This PhD position is to work with a team of researchers on a project about diversity in leadership positions, attitudes about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and the effectiveness of these policies. Firms increasingly implement DEI policies to improve diversity in leadership positions. This is despite a lack of solid evidence on their effectiveness. We propose to provide the first comprehensive study of DEI policies in the Netherlands. First, we will document potential links between diversity in leadership and existence (or not) of DEI policies across firms. Second, we will investigate both employees' and firms' attitudes towards DEI policies using survey experiments. Third, we will use these findings to inform the design of optimal DEI policies and further test their effectiveness by conducting field experiments within organizations.

Job description
Women and minorities (such as workers from a different cultural or ethnic background than the majority of workers in a country) remain underrepresented in leadership positions in firms. Improving access of women and minorities to leadership positions would contribute to reducing inequalities on the labor market, which is an important societal goal. According to the “business case for diversity” argument, firms themselves would benefit from having more diversity in leadership positions. Some firms—often large multinationals—have embraced this argument and have implemented various diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies to achieve more diversity. However, research has found mixed results about the effectiveness of DEI policies. The ones that firms use most have even been found to be counterproductive, such as diversity or harassment training, controls on managerial decision-making to avoid discrimination, and grievance procedures for discrimination or harassment (Dobbin & Kalev, 2022). Globally, we still lack scientific knowledge on the barriers to effective DEI policies that improve the access of underrepresented groups to leadership positions. In the Netherlands, we also lack scientific knowledge about the types of policies that firms have implemented and about their effectiveness.

The PhD student will work in a team of researchers on large project that includes a threefold approach to study DEI policies in firms in the Netherlands. First, the team plans to document the link between diversity in leadership positions and the types of DEI policies implemented by firms in the Netherlands. We are particularly interested in studying heterogeneity across firms, using administrative data from the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS) and survey data of human resources managers in firms. Second, we plan to examine firms’ and employees’ attitudes towards DEI policies in the Netherlands using survey experiments. Gaining a better understanding of these attitudes can help design more effective policies to increase the representation of women and minorities in leadership positions. Third, we propose to use the findings of the first two approaches to inform the design of DEI policies and test the effectiveness of these policies by conducting field experiments within organizations. This threefold approach will yield much-needed credible evidence on how to improve representation of women and minorities in leadership positions.

In this project, we aim to answer three research questions:

1. What types of DEI policies do firms implement, and what is the heterogeneity across firms?
2. What are firms’ and workers’ attitudes about diversity in leadership positions and about DEI policies?
3. Can more effective policies be designed and implemented?

Students interested in working on issues related to diversity in firms are strongly encouraged to apply.

Expected output
At least three publications are planned for this five-year research project. Our goal is to publish in top journals in economics or management.