In 1963, the first women were admitted to Harvard Business School's two-year MBA program. The 50th anniversary is being celebrated this year at HBS with new faculty research, case studies, and a series of on-campus events and programs focused on the contributions of women to HBS and to the world of business management.
Here are recent articles and working papers on faculty research that focus on gender issues in the workplace and offer specific actions that companies can use to address them. We will be highlighting more work in this area as it develops.
This article is part of a continuing series on faculty research and teaching commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first women to enter Harvard Business School's two-year MBA program.
Few Women on Boards: Is There a Fix?
Women hold only 14 percent of the board seats at S&P 1500 companies. Why is that, and what —if anything —should business leaders and policymakers do about the gender disparity? Research by Professor Boris Groysberg and colleagues shows that male and female board members have very different takes on the issue
Better by the Bunch: Evaluating Job Candidates in Groups
The key to avoiding gender stereotyping in the hiring process lies in evaluating job candidates as a group, rather than one at a time. So says new research by Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen, and Max H. Bazerman.
Leadership Program for Women Targets Subtle Promotion Biases
Despite more women in the corporate work force, they still are underrepresented in executive officer positions. Professor Robin Ely and colleagues propose a new way to think about developing women for leadership.
Gender and Competition: What Companies Need to Know
Do women shy away from competition and thus hurt their careers? Research by Harvard's Kathleen L. McGinn, Iris Bohnet, and Pinar Fletcher suggests the answer is not black and white, and that employers need to understand the "genderness" of their work.
Working paper: An Outside-Inside Evolution in Gender and Professional Work
This study analyzes nearly 20 years of data to explore the adaptation of one professional service firm to an increase in women in the professional workforce and the shifting discourse around gender and work. Research by Lakshmi Ramarajan, Kathleen McGinn, and Deborah Kolb.