040233 SE Bachelor Seminar (incl. Bachelor´s Paper) (2023W)

"You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." (Winnie the Pooh)

In recent years organizations and policy makers engaged in substantial efforts to increase diversity among organizational leaders (Knyazeva et al., 2021). However, progress towards greater gender equality in boardrooms has slowed down in US firms in recent years (Guldiken et al., 2019). Existing research discussed and tested numerous theories explaining why the glass ceiling still exists. (Powell et al., 2015) Examples are the confidence gap (Kay, & Shipman, 2014) and role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002) but also labor market discrimination (Grybaite, 2006). However, existing literature demonstrates that the mechanisms and strength of these effects differ across contexts. As a case in point, the gender pay gap is more pronounced in for-profit organizations than non-profit organizations (Hallock, 2004) and differs also among cultures (Emmerik et al., 2008). Yet detailed literature on the contextual factors of the glass ceiling is scare. Moreover, there exists few research on additional diversity dimensions going beyond gender.

In this seminar, students will write a (pre-)scientific paper investigating the selection into or the perception of diverse leaders across contexts. The goal is to identify enablers and hindrances using experimental and empirical research. Based on the work, students should identify strategies that should be embraced by individuals, educational institutions, organizations and policy makers to increase diversity among organizational leaders.

The successful completion of the VO Introduction to Scientific Work as well as the VO and UE Statistics 1 constitutes a pre-requisite for attending this course. In addition, successful completion of the elective module VO and UE Statistics 2 is highly recommended because we will work with the programming language R and the statistics software RStudio in this seminar.

This seminar provides students with skills and knowledge on how to conduct a (pre-)scientific research project. More specifically, students will further their insights into the following topics through input presentations at the kick-off meeting, the provision of learning videos via Moodle and literature:
• Scientific literature review
• Identifying relevant theories
• Study pre-registration
• Data collection & analysis
• Scientific presenting
• Academic paper writing
• Peer reviewing