Maybe. It has to do with how much (or how little) you align with gender stereotypes in an interview.

Rebecca L. Mitchell, PhD, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Leeds School of Business 

Most job candidates want an interviewer to perceive them as collaborative, creative, hardworking and professional. Very few think about how warm they come across.

But evidently, it matters. A researcher at the Leeds School of Business explored the effects of warmth and gender on how collaborative a person seems, and whether it results in positive or negative outcomes in hiring.

“Gender bias in hiring remains a persistent problem. A common recommendation for women has been to temper their competence with warmth to prevent agentic penalties in interviews,” said Rebecca L. Mitchell, PhD, an assistant professor of organizational behavior, whose was recently published in Human Resource Management. 

Surprisingly, she found that “modifying a woman's warmth may not be a reliable tactic for minimizing gender bias.”

She first began thinking about gender stereotypes in hiring when she read an article in the Huffington Post about a controversial women’s leadership development training, which counseled women to go along with the gender stereotype that women should tamp down their agency and increase their warmth. Women in the article were disillusioned with the “fix the woman” approach; it made her think about whether bias emerges from the way a woman acts or the way a man acts, or perhaps a combination of both.

When she began her study, “Backlashes or boosts? The role of warmth and gender in relational uncertainty reductions,” she expected to see backlashes for women who displayed gender-incongruent (i.e., low) levels of warmth but found that when it came to hiring, a woman’s degree of warmth, whether high or low, had no bearing on the hiring decision. Men, however, stood to gain positive career advantages as a result of their gender-incongruent behavior.

“We found that men who displayed high levels of warmth reduced relational uncertainty, since high warmth is related to helping tendencies—the opposite of what typical male stereotypes might suggest,” she said.

For managers, this means that counseling women to convey more warmth to combat agentic stereotypes, a common recommendation endorsed by researchers and practitioners alike, may not work in a hiring context. Managers should also be aware of both the female disadvantages that gender biases produce as well as the male advantages that might mean hiring the wrong candidate.

As a result of her study, Mitchell proposes that organizations use strict standardized selection processes, highly structured interviews, use joint interview evaluations, and hold interviewers accountable for hiring decisions in order to combat bias.

  Why Leeds     Rebecca Mitchell

As research productivity soars worldwide, Leeds professors continue to enjoy outsized influence in advancing business knowledge.​

Research faculty at Leeds were recognized as being among North America‘s most productive in the influential University of Texas at Dallas rankings, released April 4. 

When it comes to impact, a university’s research successes don’t always get the same attention as metrics like academic strength of a student body or alumni successes. 

But faculty research—which creates new knowledge and helps shape the direction and priorities of the business world—is just as important as how well those professors prepare students for success. 

And contributions from faculty at the Leeds School of Business continue to earn impressive recognition.

The University of Texas at Dallas’ listing of top research schools ranked Leeds No. 38 among all North American business schools, with 124 total articles published by faculty between 2018 and 2022. Leeds is the only Colorado business school to be included on the North American list; it was ranked 39 last year. 

‘Incredibly rewarding’

“It’s incredibly rewarding to be recognized by UT Dallas for the outstanding accomplishments of our faculty,” said Yonca Ertimur, acting dean of the Leeds School and Tandean Rustandy esteemed professor. 

Ertimur is heavily invested in research success at Leeds. She is a highly respected figure—especially in accounting—and holds editorial appointments at two top journals, which allows her to influence other research streams and offer useful coaching to Leeds faculty. 

“We have this incredible mix of productive younger faculty, who bring such interesting perspective on the future needs of industry, and seasoned senior faculty who guide them through the often arduous process of getting published,” she said. 

Among some of Leeds’ more interesting recent research insights: 

• Sarah Zechman and Andrea Pawliczek shone a light on SPACs—a relatively obscure investment product—and the role reputation and disclosure play as they grow in popularity.
• Shaun Davies researched the opacity of target-date funds—specifically, the billions of dollars in fees they charge consumers—and developed a replicating fund that outperformed TDFs when accounting for fees.
• Research from Stefanie Johnson was honored for insights that helped NASA identify and reduce gender bias among research scientists vying for resources as part of the Hubble Space Telescope program.
• Scott Shriver examined the future of digital privacy as targeted marketing strategies shift. With cookies going by the wayside, companies are getting more sophisticated in how they track consumers. 
• Sabrina Volpone published a study on compassion for new mothers at work and the role culture plays in helping women find balance as they return from maternity leave.

Tony Tong, senior associate dean for faculty and research at Leeds, noted the school’s prolific research output relative to its size. The top of the rankings are dominated by much larger business schools with many more research-active faculty. 

“Our faculty’s accomplishments are not just about quantity,” Tong said. “They are also about quality. Our professors are truly creating new knowledge and putting forth thought leadership that has real consequence for the business community—and that equips our students with new skills that will help them stand out throughout their careers.”

The UT Dallas list is considered the most influential ranking of business school research, and is compiled by the university’s Naveen Jindal School of Management. The top 50 schools appear below; .

  Why Leeds     Faculty and research  

New Leeds research explains why professionals raid retirement plans when they leave their employers.​

‘When you go to leave your job, and you’re presented with this option to cash out, you’re more likely to think of it as free money,’ John Lynch says. His research examined why professionals raid their retirement savings at job separation, and found few safeguards to help those employees make better financial decisions. 

The retirement savings crisis in the United States has plenty of culprits. 

John Lynch has found one in a very unlikely place. 

As 401(k) plans replaced pensions, employers started matching employee contributions to their future retirements. It turns out that the more generous an employer’s match is, the more likely employees are to withdraw money from the plan when they leave a job, instead of waiting until retirement. 

That greatly diminishes their savings while incurring hefty penalties—and no one is paying attention to the financial welfare of those professionals as they head out the door. 

“When you go to leave your job, and you’re presented with this option to cash out, you’re more likely to think of it as free money, since your employer contributed so much to it,” Lynch said, noting it’s a mix of employee psychology and employer bureaucracy that encourages professionals to take the money and run.

“The default option can’t be to put this pile of money in front of you and let you smell it Because once you do, you’re going to take it.”

Professor John Lynch

Lynch, a distinguished professor of marketing at Leeds and the current executive director of the Marketing Sciences Institute, is no newcomer to problems around retirement savings. Upon arriving at Leeds in 2009, he helped create the Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making, which hosts an annual conference in Boulder featuring thought leaders in industry and academia.

In one such conference, a presentation looked at leakage from retirement accounts—the kind of emerging topic the event welcomes—and Lynch was intrigued. 

“It was the first I’d heard of it,” he said, “and it sounded pretty bad.” 

Compounding effect of early withdrawal

Research has already turned up some sobering figures about American retirement investing. Of every dollar that makes its way into a 401(k) plan, 40 cents is withdrawn early. Not only is that subject to taxation and an IRS penalty, but people who withdraw lose the compounding effect that retirement savings can generate during the 40-plus years a person is working.

Lynch worked on the problem along with co-authors Yanwen Wang—now with the University of British Columbia, previously on the Leeds faculty—and Muxin Zhai, a Leeds post-doctoral researcher now with Texas State University.  They studied three years’ worth of data and discovered the correlation between the generosity of employer matching and the likelihood of money being withdrawn at termination. Their analysis found 41.4 percent of employees withdrew money when they left their jobs—with most emptying their accounts. 

The authors’ findings were featured earlier this month in that assessed motives for cashing out early and showcased steps employers can take to help employees when they leave a job. 

The study controlled not only for the size of an employee’s account, but their age, gender, income level and other factors. And while the authors weren’t able to identify the cause of each employee’s departure—in case being laid off, as opposed to taking a new position, influenced whether to withdraw money—they did look at months with high layoffs to see if there was a spike in withdrawals. For instance, during the worst of the pandemic, 1 in 6 Americans had some period of joblessness, but there was no change in the amount of leakage; in fact, research by a financial services company found the percent cashing out when leaving a job decreased very slightly during the pandemic. 

“We’re not saying none of that leakage is due to need, but there’s a huge chunk that’s just psychology,” Lynch said. 

Seeking simple solutions

A lot of Lynch’s past work in this arena considers the benefit of financial education, especially when that intervention takes place just before the time when you’re trying to influence behavior. When it comes to job separation, there’s usually an exit interview process, but retirement payouts typically are discussed only in a form letter from the financial services firm the employer pays to manage its plan. 

It’s a vexing problem, but Lynch said he believes there’s a simple solution. 

“There’s no one sitting there at the point where you’re changing jobs to say, ‘Can I help you understand your options?’” Lynch said. “It’s in an employer’s interest to do this—you want your workers to be able to enjoy retirement, otherwise you wouldn’t have given them that generous match.” 

Lynch said he hopes this research gets employers to have those conversations with workers on their way out, and perhaps introduce some friction when people lean toward cashing out. There may even be direct benefits for employers—for instance, if a worker who resigns elects to keep her account in the employer’s plan, the employer may get better rates from plan administrators.

“There are some bumps in the road, in terms of maybe setting up a Roth IRA where you can’t stay in the plan or roll over to a new one. The default option can’t be to put this pile of money in front of you and let you smell it,” Lynch said. “Because once you do, you’re going to take it.” 

“Cashing Out Retirement Job Savings at Job Separation” has been , and will appear in a forthcoming print edition of the journal.

  Why Leeds     Faculty and research     Marketing area of emphasis