Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t

In the new book Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t (with Alexandra Kalev, Harvard University Press, 2022) Frank Dobbin, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Harvard University, explores how and which interventions in management systems are capable of making real change in organisation diversity.

In the first comprehensive analysis Dobbin and Kalev draw on more than 30 years of “hard, cold” data from 800 companies across the US as well as in-depth interviews. They explain what instruments for more workplace diversity succeed and how little organisations gain from standard practices such as bias-revealing training or sanctions which, on their own, regularly fail.

We will discuss the research and more with Frank Dobbin, who will be joined by Professor of Organisation, Strategy and Leadership Johanna Mair and Professor of Social Psychology Ruth Ditlmann. President Cornelia Woll will give the opening remarks.

Opening remarks

• Cornelia Woll is President of the Hertie School and Professor of International Political Economy. Woll joined the Hertie School in 2022 from Sciences Po in Paris, where she had served in many roles since 2006, including President of the Academic Board (since 2020), Professor of Political Science, Co-Director of the Max Planck Sciences Po Center (MaxPo), and as a researcher at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE). Her research focuses on the international political economy and economic sociology, in particular regulatory issues in the European Union and the United States.

Keynote

• Frank Dobbin is Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University´s Department of Sociology. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1987. Professor Dobbin is director of the SCANCOR/Weatherhead Initiative in International Organizational Studies  and Co-Coordinator of the MIT-Harvard Economic Sociology Seminar. Dobbin studies organizations, inequality, economic behavior, and public policy. With Alexandra Kalev, he developed an evidence-based approach to diversity management. Professor Dobbin's work in economic sociology generally is both historical and contemporary.

Discussion

• Johanna Mair is Professor of Organization, Strategy and Leadership at the Hertie School. Her research is examining how novel organisational and institutional arrangements generate economic and social development. Mair is also the Distinguished Fellow at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, Academic Editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review and Co-Director of the Global Innovation for Impact Lab. She is a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and has held visiting positions at Harvard Business School and INSEAD. Before earning her PhD in management from INSEAD, she was involved in executive decision-making in international banking.
• Ruth Ditlmannis Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at the Hertie School. Her research focuses on intergroup contact and interaction, the potential and limitations of interventions based on social psychological theories to promote integration and to build peace in field-settings, and the psychology of national identity. She is also interested in how behavioural insights can responsibly inform policymaking. Previously, she was a Research Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University, Department of Psychology and Social Policy. She received her PhD from Yale University in 2012 and was a Research Affiliate at Columbia University. She is the recipient of a Lichtenberg Professorship awarded by the Volkswagen Foundation. She also has gained non-academic experience working as an impact analyst for PHINEO gAG.