Robin J. Ely

Robin J. Ely

Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration

Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration

Organizational Behavior
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Robin J. Ely
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Featured Work Publications Awards & Honors

Robin Ely is the Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She conducts research on race and gender relations in organizations with a focus on leadership, identity, and organizational culture change. Examples of her past research include studies of men and masculinity on offshore oil platforms; the impact of racial diversity on retail bank performance; and how organizational narratives about gender, work, and family limit both men’s and women’s ability to thrive personally and professionally. Her papers have received numerous awards and are published in academic journals, such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, and Academy of Management Review, and, for practitioners, in Harvard Business Review. Professor Ely is presently conducting research on organizational culture change aimed at reducing workplace inequality, strategies for women leaders to navigate gender stereotypes, and HBS alumni career and life decisions. She is founder and faculty chair of the HBS Race, Gender & Equity Initiative, whose mission is to catalyze and translate cutting-edge research to transform practice; enable leaders to drive change; and eradicate gender, race, and other forms of inequality in business and society. She teaches MBA courses in leadership as well as doctoral courses in field research methods and executive education courses designed specifically for women leaders. She served for six years as senior associate dean for culture and community.

Prior to joining the HBS faculty, Professor Ely taught at Columbia University and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Yale University and her Bachelor’s degree from Smith College. She is a member of the Academy of Management, has served on numerous editorial boards of academic journals, and is a past associate editor of Administrative Science Quarterly.

Featured Work
Robin Ely Speaks at the HBS W50 Summit

Harvard Business School's Professor Robin Ely speaks April 4 at the W50 Summit. The summit was a two-day program focused on accelerating the advancement of women leaders who make a difference in the world.

Reader in Gender, Work, and Organization
This reader uses an alternative approach to gender at work to provoke new thinking about traditional management topics, such as leadership and negotiation.
  • Presents students with an alternative conceptual approach to gender in the workplace.
  • Connects gender with other dimensions of difference such as race and class for a deeper understanding of diversity in organizations.
  • Illustrates how traditional images of competence and the ideal worker result in narrow ways of thinking about work, limiting both opportunity and organizational effectiveness.
  • Provokes new ways of thinking about leadership, human resource management, negotiation, globalization and organizational change.
Unshackling the 'Double Bind' of the Female Leader
Few women have succeeded in shattering the glass ceiling. Even those who have achieved phenomenal success in their respective fields have taken a few hard knocks along the way.
One needs to look no further than Hilary Clinton and her recent quest to become US president. Touted as the more experienced of two Democrat candidates, she eventually conceded defeat to her charismatic opponent. 

According to Robin Ely, a Professor of Organisational Behavior at Harvard Business School, women often end up in a 'double bind'.
Racial Diversity, Racial Asymmetries, and Team Learning Environment: Effects on Performance
This paper argues that learning in cross-race interactions is critical for work teams to realize performance benefits from racial diversity but that diversity is a liability when society's negative stereotypes about racial minorities' competence inhibit such interactions. We analyze two years of data from 496 retail bank branches to investigate racial asymmetries in the dynamics of team learning and their impact on the link between diversity and bottom-line performance. As expected, minorities' negative assessments of their team's learning environment precipitate a negative relationship between diversity and performance, irrespective of white teammates' assessments; only when both groups view the team's learning environment as supportive-implying that the team has successfully countered the negative effects of societal stereotypes on cross-race learning-is the relationship positive. We conclude that acknowledging the impact of societal asymmetries between racial groups, especially in regard to learning, can reorient research about the link between identity-group-based diversity and performance.
Taking Gender Into Account
Theory and Design for Women's Leadership Development Programs

We conceptualize leadership development as identity work and show how subtle forms of gender bias in the culture and in organizations interfere with the identity work of women leaders. Based on this insight, we revisit traditional approaches to standard leadership topics, such as negotiations and leading change, as well as currently popular developmental tools, such as 360-degree feedback and networking; reinterpret them through the lens of women's experiences in organizations; and revise them in order to meet the particular challenges women face when transitioning into senior leadership. By framing leadership development as identity work, we reveal the gender dynamics involved in becoming a leader, offer a theoretical rationale for teaching leadership in women-only groups, and suggest design and delivery principles to increase the likelihood that women's leadership programs will help women advance into more senior leadership roles.

Books
Journal Articles
Book Chapters
  • Ely, Robin, and Colleen Ammerman. "Organizational Behavior Reading: Managing Differences." Core Curriculum Readings Series. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Publishing 8394, 2022. View Details
  • Ely, R., and A. Feldberg. "Organizational Remedies for Discrimination." In The Oxford Handbook of Workplace Discrimination, edited by Adrienne J. Colella and Eden B. King, 387–410. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Seeing and Being Seen Across Differences in Race and Gender." In Research Alive: Exploring Generative Moments in Doing Qualitative Research. Vol. 27, edited by Arne Carlsen and Jane E. Dutton. Advances in Organization Studies. Copenhagen Business School Press, 2011. View Details
  • Ely, Robin J., and Deborah L. Rhode. "Women and Leadership: Defining the Challenges." Chap. 14 in Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, edited by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana. Harvard Business Press, 2010. View Details
  • Ely, R., and L. Morgan Roberts. "Shifting Frames in Team-Diversity Research: From Difference to Relationships." In Diversity at Work, edited by Arthur P. Brief. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2008. View Details
  • Meyerson, D. E., R. Ely, and Laura Wernick. "Disrupting Gender, Revising Leadership." In Women and Leadership: The State of Play and Strategies for Change, edited by D. Rhode and B. Kellerman. Warren Bennis book. Jossey-Bass, 2007. View Details
  • Meyerson, D., and R. Ely. "Using Difference to Make a Difference." In The Difference "Difference" Makes: Women and Leadership, edited by Deborah Rhode. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. View Details
  • Ely, R. J. "Women in Leadership." In The Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics, edited by R. Edward Freeman and Patricia H. Werhane. Blackwell Publishers, 1997. View Details
  • Ely, R. J. "The Social Construction of Relationships among Professional Women at Work." In Women in Management: Current Research Issues, edited by R. Burke and M. Davidson. London: Paul Chapman Publishing, 1996. View Details
  • Ely, R. J. "The Role of Dominant Identity and Experience in Organizational Work on Diversity." In Diversity in Work Teams: Research Paradigms for a Changing Workplace, edited by Susan E. Jackson and Marian N. Ruderman, 161–186. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1995. View Details
  • Ely, R. J. "Attitudes Toward Women and the Experience of Leadership." In Women's Careers: Pathways and Pitfalls, edited by L. Larwood and S. Rose. New York: Praeger, 1989. View Details
Working Papers
  • Mobasseri, Sanaz, William Kahn, and Robin Ely. "Racial Inequality in Organizations: A Systems Psychodynamic Perspective." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-052, December 2021. (Revised September 2022.) View Details
  • Padavic, Irene, Robin J. Ely, and Erin M. Reid. "Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-Family Narrative as a Social Defense Against the 24/7 Work Culture." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-038, October 2016. View Details
  • Ely, Robin J., and Debra E. Meyerson. "Unmasking Manly Men: The Organizational Reconstruction of Men's Identity." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 07-054, February 2007. View Details
  • Ely, Robin J., and Irene Padavic. "A Feminist Analysis of Micro Research on Gender in Organizations: Suggestions for Advancing the Field." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 05-040, January 2005. View Details
  • Ely, Robin J., and David A. Thomas. "Team Learning and the Radical Diversity-Performance Link." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 05-026, October 2004. View Details
  • Ely, Robin J. "A Field Study of Group Diversity, Participation in Diversity Education Programs, and Performance." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 04-049, March 2004. View Details
  • Ely, Robin J., and David A. Thomas. "Learning from Diversity: The Effects of Learning on Performance in Racially Diverse Teams." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 04-017, October 2003. View Details
  • Ely, R. J., and D. A. Thomas. "Cultural Diversity at Work: The Moderating Effects of Work Group Perspectives on Diversity." Center for Gender in Organizations Working Paper, No. 10, January 2000. View Details
  • Ely, R. J. "Feminist Critiques of Research on Gender in Organizations." Center for Gender in Organizations Working Paper, No. 6, January 1999. View Details
  • Ely, Robin J., and David A. Thomas. "Paradigms and Pitfalls: Constructions of How Demography Affects Work." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 98-094, April 1998. View Details
Cases and Teaching Materials
Presentations
  • Ely, Robin J., Sanaz Mobasseri, and Wiliam Kahn. "Intervening to Advance Equity in Tech." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, 2021. View Details
  • "Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-Family Narrative as a Social Defense Against the 24/7 Work Culture." Lecture at the Kanter Lecture, Purdue University, Center for Families, February 11, 2022. View Details
  • Slawinski, Natalie, Wendy K. Smith, Robin J. Ely, Tobias Hahn, Andrew J. Hoffman, and Anita M. McGahan. "Impacting Grand Challenges: A 'Both/And' Approach." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Virtual, August 2020. View Details
  • Ely, R., Sanaz Mobasseri, and Wiliam Kahn. "Intervening to Advance Equity in Tech." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, August 2021. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Women's Leadership in the Age of COVID-19." New York University School of Law Webinar, November 12, 2020. View Details
  • Ely, R. "The Business Case for Diversity." BetterUp Growth Council Meeting, 2021. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Getting Serious about Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case." Boston Women's Workforce Council Signer Briefing, May 19, 2021. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Getting Serious About Diversity." Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning Leaders, June 24, 2021. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Choosing People Leadership." Capital One Senior Leadership Conference, McLean, VA, March 5, 2019. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Rethinking Leadership." Families and Work Institute Gala, New York, NY, September 20, 2015. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Accelerating the Advancement of Women Leaders." 8th Global Diversity and Inclusion Seminar, Barcelona, February 27, 2015. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Accelerating Women's Advancement Through Organizational Change." In Leadership Symposium: Women and the Redesign of Business. AIGA Design and Business Conference, New York, NY, October 22, 2014. View Details
  • Ely, R. "A Discussion on Culture Change." Women's History Month Event, Cleary Gottlieb, New York, NY, March 10, 2014. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Women and Leadership." Worldwide Sales Leadership Conference, Apple Inc., San Diego, CA, November 10, 2014. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Leading with Purpose." Celebration 60: Women Transforming Our Communities & The World, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, September 28, 2013. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Roadblocks and Resistance to Organizational Change." Paper presented at the Redesigning, Redefining Work Summit, Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, November 7, 2013. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Diversity: Becoming a Powerful Champion for Other Women." NEW Executive Leaders Forum, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, August 1, 2012. View Details
  • Ely, R. "An Organizational Approach to Undoing Gender: Lessons From Men in a Macho Occupation." 7th Gender, Work, and Organization: Biennial International Interdisciplinary Conference, Keele, Staffordshire, United Kingdom, June 27–29, 2012. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Diversity Management Innovation: Leveraging Cultural Diversity for Better Outcomes." 6th National Health Service Employers Equality & Diversity & Human Rights Conference, National Health Service (Great Britain), London, England, January 18, 2011. View Details
  • Ely, R. "An Organizational Approach to Undoing Gender." Northwestern University Center on the Science of Diversity, Evanston, IL, April 2009. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Women and Leadership: Defining the Challenges." INSEAD-Wharton Research Conference on Leadership, INSEAD-Wharton Center for Global Research and Education, Fontainebleau, France, June 19–21, 2008. (Invited Address.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Unmasking Manly Men: The Organizational Reconstruction of Men's Identity." Yale School of Management Organizational Behavior Summer Camp, Yale University, New Haven, CT, June 01, 2008. (Invited address.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Unmasking Manly Men: The Organizational Reconstruction of Men's Identity." Administrative Sciences Association of Canada Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, May 24–25, 2008. (Invited Address.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Unmasking Manly Men: The Organizational Reconstruction of Men's Identity." A.K. Rice Institute Symposium , A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems, Chicago, IL, May 2–3, 2008. (Keynote Address.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Future Work on Diversity and Equal Opportunities: Experiences from the U.S." Conference on Diversity and Equal Opportunities, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 18–19, 2007. (Keynote Address.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Racial Diversity and Team Learning Environment: Effects on Team Performance." Erasmus University Faculty Symposium, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, October 1, 2007. (Invited Paper.) View Details
  • Ely, R., and D. E. Meyerson. "Unmasking Manly Men: The Organizational Reconstruction of Masculine Identity." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, August 01, 2007. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Cross-cultural Teamwork in Organizations." National Work and Family Roundtable Meeting, Boston College Center for Work and Family, Boston, MA, November 01, 2006. (Keynote Address.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Beyond Political Correctness." Distinguished Scholar Talk, Simmons School of Management, Center for Gender in Organizations, Boston, MA, November 1, 2006. (Distinguished Speaker.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Shifting Paradigms in Diversity Research: From Difference to a Relational Framing." Cultural Diversity in Europe: a Series of Conferences, European Union, Leuven, Belgium, October 01, 2006. (Keynote Address.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Unmasking Manly Men: How Organizations Can Redefine the Boundaries of Masculine Identity." Paper presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, August 01, 2006. (Invited Panelist.) View Details
  • Ely, R., and D. Meyerson. "Unmasking Manly Men: The Organizational Reconstruction of Masculine Identity." Paper presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, August 01, 2006. View Details
  • Ely, R., and Irene Padavic. "Feminist Analysis of Micro Research on Gender in Organizations: Suggestions for Advancing the Field." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI, August 04–10, 2005. View Details
  • Ely, R., and David A. Thomas. "Team Learning and the Racial Diversity-Performance Link." In The Academy of Management. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, August 08, 2004. View Details
  • Ely, R. "The Future of Diversity Research: Applying Ourselves to New Challenges for the 21st Century." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, August 11–16, 2003. View Details
  • Ely, R., and Debra E. Meyerson. "Beyond Armchair Feminism III: Moving From Gender to a Broader Diversity Lens in Organizational Diagnosis and Intervention." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, January 01, 1999. View Details
  • Ely, R., and Debra E. Meyerson. "Beyond Armchair Feminism II: The Challenges of Holding onto Gender in Organizational Intervention." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Boston, August 01, 1997. View Details
  • Ely, R., and Debra E. Meyerson. "Beyond Armchair Feminism: EnGendering Organizational Change." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Boston, August 01, 1997. View Details
  • Ely, R., and D. Meyerson. "Beyond Armchair Feminism: EnGendering Organizational Change." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, August 01, 1996. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Muticulturalism at Work: The Role of Racial and Ethnic Diversity in a Feminist Organization." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, January 01, 1994. View Details
  • Ely, R., and E. Yakura. "Researcher Identity As a Source of Ambivalence and Insight." In The Self in Social Inquiry: Race, Gender and Rigor inthe Research Process. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, August 01, 1992. View Details
  • Ely, R. J. "Gender Difference: What Difference Does it Make?" Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, January 01, 1991. (Winner of Dorothy Harlow Best Paper Award Given annually to the author of the best paper submitted to the Annual Academy of Management Meeting presented by Academy of Management.) View Details
  • Ely, R. J. "The Role of Men in Relationships among Professional Women." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, January 01, 1991. (Nominated for Dorothy Harlow Best Paper Award Given annually to the author of the best paper submitted to the Annual Academy of Management Meeting presented by Academy of Management.) View Details
  • Ely, R. "Understanding the Social Relations of Dominance and Oppression: What It Takes to Build Alliances in Organizations." Paper presented at the Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference, Bellingham, WA, January 01, 1991. View Details
  • Ely, R. "Attitudes Toward Women in Groups with Male and Female Leaders." Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, January 01, 1986. View Details
  • Ely, R., W. B. Swann, and J. Griffin. "The Cognitive-Affective Cross-Fire in Negative Self-Concept Individuals." In Sources of Self-Inference Symposium. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Anaheim, CA, August 01, 1983. View Details
Other Publications and Materials
  • Ely, R., and Debra E. Meyerson. "Unmasking Manly Men: The Organizational Reconstruction of Men's Identity: Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management." August 2006. View Details
Awards & Honors
Winner of the 2021 Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research from the Boston College Center for Work and Family and Purdue University Center for Families for "Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work-family Narrative as a Social Defense Against 24/7 Work Culture" (Administrative Science Quarterly, March 2020) with Irene Padavic and Erin M. Reid.
Runner-up for the 2021 Financial Times Responsible Business Education Award.
Winner of the 2021 HBR McKinsey Award for the best article of the year in Harvard Business Review for “Getting Serious About Diversity” (November–December 2020) with David A. Thomas.
Awarded the 2021 Outstanding Practitioner-Orientated Publication in OB from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management for “Getting Serious About Diversity” (November–December 2020) with David A. Thomas.
Winner of the 2021 Academy of Management Learning and Education Decade Award for “Taking Gender into Account: Theory and Design for Women’s Leadership Development Programs” (September 2011) with Herminia Ibarra and Deborah M. Kolb.
Winner of the 2021 Academy of Management Journal Impact Award for “The Power in Demography: Women's Social Constructions of Gender Identity at Work” (June 1995).
Received the 2020 Robert F. Greenhill Service Award for continued outstanding contributions to the HBS community.
Winner of the 2020 Wyss Award for Excellence in Mentoring Doctoral Students, Harvard Business School.
Winner of the 2018 Janet Chusmir Distinguished Service Award from the Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division of the Academy of Management.
Named a 2015 Honoree of the Families and Work Institute.
Winner of the 2015 Scholarly Contributions to Educational Practice Advancing Women in Leadership Award from the Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division of the Academy of Management.
Received the 2012 Robert F. Greenhill Award.
Winner of the 2007 Making Connections Award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management.
Received the 2007 Academy of Management Mentoring Best Practices Award and the Making Connections Award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management.
Won with David A. Thomas the 2007 Administrative Science Quarterly Award for Scholarly Contribution for their paper, "Cultural Diversity at Work: The Effects of Diversity Perspectives on Work Group Processes and Outcomes" (Administrative Science Quarterly, June 2001). The award was established in 1995 to recognize authors of papers published in ASQ that have made exceptional contributions to the field of organization studies and is given annually for the most significant paper published in ASQ five years earlier.
Winner of the 1991 Dorothy Harlow Best Paper Award for "Gender Difference: What Difference Does it Make?" (Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, January 1991).
Nominated for the 1990 Dorothy Harlow Best Paper Award for "The Role of Men in Relationships among Professional Women" (Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, January 1990).
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