Seeing is believing - The effect of role models on diversity, equity, & inclusion

Bachelor Thesis, Master Thesis

📌 Key facts

• Mission: Systematically evaluating the impact of role models on diversity, equity & inclusion and deriving recommendations for leaders, organizations, and policy makers. We already have a database containing papers that may serve as a basis for your thesis. • When: Start anytime. Applications are open! • How to apply: Send us an e-mail (at the end of this page) with your CV and a grade report and a tentative research idea (research question, data, and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

Contents

💡 Background
🦾Who We Are
🎯 Goals
🧠 Topics of Interest
🎓 Profile
📚 Further Reading
📄 Requirements to any Work
📬 How to Apply

💡 Background

Role models matter, particularly for women.

Research shows that role models have an amplified benefit for women due to the gender biases, institutional barriers and negative stereotypes women have long had to and still have to contend with across a wide range of professional domains.

Research shows that role models have three core benefits:

role models represent and expand what is possible
role models inspire to be more ambitious and aim higher
role models demonstrate the mindsets and behaviours of how to rise

Yet, we don’t fully understand under which circumstances role models are effective in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. In your thesis, you will take a closer look at the subject and investigate the state-of-the-art. What could be influencing factors? How could organizations and policy makers make systematic use of role models to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion?

🦾Who We Are

The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership, and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies, and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.

🎯 Goals

Explore the state-of-the-art of role models and diversity, equity, & inclusion
Investigate the following questions:

Is mere representation enough to break biases?
Which factors determine the effectiveness of role models?
What differentiates positive from negative role models?
How can organizations, media, and policy systematically leverage the power of role models?

Make your results visible

The scope of your thesis will be determined based on your background, type of thesis, and personal interests.

🧠 Topics of Interest

(Gender) Stereotypes & Biases
Interventions for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
Female Leaders
Empowerment & Power Dynamics
Social Norms
Male dominated fields such as Tech, Politics, Entrepreneurship,…

🎓 Profile

Reliable and self-driven
Enthusiasm for DEI
Ability to do sophisticated internet and desk research, and connect with practitioners
Passionate to learn more about the future and do research with impact

📚 Further Reading

Seeing Is Believing: Female Role Models Inspire Girls To Think Bigger

What does a scientist look like? When the draw-a-scientist study (DAST) study was first conducted 50 years ago with elementary school students in the US and Canada, only twenty-eight of the 5,000 students (0.06%) drew a female scientist. Reflective of the times you might say.

www.forbes.com

Seeing Is Believing: Female Role Models Inspire Girls To Think Bigger

Seeing is Believing: Exposure to Counterstereotypic Women Leaders and its Effect on the Malleability of Automatic Gender Stereotyping

The malleability of attitudes and beliefs has reemerged as an inroad to attaining gender equality in recent decades. Numerous studies have shown that attitudes and beliefs can be influenced by a wide range of factors, including changes in an individual's social environment.

gap.hks.harvard.edu

Seeing is Believing: Exposure to Counterstereotypic Women Leaders and its Effect on the Malleability of Automatic Gender Stereotyping

Does Exposure to Gender Role Models Increase Women's Political Ambition? A Field Experiment with Politicians

Exposure to gender role models increases women's interest in political current events but does not have a positive effect on their political ambition. Women exposed to female politician role models were more likely to seek information and follow news about the ongoing national election campaign.

gap.hks.harvard.edu

Does Exposure to Gender Role Models Increase Women's Political Ambition? A Field Experiment with Politicians

Progress in women's representation in top leadership weakens people's disturbance with gender inequality in other domains

It is commonly believed that achieving progress in women's representation in top leadership levels is crucial for advancing gender equality generally, because it will produce better outcomes for women in other domains as well (e.g., the pay gap).

gap.hks.harvard.edu

Can Female Doctors Cure the Gender STEMM Gap? Evidence from Randomly Assigned General Practitioners

Girls outperform boys in educational settings and yet are underrepresented in fields with high earnings, such as STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine), which contributes significantly to the gender wage gap. Research has shown that role models may be one effective avenue for increasing female representation in STEMM.

gap.hks.harvard.edu

Can Female Doctors Cure the Gender STEMM Gap? Evidence from Randomly Assigned General Practitioners

Female Role Models: Protecting Women's Math Test Performance

Women are historically underrepresented in math-related undergraduate and graduate programs. One of the many reasons for this disparity is that women consistently underperform on standardized math tests compared to men, despite similar educational backgrounds. A potential explanation for this underperformance on test day is the existence of a "stereotype threat".

gap.hks.harvard.edu

Female Role Models: Protecting Women's Math Test Performance

My Fair Physicist? Feminine Math and Science Role Models Demotivate Young Girls

Though girls and boys perform similarly in high-school math and science, girls are less likely to continue in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields-women receive only two-fifths of bachelor's degrees in physical sciences and mathematics, and just one-fifth in computer science and engineering.

gap.hks.harvard.edu

The Hillary Clinton effect: When the same role model inspires or fails to inspire improved performance under stereotype threat

In test-taking scenarios, being reminded of negative stereotypes about one's identity group can inhibit performance. This phenomenon, known as stereotype threat, has been frequently observed when women take math tests. When women are reminded of negative stereotypes about women's math aptitude, they tend to perform worse than they would otherwise.

gap.hks.harvard.edu

Female Leaders: Injurious or Inspiring Role Models for Women?

To help level the playing field of women and men in positions of leadership, it may seem intuitive to place female leaders as role models for younger women to aspire to. Presumably, seeing women in positions of power can counteract negative stereotypes and encourage greater equality between the sexes.

gap.hks.harvard.edu

Female Leaders: Injurious or Inspiring Role Models for Women?

Successful Female Leaders Empower Women's Behavior In Leadership Tasks

Although there are more women than ever in top leadership positions worldwide, leader stereotypes remain predominantly masculine, which can undermine women's performance in leadership-related tasks like motivating employees, managerial decision-making, or negotiating. One way to counteract negative stereotypes is to expose women to examples of women leaders who succeed, thus disproving the stereotype.

gap.hks.harvard.edu

Successful Female Leaders Empower Women's Behavior In Leadership Tasks

Female Leadership Raises Aspirations and Educational Attainment for Girls: A Policy Experiment in India

Gender quotas are increasingly being used to mitigate women's historical underrepresentation in certain career paths, including but not limited to, political leadership. Aside from the obvious outcome of greater gender balance in male-dominated arenas, one possible and expected effect of quotas is that the first women to fill these quotas will act as role models, opening up previously male-saturated environments for other women and lowering gender barriers.

gap.hks.harvard.edu

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

📄 Requirements to any Work

We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:

Infograph - visually represent some of your work (find examples here)
Slide Deck - summarize your research and possibly present it
Extract most important sequences from podcasts, videos, and other media
3-4 Tweets about the most important findings and summarizing the topic
optional: Medium Article - let people outside the university know about your research and start your personal brand

📬 How to Apply

If you are interested, please contact Nadja Born (e-mail below) by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also briefly outline your tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!

👉 nadja.born@tum.de