Tag: gender

Women are on the rise at Olin Business School. Five tenure-track female professors join the faculty this fall in the areas of marketing, organizational behavior, and finance. Olin also welcomes a female visiting professor in economics from Carnegie Mellon. And on the student side of the desk, the MBA Class of 2019 is reporting an uptick in the gender category with 39% women.

“We are pleased to welcome so many talented newcomers to the Olin community,” said Vice Dean Todd Milbourn. “We will all benefit from the talent and knowledge they bring to our educational mission.”

Pictured above left to right, front row: Kang, Huang, Hardin; center row: Perfecto, Liao, organizational behavior postdoc; top row: Scott, Ruttan. Photo by Jerry Naunheim.

Ashley Hardin, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavioral

• PhD, Business Administration, 2017, University of Michigan
• Prior to Olin: Instructor, University of Michigan
• Research Interests: Quantitative Social Research, Quantitative Social Research, Social Psychology

Xing Huang, Assistant Professor of Finance

• PhD, Economics, 2013, University of California at Berkeley
• Prior to Olin: Assistant Professor of Finance, Michigan State University
• Research Interests: Behavioral Finance, Asset Pricing, Investor Behavior, Market Efficiency, Information Acquisition, Mutual Funds, Household Finance

Karam Kang, Visiting Professor of Economics

• PhD, Economics, 2012, University of Pennsylvania
• Prior to Olin:  Assistant Professor of Economics, Carnegie Mellon University
• Research Interests: Political Economy, Industrial Organization, Environmental Economics

Zhenyu Liao, Postdoc for Organizational Behavior

• PhD, Management and Organization, 2017, National University of Singapore
• Prior to Olin: Research Assistant, National University of Singapore
• Research Interests: Leadership Behavior and Dynamic, Event Perspective, Interpersonal Interaction

Hannah Perfecto, Assistant Professor of Marketing

• PhD, Business Administration, 2017, University of California, Berkeley
• Prior to Olin: Teaching Assistant, 2017, University of California, Berkeley
• Research Interests: Consumer Behavior, Behavioral Decision Theory, Metacognition, Field Experiments, Research Replicability and Reliability

Rachel Ruttan, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior

• PhD, Management and Organizations, 2017, Northwestern University
• Prior to Olin: Instructor, Management and Organizations, Negotiations, Northwestern University
• Research Interests: Compassion and Prosocial Behavior, Values and Moral Judgment, Emotion

Sydney Scott, Assistant Professor of Marketing

• PhD, Marketing and Psychology, 2017, University of Pennsylvania
• Prior to Olin: Teaching Assistant, 2017, University of Pennsylvania
• Research Interests: Morality and Consumption, Judgment and Decision Making, Preferences for Natural Products

A recent post on The Atlantic by Olga Khazan considers research into various interventions aimed at reducing racial bias. She finds, “Most people are biased against other races, but some odd psychological interventions can help.”

She also cites research by Olin’s Michelle Duguid, Associate Professor of organizational behavior, who discovered some interventions can be counter productive when aimed at gender bias:

“Some interventions appear to be counterproductive, reinforcing prejudice even as they tried to destroy it. Michelle Duguid of Washington University in St. Louis has found that telling people that negative stereotypes about women are very common actually led them to stereotype women more negatively.”

GoodCall, a website that covers higher education, turns to Olin’s Markus Baer for his comments on the topic of creativity gender bias which is a special focus of his research.

“According to Markus Baer, PhD, associate professor of organizational behavior at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, there are two primary reasons why gender stereotypes are so pronounced when people judge creativity. “First, people have a romantic view of creativity. The creative person is often considered to be the lone artist or inventor toiling away in isolation and against all odds trying to create the next big idea.” Although, Baer says this romantic view is far from being accurate, it continues to persist.

He also says that the very idea of judging creativity is inherently tricky because it is difficult to assess the creativeness and useful of an idea. “Whether or not something is useful can often only be determined post hoc and so there is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to judging creativity.”

GoodCall quotes Prof. Baer in a report on new research from Duke University that finds “women think men are more creative.”

“Recent research reveals that both males and females have a tendency to rate men as more creative than women. A series of studies by Duke University researchers examining gender bias and creativity found that women were consistently ranked less creative than their male peers.”

Link to article on GoodCall.

Related post about Prof. Baer’s research.

Image: by Michael Caven, artist painting a portrait on the street outside Eaton Centre in Toronto, Canada; Flikr, Creative Commons

Claire McCaskill participated in her first political campaign in 1960 when she was 7 years old. It was Halloween and when her neighbors in the conservative Missouri town of Lebanon opened their doors, she chimed, “Trick or Treat. Vote for JFK!” She didn’t realize it then, but clearly sees now that her parents were teaching her how to be a risk-taker and stand up for what you believe in.

McCaskill, now the senior senator from Missouri in the US Congress, was a guest speaker  Oct. 30 in the Women & Leadership course co-taught by Michelle Duguid, associate professor of organizational behavior and Maxine Clark, founder and former CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop. The course examines career paths, challenges, and choices for women in today’s workplace. McCaskill is one of nine women leaders scheduled to share their stories with students in the class.

Image Courtesy of Simon & Schuster

During her informal talk with students followed by questions and answers, McCaskill talked about her unbridled ambition to be in politics ever since she was 13. She emphatically told her audience of undergraduate and graduate women (and a few men), that “women should own their ambition.” It’s nothing to be ashamed of, she said, instead,”women need to embrace the fact that ambition is using your abilities to drive toward your goals.”

The Senator shared many lessons that she learned the hard way as she broke barriers for women in the Missouri legislature, Kansas City prosecuting attorney’s office, as Missouri Auditor and a US Senator.

Despite a 3 a.m. roll call in the Senate the night before, McCaskill delivered an energetic and inspiring talk in her signature straight-shooter style. In addition to comments on the current presidential campaign and gridlock in Congress, she shared timeless words of wisdom with the students:

“Every time I was marginalized, I used it as fuel to focus my drive.”

“Don’t submit to the disease to appease. You can’t lead by making everyone happy – if you do you are naive.”

“To grow confidence, you need to do something a little scary to push through the fear.”

“You are not evil and manipulative if you are strategic.”

“Be authentic to what you believe in. Stay grounded.”

Sen. McCasskill’s recently published memoir, Plenty Ladylike, is on the syllabus for the course along with case studies involving discrimination and research on gender differences, bias and stereotypes in the workplace.

Other speakers scheduled for the Women & Leadership course include:

According to an article on The Huffington Post Canada blog, a recent survey from the Workplace Bullying Institute revealed that female office bullies target other women more than 70 per cent of the time. The article also refers to research by Olin’s Michelle Duguid who found that most top female brass discourage new women employees for two main reasons: they feel threatened in their role as the token smart women or fear the new hire will act stupidly and make them look bad.

Read a summary of Prof. Duguid’s research paper, “Female Tokens in High-Prestige Work Groups: Catalysts or Inhibitors of Group Diversification?” in Olin Praxis here.