Peer-Reviewed Articles

A Future For Diversity Training: Mobilizing Diversity Science to Improve Effectiveness

Authors: Ivuoma N. Onyeador, Sanaz Mobasseri, Hannah McKinney, Ashley E. Martin

Paper accepted by the Academy of Management Perspectives (2024)

  • In recent decades, diversity training has become a frequently used tool in efforts to reduce bias and increase inclusion in organizations. However, the effectiveness of diversity training has been called into question. The content and methods of diversity training programs vary widely, making it difficult to scientifically evaluate their effectiveness. Using a database of programs marketed to human resource professionals, we analyze advertised descriptions of 163 organizational diversity training programs and characterize their described content and methodologies. Our analysis generated themes about the ways training programs are designed to intervene (e.g., combating bias and stereotypes, fostering positive intergroup relations, reaping benefits from diversity), the goals they purport to achieve (e.g., bias reduction, cultural competence, increased productivity, employee satisfaction), and the forms the programs take (e.g., individual self-paced e-learning, live group training). Based on our analysis of what training providers promise and what research tells us such training can do, we discuss three key challenges to these programs’ effectiveness in addressing organizational inequalities and to our ability to assess their effectiveness. We conclude by offering five recommendations to better align diversity training with the outcomes that providers and organizational leaders expect it to achieve.

Asymmetric Peer Effects at Work: The Effect of White Coworkers on Black Women's Careers

Authors: Elizabeth Linos, Sanaz Mobasseri, Nina Roussille

Download paper, published as a working paper with Harvard Kennedy School and Boston University (2023)

  • This paper investigates how having more White coworkers influences the subsequent retention and promotion of Black, Asian, and Hispanic women and men. Studying 9,037 new hires at a professional services firm, we first document large racial turnover and promotion gaps: even after controlling for observable characteristics, Black employees are 6.7 percentage points (32%) more likely to turn over within two years and 18.7 percentage points (26%) less likely to be promoted on time than their White counterparts. The largest turnover gap is between Black and White women, at 8.9 percentage points (51%). Drawing on conditional random assignment of new hires to initial project teams, we then show that a one standard deviation (14.0 percentage points)increase in the share of White coworkers is associated with a 10.6 percentage point increase in turnover for Black women. These effects are similar in magnitude to the overall turnover gap between White and Black women, and asymmetric: Black women are the only race-gender group whose turnover and promotion are negatively impacted by the racial composition of their coworkers. We explore potential pathways through which these peer effects may emerge: while the share of White coworkers does not affect formal task assignment, Black women who were initially assigned to Whiter teams subsequently report fewer billable hours and more training hours, and are more likely to be labeled as low performers in their first performance review. Our findings call for more research on how peer effects early in one’s career shape longer-term racial inequalities at work.

Racial Inequality in Organizations: A Systems Psychodynamic Perspective

Authors: Sanaz Mobasseri, William A. Kahn, Robin J. Ely

Download paper, published in the Academy of Management Review (2023)

  • This paper uses systems psychodynamic concepts to develop theory about the persistence of racial inequality in U.S. organizations and to inform an approach for disrupting it. We treat White men as the dominant group and Black people as the archetypal subordinate group in U.S. society. In our theory, work contexts that conflate merit with idealized images of White masculinity provoke unconscious distress in White men who aspire to meet those ideals. An unconscious, multilevel defense system, comprising projective identification at the individual level bolstered by a social defense at the organization level, keeps this distress at bay. This system diverts attention away from the real culprit—work contexts that threaten White men’s self-worth—by contriving and making credible a substitute problem—a shortage of “qualified” Black people. At the same time, the social defense fuels the very work contexts that pose threats to White men in the first place. The upshot is the persistence of racial inequality. We offer guidance on how to disrupt these dynamics by building mutually reinforcing holding environments where organization members can engage in intrapsychic and intergroup reparative work. We conclude by offering theoretical contributions to the literatures on race, organizational inequality, systems psychodynamics, and masculinity.

Aligning Employee Health and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives in the Workplace: A Call for Synchronization

Authors: Monica L. Wang, Olivia Poulin, Hannah McKinney

Download paper, published in the American Journal of Health Promotion (2024)

  • In this article, we synthesize studies to highlight emerging trends and paradigm shifts on the intersection of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and employee health initiatives in the workplace. We further provide guiding principles and policy and practice recommendations that aim to synchronize efforts to advance both employee health and DEI at the organizational level.

A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention in the Workplace: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Authors: Sanaz Mobasseri, Sameer B. Srivastava, Laura J. Kray

Download paper, published in the Academy of Management Discoveries (2021)

  • Brief interventions that strengthen an individual’s sense of social belonging have been shown to improve outcomes for members of underrepresented, marginalized groups in educational settings. This paper reports insights based on an attempt to apply this type of intervention in the technology sector. Adapting a social-belonging intervention from educational psychology, we implemented a quasi-random field experiment, spanning 12 months, with 506 newly hired engineers (24% of the sample was female) in the R&D function of a West Coast technology firm. We did not find a statistically significant effect of the treatment on a core attainment outcome—bonus relative to base salary—that exhibited a significant gender gap, with women receiving proportionally lower bonuses than men. We did not find anticipated gender gaps in promotion rates or social network centrality, and we also did not find a statistically significant effect of the treatment of women on these outcomes. Drawing on meaningful differences between educational versus workplace settings, we identify four theoretical moderators that might influence the efficacy of social-belonging interventions adapted from educational settings into the workplace. Finally, based on the limitations of our study design, we provide four recommendations that future researchers might adopt.

Race, Place, and Crime: How Violent Crime Events Affect Employment Discrimination

Author: Sanaz Mobasseri

Download paper, published in the American Journal of Sociology (2019)

  • This article examines how exposure to violent crime events affects employers’ decisions to hire black job applicants with and without a criminal record. Results of a quasi-experimental research design drawing on a correspondence study of 368 job applications submitted to 184 hiring establishments in Oakland, California, and archival data of 5,226 crime events indicate that callback rates were 11 percentage points lower for black job applicants than for white or Hispanic applicants and 12 percentage points lower for those with a criminal record than those without one. Recent exposure to nearby violent crimes reduced employers’ likelihood of calling back black job applicants by 10 percentage points, whether or not they had a criminal record, but did not have the same effect on callback rates for white or Hispanic applicants.

Op-Eds

Union Busting is Rampant. Here’s How to Fight Back

Authors: Anusha Rahman, Hannah McKinney

Op-Ed accepted by YES! Magazine

Who’s going to check them? Racial equity audits can help corporate America keep its promises to address systemic racism

Authors: Adam Shamsi, Monica L. Wang, Hannah McKinney

Op-Ed published in the Boston Globe (2023)

Talks

“Asymmetric Peer Effects at Work: The Effect of White Co-Workers on Black Women’s Careers”

  • SC Johnson College of Business & ILR School, Cornell University

  • Institute for Economic Equity, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

  • Research Seminar, ESMT

  • Wharton Management Department, University of Pennsylvania

  • Desautels Faculty of Management, Organizational Behavior, McGill University

  • Management and Organizational Development Seminar, Northeastern University

  • Economic Sociology Seminar, Harvard University

  • Race and Stratification Working Group, National Bureau of Economic Research

"Racial Inequality in Organizations: A Systems Psychodynamic Perspective"

  • Race, Gender & Equity at Work Research Symposium, Harvard Business School

  • Race & Gig-Work Micro-Convening, Data & Society Institute

  • Business Economics, Oxford University

  • Nerd Lab, Harvard Business School

  • University of Virginia at Darden

  • Management Seminar, George Mason University

  • London Business School

"Defending White Hegemonic Masculinity: A Test of the Projective Identification Hypothesis"

  • European Group for Organizational Studies Colloquium 2023

  • Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2023

  • Oxford Said Business School

Panel on Anti-Black Racism

  • Stamped From the Beginning Screening, co-sponsored by Harvard Business School's Race, Gender & Equity Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School, and Netflix

Keynote Presentation, "The Persistence of Racial Inequality in the Workplace"

  • Center for Work and Family, Boston College

"Gendered and Racialized Effects of New Employees' Initial Ties on Organizational Integration"

  • Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2023

"A Path Forward for Diversity Training: Bringing More Diversity Science into Practice"

  • Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2023

"The Dynamics of Emotional Contagion in Email: Gender, Power, and Susceptibility"

  • Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2023

Keynote Presentation, “The Persistence of Racial Inequality in the Workplace”

  • Workforce Roundtable Meeting, Center for Work and Family, Boston College

Interview with Sanaz Mobasseri

  • GirlsPro 

“The Narrative of Racial Progress”

  • Panel, Khodadad Distinguished Lecture on Greed and Human Suffering, Department of Psychological & Brain Science, Boston University

"A Future for Organizational Diversity Trainings: Mobilizing Diversity Science to Improve Effectiveness"

  • Workshop, Academy of Management Perspectives

"Working Amidst Adversity"

  • Google Conference 2023

"A Systemic Perspective on the Unconscious Roots of Racial Inequality in US Organizations"

  • Strategies for Building and Leading Diverse Organizations, Harvard Kennedy School

“Governance in the Age of Data and Computation”

  • Panel, Inaugural event, Boston University Computing and Data Sciences building

"The Covert Aims of Company Approaches to Diversity"

  • Inaugural IDEAL Fellows Conference, Stanford University

Panel on Algorithms and AI with Encode Justice

  • Museum of Science

“Rethinking Burnout, Together”

  • Google Conference 2022

“Organizations’ Responses to Workplace Inequality”

  • Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2021

“Workplaces Are Not the Same for Everyone”

  • Google Conference 2021