might sound familiar as the school where writing legend and Harry Potter creator, JK Rowling, studied.

Leadership: Uniquely human?

Tune-in here for our recent session on AI & Leadership at Applied Machine Learning Days.

Thanks again for the invitation, Marisa Tschopp and Simon Schafheitle. So much fun and food for thought!