Deciding If A B-School’s Culture Is Right For You

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This is Harvard’s Latest Initiative

Harvard Business School is launching a new initiative that aims to promote gender equality in business and society.

The “Gender Initiative” will support “research, education, and knowledge dissemination to accelerate the advancement of women leaders and promote gender equity in business and society,” according to the HBS website.

Making Better Decisions

The Gender Initiative is part of a larger effort by HBS to ground discussions regarding gender in research. In turn, the hope is that people can make better informed decisions.

“So much of what people think they know about gender is simply not substantiated by empirical evidence but instead is based on gender stereotypes,” Robin Ely, who heads the initiative, tells CPA Practice Advisor.

To do that, the initiative will head groundbreaking research, case writing, course development, and conferences.

“We want to develop the Initiative so that Harvard Business School becomes the ‘go-to place’ on gender issues, where both researchers and practitioners can come together to find ways to advance gender equity in the workplace and help both women and men lead whole, fulfilled, and sustainable lives,” Ely tells CPA Practice Advisor.

A Larger Effort

HBS isn’t the only b-school trying to push towards gender equality.

Last year, the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business became the first major US school to reach gender parity.

And, over the years, many elite b-schools have pushed for gender parity.

Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management has come close, with 46% of its incoming class representing women.

For Harvard, the b-school hopes its initiative will have a lasting impact.

“From marketing and organizational behavior to strategy, social enterprise, and entrepreneurship, for more than one hundred years Harvard Business School and its faculty have been leaders in defining the roles and functions of business, as well as effective business practice,” Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria tells CPA Practice Advisor. “With the launch of this Initiative, we want to have a similar and lasting impact on the way the world understands and acts upon gender-related matters.”

Sources: Harvard Business School, CPA Practice Advisor, Poets & Quants

 

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