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New research on gender in the workplace from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including "leaning-in," gender inequity, the social and economic effects of maternal employment, and gender diversity's effect on corporate financial performance.
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Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines

by Nava Ashraf, Dean Karlan & Wesley Yin

Does access to personal savings increase female decision-making power in the household? The answer could be important for policymakers looking to increase female empowerment. HBS professor Nava Ashraf and colleagues developed a commitment savings product called a SEED (Save, Earn, Enjoy Deposits) account with a small, rural bank in the Philippines. The SEED account requires that clients commit not to withdraw funds that are in the account until they reach a goal date or amount, but it does not explicitly commit the client to continue depositing funds after opening the account. This working paper examines the impact of the commitment savings product on both self-reported decision-making processes within the household and the subsequent household allocation of resources. Key concepts include: The commitment savings product positively impacts household decision-making power for women (i.e., the household is more likely to buy female-oriented durables) and self-perception of savings behavior (time-inconsistent females report being more disciplined savers), as well as actual consumption decisions regarding durable goods. A simple design feature such as a restriction on withdrawals or encouraging savings through marketing or door-to-door deposits can benefit women in search of self-control devices as well as those who desire to have more decision-making power in the household. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Beyond Gender and Negotiation to Gendered Negotiations

by Deborah Kolb & Kathleen L. McGinn

How does gender affect negotiations within organizations or rather how do organizations affect gender relations? Deborah Kolb, a professor at Simmons College School of Management, and HBS professor Kathleen McGinn explore how definitions of work, specified roles in organizations, status hierarchies, and the politics and practices of organizational realities affect how gender plays out in organizations. Considering gender in organizations from a "negotiated order perspective"—that is, from the perspective that cultural patterns and work practices are the result of past interaction and negotiation—not only expands the range of issues that are potentially negotiable, it also turns attention to rethinking certain dimensions of the negotiation process itself. Key concepts include: Following recent scholarship, the authors distinguish between "first generation" gender discrimination involving intentional acts of bias from "second generation" gender issues, practices that are embedded in organizational workings, that seem unbiased in isolation, but result in different experiences for and treatment of women and men. Certain roles may be deemed more suitable to men than women and vice versa, setting up the need to negotiate for opportunities and fit. A woman's effectiveness as a leader, and the authority she can claim, is often judged differently from that of her male counterparts. Access to networks and flexible work arrangements give rise to the need to negotiate and this need often falls along gendered lines. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

The Silo Lives! Analyzing Coordination and Communication in Multiunit Companies

by Sarah Jane Gilbert

A new Harvard Business School working paper looks inside the communications "black box" of a large company to understand who talks to whom, and finds the corporate silo as impenetrable as ever. Q&A with professor Toby E. Stuart. Key concepts include: Inside the studied company, practically speaking, little interaction occurred across three major corporate boundaries: business units, organizational functions, and office locations. Communication patterns were extremely hierarchical: Executives, middle managers, and rank-and-file employees communicated extensively within their own levels, but there were far fewer cross-pay-grade interactions in the firm. Junior executives, women, and members of the salesforce were the key actors in bridging the silos. Relative to men, women participate in a greater volume of electronic and face-to-face interactions and do so with a larger and more diverse set of communication partners. Server logs can provide valuable information to managers on communication flows within their own organizations. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

How Female Stars Succeed in New Jobs

by Martha Lagace

Women who are star performers on Wall Street tend to fare better than men after changing jobs. Why? According to HBS professor Boris Groysberg, star women place greater emphasis than men on external business relationships, and conduct better research on potential employers. Plus: Businesswomen are asked to share career experiences. Key concepts include: Star women performers invest more in external than in in-house relationships. They also tend to do far more due diligence than men when they receive a job offer. Organizations that deliberately set out to create female-friendly environments seem to reap a competitive advantage. Women in a male-dominated industry realize that they are vulnerable, but men are also vulnerable to bad management and cultural mismatches more than they realize. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization

by Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart & Michael L. Tushman

Coordination, and the communication it implies, is central to the very existence of organizations. Despite their fundamental role in the purpose of organizations, scholars have little understanding of actual interaction patterns in modern, complex, multiunit firms. To open the proverbial "black box" and begin to reveal the internal wiring of the firm, this paper presents a detailed, descriptive analysis of the network of communications among members of a large, structurally, functionally, geographically, and strategically diverse firm. The full data set comprises more than 100 million electronic mail messages and over 60 million electronic calendar entries for a sample of more 30,000 employees over a three-month period in 2006. Key concepts include: Communication is heavily constrained by formal organizational structure: the vast majority of communication occurs within business unit and functional boundaries, not across them. This points to the importance of drawing the right organizational boundaries. Women, mid- to high-level executives, and members of the executive management, sales, and marketing functions are most likely to participate in cross-group communications. These individuals provide a bridge for distant groups in a company's social structure. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Gender in Job Negotiations: A Two-Level Game

by Hannah Riley Bowles & Kathleen L. McGinn

The traditional division of labor between the sexes—women managing the private realm and men the public—continues to have an indirect influence on job negotiation outcomes through links between private realm and public realm negotiations. Women's negotiations at work are often constrained by agreements in negotiations at home. There still remains a significant "unexplained" difference in male and female compensation that, according to research in the past several years, cannot be accounted for by gender differences in work commitment, education, and experience, or other considerations such as unionization. The literature on gender in negotiation may offer insights with regard to how negotiation contributes to or could help diminish gender differences in compensation. Bowles and McGinn review two bodies of literature on gender in negotiation—one from psychology and organizational behavior on candidate-employer negotiations, and another from economics and sociology on household bargaining over chores and child care. Key concepts include: The traditional division of labor between the sexes—in which women managed the private realm and men the public—continues to have an indirect influence on job negotiation outcomes through gendered stereotypes feeding into gendered pay expectations. The effects of gender on job negotiations are best understood if negotiations at work are viewed as a two-level phenomenon in which candidates' job outcomes are the product of negotiations with domestic partners as well as prospective employers. Separate bodies of research on gender in candidate-employer negotiations and on gender in intra-household bargaining offer complementary insights into these two levels of negotiation. Taking stock of the practical implications of this literature may help candidates overcome disadvantageous effects of gender on job negotiations and facilitate the creation of greater value for their employers, their domestic partners, and themselves. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

HBS Cases: Beauty Entrepreneur Madam Walker

by Martha Lagace

She may have been the first self-made African American millionaire. Born of emancipated slaves, Madam C.J. Walker traveled from the cotton fields to business fame as a purveyor of hair-care products that offered beauty and dignity. Harvard Business School's Nancy F. Koehn and Katherine Miller explain what motivated her triumph. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Women Find New Path to Work

by Mallory Stark

Professor Myra Hart's New Path program helps Harvard Business School alumnae re-enter the work world. Here is a look at what participants learned about life, work, and the quickly changing world of business. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

When Gender Changes the Negotiation

by Dina W. Pradel, Hannah Riley Bowles & Kathleen L. McGinn

Gender is not a good predictor of negotiation performance, but ambiguous situations can trigger different behaviors by men and women. Here is how to neutralize the differences and reduce inequities. From Negotiation. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

What Perceived Power Brings to Negotiations

by Mallory Stark

What role does "perceived power" play in negotiations? For one thing, it may help all the parties take away a win at the table. Professor Kathleen McGinn discusses new research done with Princeton’s Rebecca Wolf. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Cash and the Woman-Owned Business

by Candida Brush, Nancy M. Carter, Elizabeth Gatewood, Patricia G. Greene & Myra M. Hart

Female entrepreneurs often lack start-up cash. This excerpt from the book Clearing the Hurdles, co-authored by HBS professor Myra M. Hart, explains what women can do about it. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Women Leaders and Organizational Change

by Mallory Stark

Merely expanding the number of women in leadership roles does not automatically induce organizational change. Harvard professor Robin Ely and Debra Meyerson call for fundamental changes to transform organizations. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Negotiating Challenges for Women Leaders

by Martha Lagace

When negotiating compensation, women often sell themselves short. Some practical advice on claiming the power to lead in this interview with HBS professor Kathleen L. McGinn and Harvard's Hannah Riley Bowles. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Enterprising Women—a History

by Laura Linard

In conjunction with the major exhibit "Enterprising Women: 250 Years of American Business," the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study recently presented a two-day program entitled Women, Money and Power. Harvard Business School professor Nancy F. Koehn participated in the conference's opening panel—an informal discussion and reflection on the exhibit and its major themes. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Secrets of the Successful Businesswoman

by Martha Lagace

What are the secrets of successful women in business? In separate keynote talks, Gail McGovern, a recent pick as one of Fortune magazine's fifty most powerful women in corporate America, and HBS professor Nancy F. Koehn laid out the facts. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.