Research

January 2023
Case

Inclusion and Diversity at Mars Petcare

In 2018, Erica Coletta became Mars Petcare’s Chief Human Resources Officer, and immediately found herself dealing with high-stakes inclusion and diversity issues. U.S. employees especially were ready for substantive action after unprecedented racial justice protests,...

January 2023
Teaching Material

Mellody Hobson at Ariel Investments

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan and Rachel Tropp

December 2022
Teaching Material

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn: The Power of Writing to Launch and Sustain a Movement

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Julie Battilana and Rachel Tropp

October 2022
Case

Colette Phillips and GetKonnected!: Creating Inclusive Ecosystems

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Amy Chiu and Joyce Kim

GetKonnected! began in 2008 as a bimonthly networking and evolved into five initiatives in 2020-2021: GK! Network, GK Fund, GK Market, GK! Execu-Search, and GK! Job Hub. Each tackled an aspect of economic equity; “twin pandemics” of COVID-19 and systemic racism had...

September 2022
Teaching Material

Marsha Simms: Trailblazer in Corporate Law

By: Robin Ely, Boris Groysberg and Colleen Ammerman

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 422-012.

August 2022
Teaching Material

Women in the Saudi Arabian Workforce

By: Sandra J. Sucher, Fares Khrais, Shalene Gupta and Menna Hassan

April 2022
Case

Gender Equality in Business: 100 Years of Progress?

By: Boris Groysberg and Colleen Ammerman

"Gender Equality in Business: 100 Years of Progress?" traces the history of women in management from the early 20th to early 21st century through analysis of Harvard Business Review's coverage of women and gender. The case identifies six distinct phases in the...

March 2022
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis

Gender Gaps in Venture Capital Performance

By: Paul A. Gompers, Vladimir Muhkarlyamov, Emily Weisburst and Yuhai Xuan

We explore gender differences in performance in a comprehensive sample of venture capital investments in the United States. Investments by female venture capital investors have significantly lower success rates than investments by their male colleagues when controlling...

February 2022
Academy of Management Journal

How Global Leaders Gain Power Through Downward Deference and Reduction of Social Distance

By: Tsedal Neeley and Sebastian Reiche

We theorize about how people with positional power enact downward deference—a practice of lowering oneself to be equal to that of lower power workers—based on a study of 115 top global leaders at a large U.S. company. These leaders were charged with advancing...

January 2022 (Revised September 2022)
Case

OneTen: One Million Careers for Black Talent

By: Boris Groysberg, V. Kasturi Rangan, Annelena Lobb and Kerry Herman

The OneTen case study examines the nonprofit organization’s origin story. Its founding team includes a roster of corporate superstars—Ken Chenault (former CEO of American Express), Ken Frazier (former CEO of Merck), Charles Phillips (chair of Infor), Ginni Rometty...

January 2022
Industrial & Labor Relations Review

Determinants of Gender Differences in Change in Pay among Job-Switching Executives

By: Boris Groysberg, Paul M. Healy and Eric Lin

The authors investigate what determines differences in change in pay between men and women executives who move to new employers. Using proprietary data of 2,034 executive placements from a global search firm, the authors observe narrower pay differences between men and...

2021
Working Paper

A Systems Psychodynamic Perspective on the Persistence of Racial Inequality at Work

By: Sanaz Mobasseri, Wiliam Kahn and Robin Ely

This paper uses systems psychodynamic concepts to develop a theory about the persistence of racial inequality in U.S. companies, treating White men as the dominant group and Black people as an illustrative subordinate group. We theorize that this persistence is rooted...

Faculty & Research

Research