A Mixed Methods Study of Gender, Stem Department Climate, and Workplace Outcomes

Abstract

The present study used a workplace climate survey (N = 252) and semi-structured interviews (N = 12) to investigate faculty perceptions of, and experiences in, their STEM departments across four diverse institutions in order to understand barriers to women's success. We found that although men and women are equally productive, women report that their department perceives them as less productive than men. Similarly, women believe they have less influence on, and experience less collegiality in, their departments than men. Women also perceive more sexism and discrimination than men. These quantitative findings are supplemented with qualitative data to more fully understand faculty perspectives. In addition, we found that workplace outcomes such as job satisfaction and turnover intentions are affected by the department climate for both men and women faculty members, which suggests that improving the climate serves all faculty members. Specific recommendations to improve STEM academic climates are discussed.

How the Demographic Composition of Academic Science and Engineering Departments Influences Workplace Culture, Faculty Experience, and Retention Risk

“…Perceived workplace climate has been defined and operationalized in multiple ways-there is no single agreed upon definition or one widely accepted measure in the research literatures in psychology, organizational behavior, and sociology. Some studies have defined climate in terms of overall positive or negative interpersonal relations among faculty and measured it using items with positive and negative evaluative labels (e.g., friendly vs. hostile, cooperative vs. competitive, collegial vs. uncollegial, sexist vs. egalitarian ;Hurtado 1998;Settles et al 2006;Blackwell et al 2009;Riffle et al 2013). Others have defined climate purely in terms of social exclusion (August and Waltman 2004;Maranto and Griffin 2011).…”

“…Yet others have defined and measured climate in terms of workload and productivity such as time allocation to specific professional tasks, research productivity, and work/life balance (Blackwell et al 2009;Callister 2006;Hillard et al 2014;Settles et al 2006). Finally, another group of papers included department and institutional support and job satisfaction in their definition of climate (Britton and Logan 2008;Gardner 2012;Riffle et al 2013).…”

“…The demographics and disciplines of faculty members who served as research participants in past studies on workplace climate also varied widely. Some studies compared STEM faculty who are men and women (Blackwell et al 2009;Callister 2006;Hillard et al 2014;Xu 2008), while others compared men and women from both STEM and non-STEM departments (Britton et al 2012;Gardner 2012;Maranto and Griffin 2011;Riffle et al 2013) and yet others surveyed only women faculty across all departments (August and Waltman 2004;Settles et al 2006).…”

Drafting an Effective Ethical Code of Conduct for Professional Societies: A Practical Guide

“…"Virtual remoteness", where ethical guidelines are divorced from actual experience [19], lends itself to a relativist idea that individual societies are the only ones able to create ethical guidelines about their own traditions and practices. In the context of professional and scientific societies it is easy to see how this environment helps create an exclusionary syndicate with considerable influence over career outcomes [20][21][22]. Although we do not have the space to fully discuss each thinker in this article, professional societies would do well to determine their approach in the context of previous work (in their discipline and across relevant others) and the relevant sociopolitical environment.…”

Framing the Faculty Gender Gap: A View from STEM Doctoral Students

“…Demand-side perspectives focus on the larger institutional context in which STEM students are educated, such as the constellation of organizational features in academic departments that can create a 'chilly climate' for women (Blackwell et al, 2009;Riffle et al, 2013;Xie and Shaumann, 2003). The exclusion of women faculty from social networks that are important for professional advancement is one mechanism through which the demand context may disadvantage women (Xu and Martin, 2011), as are gender-biased institutional processes such as hiring, promotion, peer-reviewed publishing and the allocation of resources (Budden et al, 2008;Moss-Racusin et al, 2012;Scheltzer and Smith, 2014).…”