Career outcomes depend, in part, upon a person’s willingness to put herself forward for different opportunities. In this session, we’ll discuss how gender differences in “willingness to apply” — for things like higher paying positions, promotions, and stretch assignments — impact the distribution of diversity and talent in the workplace. Professor Katherine Coffman will present some of her recent research as a jumping off point and discuss her perspective on the HBS classroom, from a professor’s point of view.

Katherine Coffman is an assistant professor of business administration in the Negotiations, Organizations & Markets unit. In her research, Professor Coffman uses experimental methods to study individual, team, and managerial decision making, with a focus on gender stereotypes. Her work has been published in Management Science, the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Social Choice and Welfare, and it has been cited in such media outlets as Pew Research, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, The Atlantic, and Time. She is an associate editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association. Professor Coffman holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University and a BA in mathematics and economics from Williams College.

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