Prof. Dr. Brooke A. Gazdag

In this essay, our analysis takes important insights on diversity and inclusion from the behavioral literature but critically contextualizes them against the reality of humanitarian operations. Humanitarian operations are characterized by system immanent diversity, particularly between local and expatriate aid workers, who not only bring valuable different perspectives to the table but also differ along multiple dimensions of diversity into a so-called diversity faultline. Such a faultline, however, provides fertile ground for continued conflict resulting in relational fractures and, ultimately, inefficient collaboration. While, in theory, inclusion could help overcome the negative effects of faultlines, in practice, the time pressure for humanitarian organizations to quickly respond to disasters makes it effectively impossible to engage in it. Against this background, we argue, humanitarian organizations should take preemptive action before disaster strikes. Specifically, we posit that the pre-disaster phase presents an opportunity to engage in inclusion in order to cultivate relational resilience between local and expatriate aid workers. Such resilience would enable them to not only better weather the inevitable relational fractures during a disaster response (and thus stay more functional throughout), but also quickly realign with each other in the post-disaster phase. We conclude with a set of concrete recommendations for practicing inclusion in the pre-disaster phase.

Demographic diversity (e.g., gender, age, race, ethnicity) in strategic leadership teams (i.e., boards of directors and top management teams) has received global attention recently. Policymakers have promoted diversity policies by citing the “business case” for diversity that suggests a positive (causal) effect on firm performance. Our focus is twofold: First, we systematically evaluate the methodological rigor of 64 studies on the relationship between strategic leadership team demographic diversity and firm performance (1994–2023) from Financial Times (FT) 50 journals, finding that ca. 70 percent show implausible causal effects, ca. 20 percent lack sufficient information, and only 11 percent (N = 7) demonstrate plausible causal effects. Second, we synthesize research findings of the seven studies. The five studies on gender diversity yield mixed results: some report positive or negative effects, whereas the majority finds no effects on firm performance. Regarding ancestral and genetic diversity, the studies support the business case argument. Overall, our review provides three key insights: (1) a critical evaluation of the causal evidence regarding the business case for demographic diversity in strategic leadership teams, (2) a synthesis of the research findings by focusing on rigorously conducted studies, and (3) hands-on recommendations for refining future approaches for causal research.

Identifying as an organizational member — or feeling a strong sense of attachment to the organization — is generally a positive thing for employees and employers. But our research on workplace incivility and mistreatment shows that it can also shape when — and if — employees recognize and respond to subtle forms of discrimination against women at work. Evidence shows that leaders, as well as employees, play a key role in identifying and remedying gender discrimination in all its forms. If the goal is to proactively address gender discrimination in the workplace and encourage leaders and workers to remove their rose-colored glasses, this article offers a few suggestions.

Extant research has used the COVID-19 pandemic as a context to test the “women leadership advantage during crisis” hypothesis. An influential paper reported that women U.S. governors were associated with fewer COVID-19 deaths. Building on this work, we demonstrate that methodological assumptions play a critical role in our interpretation of findings. First, we conduct a literal replication (Study 1) of the original study to validate our dataset. Second, a series of constructive replications (Studies 2A-D) shows the results rely on methodological assumptions that are not fully supported. Without these assumptions, we find no evidence for the “women leadership advantage during crisis” hypothesis. Third, in two constructive replications focusing on U.S. counties and Brazilian municipalities, we causally test the relationship between strategic leader gender and COVID-19 deaths using a geographic matching design (Study 3A) and a regression discontinuity design (Study 3B). Again, we find no evidence for the “women leadership advantage during crisis” hypothesis. Collectively, we demonstrate that when following the methodological precedent of extant research, we were able to replicate previously identified relationships between gender and leadership outcomes, but after accounting for endogeneity and basic assumptions of linear models, we were no longer able to replicate these effects. In all our constructive replications, we found no significant difference in the effectiveness of women and men strategic leaders in crises.

Traditionally, leadership scholars often study snapshots of leaders in organizations. However, academic publishing offers a unique, more controlled context to study leadership with implications for leadership scholars and scholarship. Hence, we present a descriptive overview of women’s representation across 33 years in 11 top management journals across levels of leaders in academic publishing (i.e., editors, associate editors, and editorial board members) and authors. To do so, we curated an archival dataset tracking women’s representation over time and across these four levels (i.e., 21,510 authors and 4,173 leaders) with 51,360 data entries for the authors and 320,545 for the leaders. Overall, women’s representation increased over time, which was explained by simple time trend effects. Only 32 of 135 editors were women (i.e., 23.7 %), and the share of women associate editors showed particularly drastic fluctuations. We did not observe a “leaky pipeline” except from the associate editor to editor step, as well as notable fluctuations—particularly after new editor appointments—and between journals. We discuss the influential roles editors and publishers have on women’s representation in academic publishing and science more broadly as well as implications for future research and policy.