Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to our 2nd annual humor workshop!

On behalf of Dr. Jenny Hofmann, Fiorina Giuliani, Prof. Willibald Ruch, and myself, we are pleased to announce that our exciting, interdisciplinary humor workshop for early career scholars has just received funding from the Graduate Campus to take place a second time. This year, we will also offer the option of virtual attendance if we receive enough interest from applicants, in the interest of sustainability and inclusion.

Reserve the dates now and plan to be in Zurich on January 30-31, 2020. We’ll have keynotes from top international humor scholars such as Sam Yam, a top 40 b-school prof under 40 (National University of Singapore), the well-published Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock (University of Hamburg), Valentina Bambini (Institute for Advanced Study of Pavia) and Rene Proyer (Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg), as well as paper development roundtables, critical topic discussions, and networking galore.

To apply, please send the following in a single, combined PDF to Dr. Jenny Hofmann by September 30, 2019 (extended to October 31, 2019):

• a 2-page (max.) CV; include your contact information, current affiliation, grants/awards, presentations, and publications,

• a short (1/4 page) motivation letter including your aims for the workshop (e.g., related to your research and career), and

• an abstract of a humor-related paper, including title, all authors and affiliations (250 words max).

All materials will be treated confidentially and only shared with the conference participants and experts. Of note, if you want to attend virtually, you still need to officially apply in the same way as the physical attendees.

More information will be posted here as we have it (e.g., a full, final list of confirmed speakers and a more detailed schedule), so stay tuned!

Leadership, Power, and Politics @IPLS

What a delight it was to catch-up with so many colleagues (e.g., my former TU Munich team members, pictured below) at the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Leadership Symposium in Corfu, Greece. As usual, Olga Epitropaki (Durham University) and Sophia Tzagaraki did a great job organizing. I also enjoyed the keynote by one of my Swiss colleagues, Christian Zehnder (University of Lausanne).

It was invigorating to present some new ideas we’re really excited about and to experience the impressive collective brain in the room for our papers on leadership, power, and humor (with Petra Schmid, ETH Zurich, and Sam Yam, NUS) and coauthor networks (with Brooke Gazdag).

I am grateful to the SAGW, who funded part of my conference travel.

Let's get digital! ...and inclusive.

Delighted to share that Prof. Brooke Gazdag (LMU) and my new big data research on digital inequality and collaboration in science has been accepted for presentation at the inaugural the ETH-organized conference on organizing in the digital era in Switzerland. *UPDATE* Due to a time conflict that arose after acceptance, however, we unfortunately had to withdraw our paper and miss out on this amazing conference.

Our symposium on humor (with Prof. Rashpal Densa-Khalon, University of Surrey, co-organizer, and Prof. Cecily Cooper, University of Miami, discussant) that includes my paper on humor in uncertainty, as well as the symposium on gender bias in organizations (led by Prof. Samantha Paustian-Underdahl, Florida State University, and Dr. Kate Frear, Center for Creative Leadership) that includes our paper on identity and motivated reasoning (with Profs. Tyler Okimoto, University of Queensland, and Xinxin Li, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) have been accepted for presentation at the 79th annual Academy of Management Conference in Boston.

Looking forward to meeting colleagues, coauthors, and new contacts, starting, joining, and continuing discussions, and sharing science on a local and global scale.

overworked and under-familied to advance "overworked & under-familied"

It seems ironic that I was just working long hours away from my family to finish up a paper titled, “Overworked and under-familied?”

But other than the computer system failure in Dusseldorf airport on my way over, my recent 25-hour visit with my coauthor, Professor Susanne Braun, at Durham University Business School was a very efficient, productive, and fun time! Durham has several renowned leadership scholars such as Bob Lord and Olga Epitropaki, as well as several super OCB and proactivity folks–just what our paper needed. The town itself is also an idyllic English vision–complete with a castle, cathedral, and several pubs where you can accidentally stumble upon quiz night…

Now I’m looking forward to seeing some of these scholars again in Korfu for our upcoming Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Leadership Symposium (where I met many of them last year), as well as finishing up and submitting this paper. Thanks again, Susanne and Durham Business School!

She travelled 13,000KM, so I travelled 300.

Prof. Jenny Hoobler, renowned researcher of gender, leadership, and work-family intersections, recently travelled 13,000KM from Pretoria, South Africa to visit Prof. Brooke Gazdag at LMU in Munich. As a long-time admirer of Jenny’s work as well as a coauthor and friend of Brooke’s, I also made the 300KM trip to discuss ideas and experiences (over beers–it was in Munich, after all), and enjoy her presentation of her recent Journal of Management paper for the Institute for Leadership and Organization.

Per usual, it was an absolute delight to see everyone (including catching up with many members of my awesome former TUM team), and I left with more energy, enthusiasm, and insights for my research and its implications. Dankie/danke, Jenny and Brooke, and the whole LMU crew!

My 1st FINT in snowy St. Gallen

Earlier this month, I attended my first FINT (First International Network on Trust) conference, which was conveniently located in the nearby Swiss city of St. Gallen. The conference included a fantastic line-up of speakers from academia, banking, and non-profit organizations, including UZH’s own Prof. Roberto Weber and St. Gallen’s Prof. Antoinette Weibel (she and her team seamlessly organized/hosted this fantastic event this year). I presented a “first cut” paper on humor as a trust cue as part of our current Swiss National Science Foundation project. I also actively participated in the many social events and Swiss experiences, including an Apéro with alphorn, Swiss fondue in a cheese factory, and yodeling with Appenzellers.

Attendees were encouraging and inclusive, even for me–a diversity researcher “outsider” who is merely beginning to dabble in trust research. Indeed, my first FINT was a cool experience (both metaphorically and literally). I’m delighted to have started the year off right with such inspiring presentations, interactions, and discussions.

For more information about FINT, see here. All photos credited to the official FINT photographer, Altius Media.

"Improving Lives" @AOM 2018 in Chicago

78th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management

The 5-day Academy of Management (AOM) Conference just concluded in Chicago, USA. With more than 11,000 experts from around the world, I joined 6 of my Munich team members and my UZH team member to actively engage in scholarly conversations about ways that leaders and organizations can improve employee well-being as well as our society as a whole.

Together with Claudia Peus (TUM), I organized a symposium on early career (female) leaders and fit, drawing from leading international scholars from China, Colombia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, and the USA. Together with Xinxin Li and Sandy Lim (NUS), I presented a new experimental study on gender, parenthood, and selective incivility at work. Finally, through the OB early career faculty workshop, the leadership research incubator and the GDO early career faculty paper workshop, I received invaluable advice on other papers, including my new humor project with Agnes Baeker (UZH).

It was fantastic to reconnect with colleagues and coauthors, make new connections over shared curiosities, start some new projects, and see a little bit of Chicago. However, 5 days of packed schedules with 11,000+ conference-goers and a 7-hour time change is enough to make even this extreme extrovert a bit tired...

"Leaders who care: Better leaders by (not) being there?"

Last week, Jamie presented an empirical paper at the 50th European Association for Social Psychology in Granada, Spain titled, Caring leaders: The impact of parental leave on the perception of transformational leadership. Coauthored with Dr. Lisa Horvath, Professors Susanne Braun and Claudia Peus (abstract/more info here), this paper provides fresh, first results from the ForGenderCare project and was part of a stellar symposium titled, Barriers to achieving gender equality: Shortcomings of placing the burden on women with top gender, diversity, and leadership scholars (more info here).

EASP hosted ~1,200 scholars and practitioners from across Europe, the United States, Australia and beyond from disciplines such as social, developmental, and work psychology, management and organizational behavior. Jamie and her paper received a warm welcome with a room full of attendees and average temperatures that reached 30+ degrees... 

Just a few weeks prior, Jamie also presented the paper at the Executive Education Center of the Technical University of Munich as part of the Munich Leadership Colloquium, where she received encouraging and formative feedback.