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Vivian L. Xiao, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

University of Washington Bothell

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About

About

BACKGROUND

Vivian L. Xiao is an Assistant Professor in the Management and Organization Area at University of Washington Bothell’s School of Business. Prior to her appointment at UW Bothell, she previously held appointments as a postdoctoral scholar in Organization Studies at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management and a lecturer in Management at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business.

 

Vivian received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2022 and her B.A. in Psychology (with Honors) and English, magna cum laude, from Rice University in 2016.

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Vivian’s work sits at the intersection of the two major shifts changing the modern organization: the rapidly increasing racial diversity in the workforce and the proliferation of remote work. Her work explores these topics at multiple levels of analysis, investigating how people from a diverse set of backgrounds navigate success at work, and how organizations dynamically respond to these major shifts in their environment through their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices. Using archival, experimental, and survey methods, both in the lab and in the field, she focuses primarily on three areas of inquiry: (1) how the changing nature of diversity in the U.S. workforce impacts women’s career advancement, (2) how the increased prevalence of new modes of work such as remote work affects workers’ experiences and outcomes, and (3) how organizations themselves respond to their changing environments and engage in practices that help or hinder inequality.

 

Her work highlights the multi-faceted and multi-level nature of bias, discrimination, and worker well-being, and lays the foundation for more comprehensive and effective strategies to improve DEI in organizations. It has been published in leading disciplinary outlets such as Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Research

Research

THE DIVERSIFYING WORKFORCE

In this stream of research, Vivian examines the implications of the rapidly diversifying U.S. workforce for women’s career outcomes. Often using an intersectional perspective—considering how individuals' multiple social identities simultaneously influence their experiences and outcomes—this line of work sheds light on how the changing nature of our workforce challenges existing assumptions for how gender operates in organizational contexts.

SELECTED WORKS

 

Xiao, V.L. & Lowery, B.S. (2024). Who are You to Me?: A Relational Approach to Examining Race-Gender Associations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 110, 104562. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104562

Xiao, V.L., Lowery, B.S., & Stillwell, A. (2023). Gender Backlash and the Moderating Role of Shared Racial Group Membership. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 49(4), 554–570. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221074543

Media coverage: Stanford Business Insights, SPSP Character & Context blog

Xiao, V.L. & Lowery, B.S. Gender-Based Benevolence and Race. [Working paper]

*Won best paper based on a dissertation, DEI Division, AOM 2023

Xiao, V.L., Corrington, A.R., Kinias, Z. & Hebl, M.R. Gender, Race, and Personal Entitlement. [Working paper]

Triana, M., Xiao, V.L., Li, M., Byun, S., & Chapa, O. CEO Gender, Age, and the Double Bind. [Data analysis phase]

THE FUTURE OF WORK

In her second major stream of research, Vivian investigates the DEI in the context of “the future of work.” Specifically, she explores the conditions under which new modes of work, such as remote and hybrid work arrangements, are beneficial to workers, with particular attention to how remote work may uniquely benefit workers from marginalized backgrounds, such as workers of color. This work suggests that remote work options are a simple but meaningful practice organizations can retain to improve DEI.

SELECTED WORKS

Xiao, V.L., Wiwad, D., Talaifar, S., Chu. C., Puente, L., Lagaron, A. & Lowery, B.S. [Remote Work, Racial Discrimination, and Worker Well-being]. Revise & Resubmit, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Talaifar, S., Chu. C., Xiao, V.L., Lagaron, A., Puente, L., & Lowery, B.S. Remote Work, Worker Gender and Race, and Voice. [Data analysis phase]

IMPLICATIONS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES

In her final major stream of research, Vivian investigates how organizations navigate changes in their environments and increased demands for socially-conscious behaviors. This work seeks to understand how factors internal (e.g., board composition) and external (e.g., exogenous shocks) to the organization influence organizations’ practices related to DEI and corporate social responsibility (CSR), finding that many of these dynamics are multiply-determined and multi-level in nature.

SELECTED WORKS

Xiao, V.L., Upadhyay, A., & Triana. Mega-threats and Board Gender Diversity. [Working paper]

 

Liu, H.F., Xiao, V.L., Triana, M., & Wang, J. Board Political Ideology, CEO Compensation, and Environmental Innovation. [Data analysis phase]

Contact

Contact me

Vivian L. Xiao

University of Washington Bothell
School of Business

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