MOOC UPTAKE SIGNALS DEMAND COUNTRY: Norway SCHOOL: NHH Norwegian School of Economics
REDUCING
HIRING BIAS COUNTRY: UK and Switzerland SCHOOL: University of Exeter Business School and University of St. Gallen A simple CV change of replacing specific dates of past employment experience with the number of years worked can reduce bias faced by those who have taken a career break, according to a new study. This form of bias impacts parents who have taken time off due to caring responsibilities in particular. “Despite employees commonly experiencing career breaks throughout their work lives (for example, due to caregiving, sickness or downsizing due to the Covid-19 pandemic) these employees – especially women and mothers – face additional challenges to re-enter the workforce. Potential employers consistently disregard these employees despite research showing that short gaps have little to no effect on their skills and abilities,” said study co-author and University of St.Gallen assistant professor Jamie Gloor. The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour , found that using the number of years worked instead of specific dates on a CV increased a candidate’s call back rate by an average of 15 per cent among those with employment gaps. It also increased the call back rate of those without employment gaps, by eight per cent on average. The results stem from an analysis of 9,022 real job openings. The researchers then undertook a follow-up experiment with 2,650 experienced hiring managers to check that these results were driven by the applicants’ experience and not because the newly designed CVs were simply easier to read. “While the onus should not be on unemployed applicants to prevent bias against them, there is plenty of evidence to suggest job applicants with employment gaps face lower employment prospects. We found that by replacing the standard employment dates on the résumé with the length of time of employment applicants are highlighting their experience to prospective employers, thus eliminating employment gap penalties that hinder these applicants’ advancement beyond the first gateway of the selection process,” said Oliver Hauser, an associate professor of economics at the University of Exeter Business School. Hauser and Gloor carried out the study together with researchers at Harvard Business School and the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team. EB
Interest in NHH Norwegian School of Economics’ (NHH) first MOOC, ‘Business Models for Sustainability’, has been so high that the researchers behind it are convinced of the format’s potential and the growing demand for courses in this area. “The potential is enormous,” said NHH associate professor Sveinung Jørgensen, who developed the course together with professor Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen alongside researchers from Copenhagen Business School (CBS) ESCP Berlin and Esade Business School. Jørgensen added that he expects the numbers enrolling to climb to a level akin to the 48,000 achieved by a MOOC on sustainable fashion offered by CBS. A total of 1,200 people completed the course between its launch in the summer and the end of November. The NHH academics believe that MOOCs are a great way to widen the reach of an institution’s research and break down barriers of access. “New knowledge should not be exclusively available to those with the resources, time and money. For those who don’t have the means to take such courses, a MOOC is fantastic and it’s also extremely flexible,” Pedersen reasoned. The two researchers feel that they have also been able to widen the reach of their 2018 book, RESTART Sustainable Business Model Innovation , since it became freely available under open access in 2020. “The book topped 800,000 downloads this summer,” said Pedersen, adding that, “the book is now on the reading list of a school in Chile.” Interest in the NHH MOOC, meanwhile, is testament to the growing demand for knowledge of sustainable business models. The rising number of NHH students taking Jørgensen and Pedersen’s Sustainable Business Models course underlines this point further. “In 2014, we started with perhaps 30 to 40 students. Now, we have between 400 to 500 NHH students each year,” Pedersen surmised. “Our house is on fire. Norway and the world need new sustainable solutions. We see that more and more people are interested in this and we are receiving an enormous response, from academics as well as the business community,” Jørgensen explained. TBD
10 | Ambition | FEBRUARY 2023
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