This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the gender gap in leadership positions.
We will analyze the psychological and economic reasons for the low fraction of women in leadership. While leadership positions are defined broadly and range from politics to public and private institutions, a special emphasis will be on the academic environment.

The course will highlight women’s educational and labor market choices, their fertility decisions, and their preferences. We will also examine structural hurdles for women to reach the top, for example stereotypes, discrimination, and social norms. Finally, the effectiveness of gender equality measures – such as quota systems – will be discussed. In addition to the theoretical and empirical fundamentals, the course also comprises two hands-on practical sessions taught by experienced instructors in which students’ rhetoric and negotiation skills are trained.

The course consists of four core building blocks:

1. Women in Leadership: The Economic Perspective.
This part of the course focusses on (economic) reasons for gender gaps in leadership positions. We start by looking at the status quo of women in leadership. Course participants are introduced to statistics on the fraction of women in various leadership positions (with an emphasis on women in academia). We will discuss time trends and differences across countries. Research evidence on the effectiveness of gender equality measures such as gender quotas and family friendly policies will be discussed and their impact on economic outcome variables such as women’s labor market choices and the gender pay gap will be examined. We will also examine gender differences in risk preferences and in the willingness to compete. The last part of this section deals with role model effects and students will be asked to prepare a short presentation on a female role model.

2. Women in Leadership: The Psychological Perspective.
The psychological perspective addresses gender stereotypes as one of the key barriers to female advancement into attractive organizational positions such as leadership positions. Gender stereotypes reflect widely shared expectations about the characteristics of men and women (descriptive component of gender stereotypes), but they can also prescribe how women and men should or should not behave (prescriptive stereotypes). Both kinds of stereotypical expectations about men and women can impact the way men and women define themselves and are perceived by others. Three sessions dealing with leadership and gender stereotypes will discuss stereotype contents, the changes over time and their impact on gender differences in leadership aspirations and success. In this context, we will address topics such as the “Think Manager – Think Male” – phenomenon, research on the Glass metaphors (glass ceiling, glass escalator, glass cliff), Queen Bee effects, backlash effects, as well as failure-as-an-asset effects. Students will be asked to discuss practical implications of the research presented and develop own ideas regarding interventions to increase the number of female leaders.

3. “Raise Your Voice” – Rhetoric Training
The third block consists of a hands-on training on delivering presentations in an academic context. Students will be instructed to present their research findings in a conference-like scenario. They will learn how to present their work in a convincing and professional manner and how to adequately respond to (critical) questions. Each student will have to give a short presentation and will receive individual feedback by the instructor on how to improve their presentation skills.
For successful training, students are asked to prepare the following items before the beginning of this block:

• Prepare a short presentation (5–7 minutes) on the following question: “What excites me about my research topic?”
• Bring a video-capable device (mobile phone or tablet) for the video exercises.
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4. “Raise Your Pay” – Negotiation Training
The final part of this course teaches students negotiation skills. Students learn how to carry their point in a negotiation, how to deal with conflicts, and how to react to verbal attacks. Students will have to participate in a negotiation game and receive individual feedback by the instructor to improve their negotiation skills.
Training concept:

• Develop strategic negotiation skills for career advancement
• Apply theoretical insights through practical exercises
• Improve decision-making and conflict resolution capabilities
• Build a toolkit of negotiation tactics for salary, promotion, and career opportunities

As a prerequisite for participating in this training, students are expected to submit one personal negotiation topic in advance that they would like to address and develop during the course.
 

This advanced seminar will explore classic and recent social science research that seeks to explain variation in organizational behavior and development. We will consider a variety of research questions that tap into both formal and informal ways of organizing: what kinds of institutions are necessary to make economic organization work? Where do such institutions come from? Why do we observe very different outcomes across contexts even though they share the same market-supporting institutions? Why do some organizations survive even though they face the most unfavorable environments? How do conditions at the time of an organization's birth shape its development? How do heterogeneous organizational teams arrive at successful decision-making under uncertainty? To address these and further questions, we will rely both on recent theoretical advances and on empirical studies in a various settings.