Trust in Scientists: Many Labs Study

I’ve studied trust in leaders (and if it differs by team gender diversity and leader gender; here) and if humor affects trust in job interviews (here). But trust in scientists?

As part of the Swiss contingent of scholars working in a massive, Many Labs study led by Viktoria Cologna (Harvard) and Niels Mede (UZH), we surveyed more than 70,000 people across 67 countries to explore public trust in scientists.

Results show that average trust was high; people also agreed that scientific methods are the best way to test if something is true. However, these effects differed by country (e.g., trust in scientists was highest in Egypt, India, and Nigeria but lowest in Albania, Kazakhstan, and Bolivia) and political orientation (e.g., “left-leaning” orientation was positively associated with trust in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, and China).

These findings have important and timely implications for scientists’ successful involvement in public policy as well as their engagement with areas of public concern (e.g., global pandemics and other grand challenges such as climate change).

For the pre-print, see here; the data will also be made publicly available after our paper is published (it’s current status is “revise and resubmit”).

We were delighted to see the paper awarded “Best Data Collection: Quantitative” at the Market Research Society conference, as well as featured by Nature News (and several German news outlets).

Exchanging & Inspiring with International & Interedisciplinary Scholars

We were delighted to share some of our research in the prestigous and selective “Organization Science Winter Conference” in Zurich (below). We discussed the work-in-progress with a range of scholars from Switzerland, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, and the U.S.

Thanks again to the organizers from ETH Zurich and to all of the participants for the warm welcome of our more micro-research in this historically more macro research community. We’re integrating the feedback and hoping to submit our paper soon.

Our core PLAID lab team were also delighted to share a new paper (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) on how playfulness can facilitate interactions and networking across diversity (e.g., men and women, lower and higher-status persons) in organizations. In total, 31 research groups from across HSG shared their sustainability-related insights. See here for more information.

Do you want to measure your DEI impact (and more)?

We’re looking for organizational partners for our research on men’s role in workplace gender equity.

In this collaboration, we will assess your employees’ perceptions of diversity and inclusion. Over one year, we will send short surveys to your employees to learn about inclusion practices, well-being, and leadership (3 times, <10 min).

What’s in it for you?

1.       You will receive an executive summary with customized, practical recommendations from Diversity,
Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) experts.

2.       You can add additional, customized items to the surveys (e.g., to assess aspect of engagement, flex-
work/-time, relevant to your needs).

3.       This is a unique opportunity to advance—and evaluate—your commitment to DEI while also
contributing to the newest scientific insights on the topic.

This research collaboration is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and is free of charge for you.

Interested? Please contact Eugenia Bajet Mestre, Project Manager and Research Assistant.

Male Allyship Description

For more information on male allyship or our new and highly-rated hybrid training, see our video (above) or our website here.

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

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!

Researchathon: Leadership in the Digital Age

24 scholars + 24hrs + 4 mentors, teams, & innovative ideas = 1 successful researchathon!

Our team developed and presented an exciting new idea, “From a distance: Digital leaders’ trust building and repair.”

Thanks to Ellen Schmid, Ulf Steinberg, Emanuel Schreiner, & Simon Pfältzer for the organization. Thanks to Deanne Den Hartog, Ilke Inceoglu, Claudia Peus, & Ronit Kark for the mentorship. And last but not least, thanks to all of our enthusiastic attendees: Fabiola H. Gerpott, Brooke Gazdag, Tanja Hentschel, Kristin Knipfer, Stephanie Rehbock, Armin Pircher Verdorfer, Petra Kipfelsberger, Aldijana Bunjak, Corinna Bertling, Oliver Niebuhr, Paul Westhoff...and many more!

What a fabulous way to kick-off the new Technical University of Munich campus in Heibronn!

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. 

"Work-Life & Diversity at the University" Student Poster Session

During our poster session on Friday, December 9th, at PLM-103/104 (Plattenstrasse 14), my 16 Master-level HRM students presented 5 empirical research projects around the topic of "Work-Life & Diversity," showcasing their original analyses using data collected from ~2,000 early career academics from all over Switzerland. 

For more info, see our flyer, handout, as well as all 5 posters here.