Meaning & Measurement Mini-Conference

Elizabeth Gorman —University of Virginia egorman@virginia.edu I am an assistant professor at the University of Virginia. I am interested in understanding how culture influences action, and in particular how cultures within organizations influence decisions that in turn shape organizational and individual outcomes. For example, in current research projects I examine how gender differences in hiring and promotion are influenced by (1) schemas concerning gender and role incumbents, and (2) organizational ideologies and understandings concerning interpersonal relationships and the training of new workers. In future work, I plan to investigate how individuals’ knowledge of specific cultures (which may or may not constitute “cultural capital”) affects their workplace outcomes. I am interested in exploring linkages between the study of culture and the new social-psychological research on social cognition. My work has (so far at least) been quantitative, and viable quantitative analyses require valid and compelling ways of measuring culture. My current question is: How can we effectively measure aspects of cultures within organizations using organizations’ published texts?