A Deep-Dive on Schulich Research Regarding Gender Equality and Diversity in the Workplace

The concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion have all been at the forefront of discussions regarding business practices as well as broader social norms. Professors Ivona Hideg and Winny Shen, alongside other researchers at Schulich, have begun leading new research on issues that influence how equitable our workplaces are as well as revisiting completed research in order to develop new insights regarding the current status quo about gender roles, leadership, government policy, and more.

Social movements, such as Me Too and Black Lives Matter, have placed issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion at the forefront of our collective consciousness. Additionally, both movements are intricately connected to the domain of work — the focus of two of Schulich’s Organization Studies Professors’ research.

Me Too was borne out of the prevalent sexual harassment that women often experience while working, and Black Lives Matter developed in part from incidents of police brutality that led to calls for reforming or abolishing that profession and also from legal decisions that called into question whether legal institutions treat people of different racial backgrounds equitably. These events highlight the lofty distance that still remains when it comes to achieving true equality and inclusion in society. Yet this context also serves as a call to action for Schulich’s Ivona Hideg, Associate Professor and Ann Brown Chair in Organization Studies, and Winny Shen, Associate Professor of Organization Studies, as well as many of their colleagues at the School in regard to conducting research that seeks to highlight and dismantle existing barriers to equality in the workplace.

In one stream of research, Hideg and Shen examined the impact of benevolent sexism in the workplace. Recent events have sensitized many of us to overt forms of sexism, which often manifests as hostile attitudes toward women — in particular, agentic or dominant women who challenge the status quo. However, more benevolent forms of sexism are also damaging, though they tend to more easily slip under our radar because they don’t seem as problematic at first blush.

The Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements highlight the lofty distance that still remains when it comes to achieving true equality and inclusion in society.

This context serves as a call to action for Schulich’s Ivona Hideg, Associate Professor and Ann Brown Chair in Organization Studies (above), and Winny Shen, Associate Professor of Organization Studies (below), in regard to conducting research that seeks to highlight and dismantle existing barriers to equality in the workplace.

For example, beliefs that women should be protected by men or that women have unique strengths in more feminine domains, such as the home, likely contribute to women’s underrepresentation in leadership roles. Such attitudes make it less likely that women will be provided with the support or challenging opportunities needed for promotion because they may be “shielded” from these difficulties. Additionally, Hideg and her collaborator, Lance Ferris (Michigan State University), found in other research that people who hold benevolent sexist attitudes are actually somewhat more likely to support equal employment policies for women. Although that may seem desirable, they also found that this support was limited to feminine and not masculine positions, which is poised to further perpetuate existing gender imbalances in organizations. Finally, work by Hideg and her former graduate student, Julie Nguyen (now a doctoral student at McGill University), demonstrated that benevolent sexism also helps to explain the gender gap in the evaluation and funding of startups. Interestingly, they found that the more investors endorse benevolent sexism, the more likely they are to view men-led startups as less likely to fail, but the same benefits are not bestowed upon women-led startups. That is, while on the surface benevolent sexist attitudes do not appear to affect women, in actuality, such attitudes are giving a leg up to men — even when the startups presented by men and women are identical.

In another stream of research, both Hideg and Shen have explored how non-native accents are experienced or evaluated in the workplace.

Canada prides itself on being a multicultural and multilingual society, and the government often positions immigration as a key pathway to the nation’s economic prosperity. Yet many immigrants still report significant hurdles in attaining employment and achieving career success. Alongside a former graduate student, Samantha Hancock (Wilfrid Laurier University), they have conducted a multi-disciplinary review of what the literature has found regarding the impact of non-native English accents in the workplace. They have concluded that research has overlooked how speakers with non-native accents experience the workplace and view their own accents by focusing predominantly on others’ evaluations of those with non-native accents (i.e., stereotyping). Notably, they also found that most research has focused on male speakers as the default without any consideration that the experiences for women may differ. This male bias in scientific research (i.e., using men as subjects by default) is widespread — ranging from medical and neuroscience research to social science research. As such, in their empirical work, they have focused on the unique workplace effects of non-native accents for women. Hideg and Shen find that the bias women with non-native accents experience at work is different from the bias men experience. Specifically, on the surface,

Benevolent forms of sexism are also damaging, though they tend to more easily slip under our radar because they don’t seem as problematic at first blush.

For example, beliefs that women should be protected by men or that women have unique strengths in more feminine domains, such as the home, likely contribute to women’s underrepresentation in leadership roles.

Such attitudes make it less likely that women will be provided with the support or challenging opportunities needed for promotion because they may be “shielded” from these difficulties.

it appears that women with non-native (vs. native) English accents are perceived as warmer, which in turn is related to being seen as hireable. However, this seeming advantage only accrued in more feminine industries and not in masculine industries where women are traditionally underrepresented. This is problematic as these positive outcomes for women with non-native accents may be fueling gender segregation in the workforce and subtly undermining gender equity at work.

Hideg and Shen are also deeply interested in the intersection of diversity and leadership, given the critical role leaders play in organizations both symbolically and strategically.

The researchers, alongside their research collaborator, Tanja Hentschel (University of Amsterdam), were curious whether male and female managers led differently through the pandemic. Intriguingly, they have found some evidence that men were more likely than women to act upon their emotions during the pandemic. For men, when they experienced anxiety, they were more likely to engage in abusive behaviours, and when they experienced hope, they were more likely to engage in family supportive behaviours. In contrast, women leaders generally refrained from abuse and provided family-supportive supervision regardless of their personal feelings. Shen and her collaborators, Shavin Malhotra (University of Waterloo) and Peng Cheng Zhu (University of San Diego), have also explored some of the ongoing challenges faced by female CEOs. They uncovered that while extraversion (e.g., dominance, volubility) was prized and compensated among male CEOs, this was not the case for female CEOs. Additionally, female CEOs’ outside board memberships tended to be devalued relative to those of their male counterparts. Thus, gender equality, even at the highest echelons, continues to be elusive.

Hideg’s work has also focused on organizational, social, and government policy aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion and, more broadly, enabling equal and equitable access to work opportunities for everyone. In one area of research, she sought to understand and overcome the causes of negative reactions and lack of support for employment equity policies. For example, in their collaborative work, Hideg and Anne Wilson (Wilfrid Laurier University) demonstrated that, counterintuitively, reminders of past injustices undermine support for workplace policies promoting women, and that one way to increase that support is to — alongside describing historical injustices — highlight progress in redressing that injustice. Additionally, Hideg and Lance Ferris have also shown how equating fairness with consistency can also be a barrier to support for employment equity policies, but that a change in mindset or dialectical thinking can help to overcome this resistance. Finally, some of Hideg’s earlier research points to participation in policy formulation as an important pathway to gaining support among non-beneficiaries of these policies.

Hideg and Shen, alongside their research collaborator, Tanja Hentschel (University of Amsterdam), were curious whether male and female managers led differently through the pandemic

For men, when they experienced anxiety, they were more likely to engage in abusive behaviours, and when they experienced hope, they were more likely to engage in family supportive behaviours. In contrast, women leaders generally refrained from abuse and provided familysupportive supervision regardless of their personal feelings.

In a related stream of work, Hideg and her former doctoral student Anja Krstic (now Assistant Professor at York University), Raymond Trau (Macquarie University), and Tanya Zarina (Director, Workforce Transformation and Leadership at CIBC) examined the unintended effects of longer maternity leave policies and found that women who took longer (vs. shorter) maternity leaves were seen as less hireable in management positions due to undermined perceptions of their ambition and dedication to work.

Critically, they also identified and tested interventions such as organizational Keep-in-Touch policies and supervisor feedback about women’s ambition and dedication that allowed women to take longer maternity leaves and still advance in their careers. This work has been recognized as socially responsible work in management by the Academy of Management and by the Financial Times. In connected work, Hideg and Anja have examined the effects of parental leaves for men and found that men who take (vs. do not take) parental leaves incur some positive career effects (i.e., being seen as more hireable into leadership roles) due to increased perceptions of being more communal (e.g., warmer, more sensitive to the needs of others). In their work on gender equity, they have started incorporating men’s experiences, as those experiences and men’s social roles (and changes in those roles) are critical for advancing gender equity at work and in our society.

Lastly, the pandemic has exacerbated many inequities, including in the

workplace. Together, Hideg and Shen have investigated several issues. In collaboration with current and former graduate students, Anja Krstic, Christianne Varty (Schulich PhD student), and Janice Lam (Schulich PhD student), they examined how increases in cognitive labour, the mental work needed to maintain a household due to the pandemic tended to disproportionately fall to women. In turn, such unequal distributions of cognitive labour within households contributed to women’s exhaustion and desire to downshift their careers and leave their jobs. This team also sought to give voice to the experiences of Asian, particularly Chinese, workers during the pandemic. Rising xenophobia, given the original epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China, often made these workers the target of uncivil and discriminatory actions. The researchers sought to understand what workplace policies and factors successfully protected these workers from these negative workplace behaviours.

Finally, as noted earlier, Hideg and Shen’s focus on dismantling bias and creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace is shared by many of their colleagues at Schulich. That is, there is a strong research focus on these important issues. In addition, supporting and complementing this research focus is the newly formed Committee for Equity and Community at Schulich, which is seeking to implement and advance equity and inclusion principles within the School. *

Hideg and Shen’s focus on dismantling bias and creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace is shared by many of their colleagues at Schulich. That is, there is a strong research focus on these important issues.

Supporting and complementing this research focus is the newly formed Committee for Equity and Community at Schulich, which is seeking to implement and advance equity and inclusion principles within the School.

Faculty Research Impacts