Fieldwork in the inner Western suburbs. An excellent site visit at a health services provider, and interview with a service manager on how to support vulnerable people. We sat in the sun and chatted for a few hours. I then typed up my fieldwork notes in this cafe. Continue reading Fieldwork Cafe
A challenging day that ended well. My day started with an executive meeting where we presented a case to save one project from political inertia (stakeholder relations outside my domain – but we did it!).
Continue reading “Challenges and Outcomes in Social Policy”
Here’s a great post by CEO and author Chelsea Berler who writes about women’s strengths in leadership, which include seeing the world through “goal-coloured glasses.” Berler argues that supporting women in leadership is not a zero-sum game. She writes: “Women … Continue reading Women’s Leadership
This week’s Social Science Quote comes from Sociology Professor Martin Ruef. Ruef has studied why some small businesses succeed while others fail. Looking at historical data, he finds that two variables matter most to business success: social support and diversity. Diversity … Continue reading Social Science Quote of the Week: Diversity
This week I discus the importance of monitoring diversity at different levels of the organisation, especially in leadership.
Continue reading “Improving Corporate Diversity Programs”
Cultural diversity can improve businesses through new ideas, strengthening understanding and relationships of different client groups, and by boosting innovation through multicultural networks.
Continue reading “How to Improve Business Through Diversity Management”
Social science studies find that male bosses are more likely to judge the competence of women managers using a skewed view on gender. In practice, this means organisations are missing out on a proactive approach to leadership.
Continue reading “Why Women’s Leadership is a Business Asset”
I’ve been doing a visual sociology of the Western Suburbs of Melbourne via Instagram, which is why I loved this story from early November. The Western Sydney suburb of Granville had been hosting a bus tour highlighting the cultural diversity of Sydney’s architecture.
Continue reading “Cultural Architecture of Western Sydney”
A forthcoming international survey of 240,000 workers by Barbara Annis shows that women feel professional exclusion in their workplaces, while men remain unaware that there’s a problem. Men resort to expressing old fashioned chivalry like opening doors and offering to pay for lunch, thinking this makes women feel more comfortable and appreciated. In fact, it is the way that men exclude women from promotional opportunities, meetings, and mentorship that is a problem for women.
Continue reading “How to Promote Gender Equality in Your Workplace”M. Laura Moazedi has written a great summary about a study on diversity and creativity. Laura writes: According to research findings, heterogeneous teams perform more creatively than homogeneous teams. This seems to be particularly true when they engage in perspective taking. … Continue reading Creative Diversity
Social Science Insights 