Award Abstract # 1837920
Workshop: Fostering gender and work-life inclusion for faculty in Business Schools and Understudied Contexts: An Organizational Science Lens - West Lafayette, IN - Oct 1-2, 2018

NSF Org: SES
Division of Social and Economic Sciences
Recipient: PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: July 2, 2018
Latest Amendment Date: July 2, 2018
Award Number: 1837920
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Sara Kiesler
skiesler@nsf.gov
 (703)292-8643
SES
 Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE
 Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Start Date: September 1, 2018
End Date: August 31, 2022 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $49,604.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $49,604.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2018 = $49,604.00
History of Investigator:
  • Ellen Kossek (Principal Investigator)
  • Kyung Hee Lee (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Purdue University
2550 NORTHWESTERN AVE # 1100
WEST LAFAYETTE
IN  US  47906-1332
(765)494-1055
Sponsor Congressional District: 04
Primary Place of Performance: Purdue University
Young Hall
West Lafayette
IN  US  47907-2114
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
04
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): YRXVL4JYCEF5
Parent UEI: YRXVL4JYCEF5
NSF Program(s): SoO-Science Of Organizations
Primary Program Source: 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 7556, 8050
Program Element Code(s): 803100
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.075

ABSTRACT

Work-life demands are a critical barrier to the career advancement, inclusion, and retention of women and minority faculty and research scientists; yet implementation gaps have received less scientific attention than other equality areas. Although some research has been conducted on these issues in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) departments, little knowledge has transferred over to professional schools and other disciplines, which play a key role in economic growth, such as in "big data" and entrepreneurial jobs. Addressing these gaps, this workshop will gather interdisciplinary experts to discuss the state of organizational science regarding gender equality, career success, and work-life inclusion in business schools and understudied contexts. The results of the workshop will help advance gender diversity, and women?s and minorities' career success in universities, business, and society by identifying scientific gaps, prioritizing studies; and addressing an under-researched critical area of organizational science. The research agenda developed will encourage future interdisciplinary scholarship on gender equality and work-life inclusion that can help policymakers to engage in evidence-based practices. New insights will be fostered on the organizational science regarding how to foster more gender and work-life inclusive businesses and universities and will advance scientific knowledge on strategies enhancing the attraction, advancement, retention, and career longevity of women faculty; and addressing societal inequality. The workshop products include a website and publications that will be disseminated to the public and policymakers. This workshop addresses a critical national policy area related to increasing labor market equality for women and minorities.

Despite growing scientific attention to advancing women and minorities in universities generally, and in professional schools specifically, the gender and related work-life inclusion picture remains bleak. Addressing gender inequality requires greater dual scientific inquiry into the science of organizations involving the more effective implementation of formal work-life policies such as extending the tenure clock or dual career hire incentives, and the creation of "work-life inclusive climates." A work-life inclusive climate is defined as one where a faculty member would not feel s/he would have to sacrifice their family and non-work identities in order to succeed in the job role. The goals of this interdisciplinary workshop is (1) to assess work-life and career issues and linkages to faculty gender inclusion and diversity in business schools and understudied contexts from an organizational science perspective; (2) to define the scientific terrain of faculty gender and work-life inclusion and intersectionality linkages; (3) to increase knowledge of the science of fostering gender, work-life inclusion, career success and organizational change in understudied faculty contexts; and (4) to foster interdisciplinary conversation with thought leaders, researchers and exemplary key decision-makers in order to identify scientific antecedents, outcomes and future research gaps. The results of the workshop will be widely distributed to inform the public, researchers, university decision-makers, and policymakers including a workshop website with thought paper abstracts and a workshop report; national presentations, an open-access peer-reviewed publication.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Allen, Tammy and Mor Barak, Michalle and Creary, Stephanie and Dumas, Tracy and Dwertmann, David and Fox, Mary Frank and Furst-Holloway, Stacie and Johnson, Stefanie and King, Eden and Kossek, Ellen Enrst and Kray, Laura and Ladge, Jamie and Leana, Carrie "Fostering Gender and Work-Life Inclusion for Faculty in Understudied Contexts: An Organizational Science Lense" Fostering Gender and Work-Life Inclusion for Faculty in Understudied Contexts: An Organizational Science Lens , 2020 Citation Details
Kossek, Ellen Ernst and Lee, Kyung-Hee "Work-life Inclusion for Womens Career Equality" Organizational Dynamics , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2020.100818 Citation Details

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

NSF Workshop

Fostering Gender and Work-Life Inclusion for Faculty in Understudied Contexts: An Organizational Science Lens

On October 1 and 2, 2018, an NSF workshop entitled Fostering Gender and Work-Life Inclusion for Faculty in Understudied Contexts: An Organizational Science Lens, was held at Purdue University, at the Krannert School of Management, organized by Dr. Ellen Ernst Kossek, the Basil S. Turner Distinguished Professor of Management.  The purpose of the workshop was to bring together 22 national  U.S. experts in work-life and diversity issues, junior faculty, doctoral students; and deans from across to discuss the current research understanding and knowledge gaps on the state of organizational science regarding the intersectionality of gender and work-life inclusion, career inequality, and evidence-based need for change in many organizational contexts including but beyond STEM.

The workshop addressed the growing problem that although work-life demands are a critical barrier to the career advancement, inclusion, and retention of women and minority faculty and research scientists; implementation gaps between policy needs and practice have received less scientific attention than other gender equality areas. Although some research has been conducted on these concerns in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) departments, little knowledge has transferred over to other disciplines such as business schools, which play a key role in economic growth, such as in "big data" and entrepreneurial jobs.

The workshop increased knowledge regarding the characteristics of a "work-life inclusive climate." A work-life inclusive climate is defined as an organizational climate where a faculty member would not feel s/he would have to sacrifice their family and non-work identities in order to succeed in the job role. (Kossek, 2019). A key finding of the workshop is that work-life issues are still not as well-integrated into the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion discussion as they should be to help foster gender equality. Work-life issues are still largely thought of as HR benefits matter, but less as a diversity and inclusion cultural barrier to women's advancement.  Another key finding is the leaders' roles in fostering work-life inclusion as an organizational strategy to close the gender gap is overlooked.

 Attendees discussed cross-cutting themes across eight topics: what is gender and work-life inclusion, intersectionality; technology and boundary control; work-life stigmatization and overwork cultures; organizational work-family support for dual career and singles; leader's roles in institutional change; discrimination; organizational performance and strategy. The conference outcomes include: publications, a website with videos, monograph, future research agenda and leader actions.

  • Future Research agenda. The experts identified four career equality linked challenges:

1. Overwork, motherhood guilt, parental burnout, downshifting career ambition

The overwork ideal worker culture, where putting in long work hours and jobs first before all other life roles fosters gender inequality.  Mothers report higher parental burnout than fathers, which decreases their career ambition.

2. The dark side of telework: Extended availability, work tethering and interruptions

Despite the benefits of technology in granting faculty flexibility and options to work outside of the office 24-7, it can tether faculty to work in ways that harm well-being. Extended availability, work tethering, and interruptions harm women more than men because female professors receive more requests for service.

3. HR system gender gaps in dual-career supports, service demands, evaluation, and pay

Gender gap still persists when it comes to dual-career hiring, service workload, performance, promotion, and tenure.

4. Gendered flexibility stigma, penalties ( and privilege) of using family policies

Even a “seemingly gender-neutral” policies such as “stop-the-clock” policy have gendered effects. “Stop-the-clock” policy increased male professors’ chances of being tenured by 19%, while decreasing female professors’ tenure likelihood by 22% Each year of using paid maternity leave lowers a woman’s wage growth rate by 3.1% during the first year after using the policy.

  • Future Policy: The conference identified 7 leader actions to advance gender and work-life inclusion.

1. Enhance leader messaging for work-life inclusiveness

2. Broaden definitions of career success

3. Seriously increase dual-career support resources and avoid partner "othering" language

4. Address cultural bias in HR systems and make leaders accountable.

5. Broadly support intersectionality in diverse identities while balance disclosure choice.

6. Take action to enhance employee's work-life boundary control and mitigate overworking.

7. Consider innovative employer experiments to nudge change in work-life norms.

 


Last Modified: 09/06/2022
Modified by: Ellen E Kossek

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