SOSC Seminar - Managers and the Cultural Transmission of Gender Norms
2:30 - 4:00pm
Room 1104 (Lift 19; near LT-A), 1/F Academic Building

This paper examines the influence of managers from countries with different gender norms on workplace culture and gender disparities within organizations. Using data from a multinational firm operating in over 100 countries, we exploit cross-country manager rotations to estimate the impact of male managers’ gender attitudes on gender pay gaps within a team. Managers from countries with one standard deviation more progressive gender attitudes narrow the pay gap by 5 percentage points (18%), primarily by promoting women at higher rates. The effects last beyond the manager’s rotation and are concentrated in countries with more conservative gender attitudes. Managers with progressive views appear to influence the local office culture, as local managers who interact with but are not under the purview of the foreign manager begin to have smaller pay gaps in their teams. Our evidence points to individual managers as critical in shaping corporate culture.

When
Where
Room 1104 (Lift 19; near LT-A), 1/F Academic Building
Language
English
More Information

Kieu-Trang Nguyen is an Assistant Professor at the University of Melbourne and Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. She received her PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research focuses on culture, organizations, and innovation.

 

Host: Prof Sangyoon Park, Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, HKUST

Organizer
Division of Social Science
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