Management Gender Gap Under The Spotlight At Conference

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Also Included In: Conferences
Article Date: 14 Jan 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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Leadership, management gender gaps and homophobic prejudice will be the topics being discussed by leading psychologists at The British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology Annual Conference, taking place at The Hilton Hotel, Blackpool from 14th - 16th January 2009.

Keynote speeches will come from the Chair of the Health and Safety Executive, Judith Hackitt CBEand the UK Head of HR at Deloitte, Stevan Rolls. Brand new research and breakthroughs in the field of Occupational Psychology will also be presented, including:

- A study using an online test of implicit prejudice that found homophobic attitudes are more common than racism. The study was carried out by Dr Pete Jones at Occupational Psychology consultancy Shire Professional

- Research by Dave Bartram from SHL Group examined the characteristics of 39,354 business people across 11 countries has discovered a Europe-wide gender gap in terms of leadership potential across 'The Great Eight' management competencies.

- Psychologists Emma Donaldson-Feilder from Affinity Health at Work and Joanna Yarker and Rachel Lewis from Goldsmiths University of London will provide advice based on their latest research that will help managers steer their employees through the stress of the global downturn.

- Women find it hard to compete for leadership positions because they lack the experience of managing high-risk projects. This is the finding of a study conducted by Inga Pioro and Anu Ramesh, from Personnel Decisions International.

Dr Gene Johnson, Chair of the Division of Occupational Psychology, said: "We're looking forward to meeting in Blackpool for this year's annual conference. With the current problems in the economy we feel our work to help organisation increase their effectiveness and improve the work-lives and career potential for workers is more important than ever."

If you would like to attend the conference, or if you would like individual press releases on the stories above, please contact the Media Centre on 0116 2529500. For more information and to see a draft programme on the conference, visit http://www.bps.org.uk/dop2009

The British Psychological Society