Alison Konrad

Western University Canada, Ivey School of Business, Faculty Member

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Alison M. Konrad, Ph.D., joined the Ivey Business School, U. of Western Ontario, in 2003 as a Professor of Organizational Behavior and holder of the Corus Entertainment Chair in Women in Management. Professor Konrad’s current work focuses on gender and diversity in organizations, with a special focus on the diversity of social networks, and the effectiveness of organizational diversity and inclusiveness initiatives.

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Papers by Alison Konrad

Can’t Silence Me: When Employees Can’t Speak Up

This study investigates how transformational leadership affects employee positive and negative be... more

Attaining elite leadership: career development and childhood socioeconomic status

Career Development International, 2018

PurposeThe existence of disadvantaged sub-populations whose talents are under-leveraged is a prob... more PurposeThe existence of disadvantaged sub-populations whose talents are under-leveraged is a problem faced by developing and developed countries alike. Life history data revealed that a large proportion of elite business leaders in the Caribbean emerged from childhood poverty (families subsisting on US$1-2 a day, 40 percent). The purpose of this paper is to examine the key factors supporting the career development of elite leaders from a broad socioeconomic spectrum and both genders in order to build a model of career development for elite leadership.Design/methodology/approachData were collected via in-depth interviews from a deliberately gender-balanced sample of 39 male and 39 female elite business leaders. Thematic analysis identified consistencies across independent interviews and resulted in a model identifying factors supporting pre-career development as key to eventual attainment of elite leadership.FindingsFindings indicated that in childhood and youth, proactivity plus tal...

Sculptor or Sculpture? Agency and Control in Career Development and Employability

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019

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Vocational Well-Being of Workers with Childhood Disability Onset

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Does age diversity benefit team outcomes, if so, when and how? A moderated mediation model

Current Psychology

A Link between Gender Equality Initiatives and Women’s Representation in the Industry Context

Academy of Management Proceedings

Work-life Programs and Women in Management: Evidence from Japan

Academy of Management Proceedings

Earnings of persons with disabilities: Who earns more (less) from entrepreneurial pursuit?

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 2022

PurposePersons with disabilities (PWD) are among the largest and most diverse minority groups and... more PurposePersons with disabilities (PWD) are among the largest and most diverse minority groups and among the most disadvantaged in terms of employment. Entrepreneurial pursuit is often advocated as a path toward employment, inclusion, and equality, yet few studies have investigated earning variation among PWD.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw on social cognitive career theory (SCCT), and the disability employment and entrepreneurship literature to develop hypotheses about who among PWD are likely to earn more (less) from entrepreneurial pursuits. The authors then conduct analyses on the nationally representative sample of the Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) by including all PWD engaged in entrepreneurial pursuit, and matching each to an organizationally employed counterpart of the same gender and race and of similar age and disability severity (n ≈ 810).FindingsEntrepreneurial pursuit has a stronger negative association with the earnings of PWD who experience earlier di...

Dynamic capabilities for managing racially diverse workforces: Effects on competitive action variety and firm performance

Journal of Business Research, 2021

Trickle-down and Bottom-up Effects of Women's Representation: The Role of Context

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018

Women’s global workforce representation has deteriorated over the last decade. Little is known ab... more Women’s global workforce representation has deteriorated over the last decade. Little is known about trickle-down and bottom-up effects of women’s representation in organizations. Derived from signaling theory and senior women’s agency theory, this study predicts trickle-down effects of women’s representation in top management team (TMT) on women’s representation in management and then its cascading effects on women’s representation in non-management. Based on pipeline perspective and status contests perspective, it predicts bottom-up effects of women’s representation in non-management on women’s representation in management and then its building effects on women’s representation in TMT. It also predicts moderating effects of organization size (small vs. large) and industry (male-dominated vs. female-dominated) on these effects. The hypotheses were tested using archival data from a large sample of organizations from Australia. The findings support the main and mediating effects and partially support moderating effects. Theoretical, research and practical implications are discussed

Storming the Last Bastions: Women Entering High Prestige Male-Dominated Occupations

Increasing Diversity in the C-Suite: Europe, U.S., the Caribbean, India, and Australia

A Dialogue on How a Trump Presidency May Affect Equality, Diversity And Inclusion

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2017

The election of Donald Trump as President of the U.S. has divided the nation and sent shockwaves ... more

Bridging Caste Divides: Middle‐Status Ambivalence, Elite Closure, and Lower‐Status Social Withdrawal

Journal of Management Studies, 2021

Network theory and research have identified the powerful dynamic of homophily whereby individuals... more Network theory and research have identified the powerful dynamic of homophily whereby individuals are more likely to connect with similar rather than dissimilar others. However, less is known about when individuals might connect with dissimilar others to enhance organizational diversity benefits and mitigate social exclusion. This study builds upon prior evidence linking homophily to both elite group closure and lower‐status self‐segregating social withdrawal to propose a new dynamic of middle‐status ambivalence toward homophily, generating a greater propensity toward diversity. Indian society offers a unique context of a legally codified, stable, three‐tiered status hierarchy to test the idea that middle‐status individuals will develop the most diverse networks. Using a unique longitudinal friendship network dataset, we find empirical support for our prediction, a novel contribution extending classic homophily theory. In addition, due to potent status dynamics we theorize and find ...

Trickle‐down and bottom‐up effects of women's representation in the context of industry gender composition: A panel data investigation

Human Resource Management, 2020

Little is known about how changing organizational gender composition can enhance women's repr... more Little is known about how changing organizational gender composition can enhance women's representation at lower levels (trickle‐down effects) and higher levels (bottom‐up effects), and which contextual elements strengthen or weaken these effects. We built a large panel dataset from archives spanning 2010–2019 to test our theorized trickle‐down and bottom‐up effects across three levels: non‐management, lower through middle management (LTMM), and top management team (TMT), including our theorized moderating effects of industry gender composition (male‐tilted vs. female tilted vs. balanced). Our panel analyses show that bottom‐up effects are strongest in female‐tilted industries, consistent with the gender‐role congruence explanation that women appear to be more fitting to leadership positions when followers are predominantly women. Trickle‐down effects are strongest in male‐tilted industries at the lower levels (LTMM to non‐management), but strongest in female‐tilted industries a...

A meta-analytic review of gender composition influencing employees’ work outcomes: implications for human resource development

Human Resource Development International, 2020

Drawing from Kanter's tokenism theory, the current meta-analysis provides a statistical synthesis... more Drawing from Kanter's tokenism theory, the current meta-analysis provides a statistical synthesis of the research linking gender composition of the workplace to men and women's evaluative (leadership, rewards, and performance) and affective (interpersonal relationships, stress, and attitudes towards women) outcomes. In addition, we examine the moderating effect of task gender-type on these relationships. Evidence for simple gender composition effects was weak, with only men's interpersonal outcomes being associated with gender composition. In contrast, we found strong evidence supporting the moderating effect of task gender-type on these relationships for both sexes, across several of the outcomes. Notably, the strongest moderator effect was shown for men's leadership, with a clear pattern demonstrating that gender composition has a stronger positive effect on this outcome for men performing gender-neutral tasks, compared to men performing masculine tasks. This underscores the importance of task gendertype as a more powerful indicator of workplace gender norms than a numerical representation of men and women. Despite progress towards gender parity in the workplace, gender hegemony remains strong in male-typed tasks as they stand impervious to the effects of gender composition. Results are discussed in light of tokenism theory and its implications on designs of HRD interventions.

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Workplace Inclusion of People with Disabilities

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012

Research suggests that under inclusion of people with disabilities in organizations continues to ... more

A Longitudinal Study of Personality, Centrality and Churn in Close Friendship and Broader Networks

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2012

In a longitudinal social network study, we examine whether benefits of self-monitoring personalit... more

A Two-Wave Study of Self-Monitoring Personality, Social Network Churn, and In-Degree Centrality in Close Friendship and General Socializing Networks

Group & Organization Management, 2015

We examine the role of self-monitoring personality in shaping network change in two important typ... more We examine the role of self-monitoring personality in shaping network change in two important types of social relationships. In a two-wave social network study, we find that individuals with higher levels of self-monitoring derive persistent personality-linked in-degree centrality benefits in the general socializing network but have fading benefits over time in the close friendship network. Simultaneous examination of the formation and dissolution of relationships over time (network churn) reveals that this pattern of network change is shaped by differential reactions of relationship partners to individuals based upon level of self-monitoring in the two network types. Overall, by incorporating the dynamic reactions of relationship partners, the findings contribute to the understanding of the complex relationship between personality and social network development.