Diversity and the Academic Career

Academy of Management, Massachusetts, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, 4 - 08 Ağustos 2023

Building on diversity research and social identity theory, we investigate whether and how

diversity characteristics influence the decisions of PhD graduates to pursue an academic career.

Using panel data from a cohort of PhD students who graduated in the 2014 academic year in

Germany, we find that, in general, surface-level diversity characteristics, such as gender, only

influence the academic career choice when deep-level diversity characteristics, such as

personality, preferences, values, and social class, remain unconsidered. Among surface-level

characteristics, we only find consistent evidence for foreign-born PhD graduates to be more

likely to stay in academia than the native-born. Among deep-level characteristics, the life goals

and values of PhD graduates play a crucial role in their decisions. Those seeking to generate new

ideas and work independently aspire to academic careers more than those whose intentions are

spread around materiality, freedom, and sociality. In addition, individuals who have gained

diverse experiences through research visits and research collaborations and those from a higher

social class have a higher probability of pursuing an academic career. These findings emphasize

the complexity of the academic career choice and the need to pay more attention to the effects of

deep-level diversity characteristics in academia.

KEYWORDS:

Academic career; career choice; deep-level diversity; surface-level diversity; social identity

theory; self-categorization; similarity-attraction