Alexandra Kalev is associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel-Aviv University. She studies organizations, work, law, inequality and diversity across national, organizational and economic contexts. Her book with Frank Dobbin, Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t, was published in 2022 by Harvard University Press (Belknap), offering an evidence-based approach to managing diversity in corporations. That project now examines diversity innovations in universities as well as faculty hiring, layoff and retirement dynamics across routine and crises periods. In other research projects, Kalev studies age inequality at work, and the employment integration of Palestinians in Israel.
Kalev’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Edmond J. Safra Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, the Israeli Science Foundation, the Bi-National Science Foundation, and the Israeli Ministry of Science. Her work has been published in the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, Administrative Science Quarterly, Law and Social Inquiry, Sociological Science and the Harvard Business Review among others, and was covered extensively in popular media outlets such as the Economist, NewYork Times, and Washington Post. Her research article on restructuring and diversity, “Cracking the Glass Cages,” won the W. Richard Scott award of the American Sociological Association section on Organizations Occupations and Work.
Kalev is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Israeli Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and since 2016 has been publishing annually the Israeli Diversity Index in collaboration with the Israeli EEOC and the Central Bureau of Statistics. Kalev was the editor of the Hebrew language leading journal Israeli Sociology between 2017 and 2022.
Recent publications:
Axelrad Hila, Alexandra Kalev and Noah Lewin Epstein. (2023). Ambivalent Bias at Work: Managers Perceptions of Older Workers across Organizational Contexts. Work, Employment and Society
Alexandra Kalev and Frank Dobbin. (2022).“The Surprising Benefits of Work-Life Supports: It’s a Secret Weapon for Achieving Organizational Diversity”. Harvard Business Review. 100(5):98-107.
Knight Carly, Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev. (2022). Under the Radar: Visibility and the Effects of Discrimination Lawsuits in Small and Large Firms. American Sociological Review. (87)2:175-201
Kim Kwan Woo, Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin and Deutsch Gal. (2021). Effects of the Great Recession on the Diversity of New Faculty Sociological Science. (8): 308-324
Dobbin Frank and Alexandra Kalev. (2021). The Civil Rights Revolution at Work: What Went Wrong Annual Review of Sociology. (47):281-303
Alexandra Kalev and Frank Dobbin. (2020). Does Diversity Training Increase Corporate Diversity? Regulation Backlash and Regulatory Accountability Working Paper
Kalev Alexandra and Frank Dobbin . (October 20, 2020). Companies Need to Think Bigger Than Diversity Training. Harvard Business Review
Kalev Alexandra. (April 20, 2020).Research: U.S. Unemployment Rising Faster for Women and People of Color. Harvard Business Review
Dobbin Frank and Kalev Alexandra. (May-June 2020). Why Sexual Harassment Programs Backfire. Harvard Business Review