Greetings! We invite you to attend our Academy of Management Symposium titled, “Changing Landscapes: Gender Inequality and Remediation in Labor Markets and Organizations.” The session is a live, synchronous, and virtual session taking place on July 31 2021 from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. EST (New York Time) (UTC-4). We are pleased that this symposium was a finalist for “Best Symposium” for the CAR Division for AOM.

Symposium Overview

Although there has been progress in understanding some aspects of gender inequality, the hiring process and its contributions to gender inequality in labor markets and organizations remains unclear, leaving knowledge of the potential solutions for gender inequality incomplete (Petersen and Saporta, 2004). This symposium brings together four papers that deepen our understanding of inequality by focusing on changes in labor markets and organizations. A paper by Burbano, Padilla, and Meier examines an important but overlooked job characteristic—gendered differences in preferences for meaning at work —that may in part explain occupational segregation by gender—and are more pronounced in national contexts with greater levels of education and economic development. In another paper, Sterling, Gilmartin, and Sheppard suggest that informing employer’s beliefs about men’s and women’s abilities—instead of improving women’s self-beliefs about abilities—could be the pathway by which the gender pay gap lessens. Wang examines how laws in the U.S. (i.e. salary history bans) that address a specific juncture in the wage-setting process—initial salary offers prior to the negotiation stage—can reduce historic inequalities by disrupting path dependencies in wages. And finally, a paper by Zhang investigates how technological change such as e-commerce adoption by retail companies, may improve racial and gender equality in hiring and promotions.

Symposium Presenters

Matthew Bidwell, University of Pennsylvania, Discussant 
Vanessa Burbano, Columbia University, Presenter
Adina Sterling, Stanford University, Presenter, Co-Organizer
Shiya Wang, Stanford University, Presenter, Co-Organizer
Letian Zhang, Harvard University, Presenter

Additional Paper Authors

Shannon Gilmartin, Stanford
Stephan Meier, Columbia University
Nicolas Padilla, London Business School
Sheri Sheppard, Stanford University