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Studies and analyses changes to the promotion policies and practices at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and identifies outcomes by gender. Suggests that there are quite a few factors to be addressed before gender equity in academia at UWA is obtained. Discusses, in depth, how to try to deal with lack of networks, socialization, the dual‐role burden, masculine organizational culture and gendered power imbalance in the workplace. States that, although great inroads have been made at UWA, statistics show that there are still very fundamental barriers to be addressed to aid further improvement for women academics.

The purpose of this paper is to report research into the marketing and promotion of e‐books, and use this as a case study context to generate insights into approaches in academic libraries to the marketing of new services. As such it contributes to the limited empirical research on both the introduction of e‐book services and on marketing in academic libraries.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 25 academic librarians, in seven case study libraries, holding the following posts: subject librarians, e‐resources librarians, or cataloguers. Interviews focussed on: the existence of a promotion/marketing strategy for e‐books; the marketing and promotion tools used to promote e‐books; promotion via academics; the issues and challenges in promoting e‐books; and future plans for the promotion of e‐books.

None of the libraries had a marketing communication strategy relating to e‐books, yet, on the other hand, most interviewees were able to point to a range of tools used to promote e‐books, and some had plans for improvements in their promotion activities.

This study demonstrates a laissez faire approach to the marketing of potentially significant new services from academic libraries – providing access to e‐books. Recommendations for development focus on taking a strategic approach to marketing and promotion, managing tensions between promotion and supply, innovation in promotional tools, and influencing word‐of‐mouth.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the findings from the qualitative strand of the National e‐Book Observatory (2007‐2009) project, relating to the promotion of e‐textbooks in UK universities by the library, academics and publishers. A complementary paper on the ways in which students and academics locate e‐books provided by their library will appear in a future issue.

Following the provision by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the UK of collections of e‐textbooks, the project used deep log analysis, benchmark surveys and focus groups to develop a rich picture of library e‐collection management and use by students and academics. Focus groups were undertaken with library staff, academics and students; the dialogues were transcribed and analysed using NVivo7 software.

The qualitative studies found that libraries were using a range of promotional tools, although these were not always finding their targets. Often libraries had no formal promotion strategy for e‐resources. Although little in evidence, the value of academic commitment and promotion was emphasised. Promotion by publishers and aggregators is both to libraries and directly to academic staff. Students felt that they were largely unaware of promotion beyond the presence of e‐books in the catalogue, and in some cases stated explicitly that they thought more should be done to promote library e‐resources to them.

The paper offers pragmatic guidance on promotional methodologies.

The project describes the first major, national usage study of e‐books in higher education. The paper contributes significantly to the literature in discussing the importance of promoting e‐books to students and staff.

The purpose of this paper is to examine gender differences in promotion probabilities of the academic staff of a large university in The Netherlands, taking into account the sex segregated context of the faculty.

The study uses records of the university's personnel information system from 1990 to 2006, covering the data of 1,792 employees in the academic ranks who have entered since 1990. Cox regression models are used to test three hypotheses.

The findings show that women have lower promotion probabilities than men. The gender differences are primarily explained by differences in years of service and external mobility, and not by the sex segregated context of the faculty. A higher share of women decreases the odds of being promoted for both men and women. Gender differences in working hours do not explain the gender differences in promotion probabilities.

The paper adds to the existing literature because event history analyses have hardly been applied to personnel records for investigating the impact of the sex segregated context on promotion probabilities.

The purpose of this research is to examine the hypothesis that under‐representation of women in Australian universities reflects barriers in the academic promotion process.

This study uses three complementary approaches. Promotion policies and guidelines are examined using content analysis of documents from all Australian universities. A sample of 17 universities was selected for interviews with key gatekeepers to examine promotions practice. Data on promotions by level and gender were analysed for 16 of these universities 2000‐2002.

The analysis of promotions policies and guidelines established a range of practice. Policies supporting women's participation and success in promotions included explicit consideration of part‐time and non‐traditional careers, clear equity statements, and gender representation on promotions committees. Interviews emphasised the importance of support for and identification of female candidates, and the need for the establishment of institution‐wide and performance targets for senior managers. Implicitly, most interviewees accepted the premise that women experienced barriers in the promotion process, including reticence in applying and stereotypically gendered notions of merit. However, the analysis of promotions data showed a more encouraging picture. Application rates and success rates for women are similar to men's and, at professorial level, slightly higher. Nonetheless women remain under‐represented at senior levels, comprising only 16 per cent of the professoriate.

The study provided a report to the Australian Vice‐Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) with a number of recommendations for improving University promotions policies. These recommendations are available on the AVCC website and have applicability beyond the Australian university sector.

This study is an original study across all Australian universities which has international applicability and policy relevance.

Women remain underrepresented in academic STEM, especially at the highest ranks. While much attention has focused on early-career attrition, mid-career advancement is still largely understudied and undocumented. The purpose of this paper is to analyze gender differences in advancement to full professor within academic STEM at a mid-size public doctoral university in the western USA, before and after the National Science Foundation (NSF)-ADVANCE Program (2003–2008).

Using faculty demographics and promotion data between 2008 and 2014, combined with faculty responses to two waves of a climate survey, the magnitude and longevity of the impact of ADVANCE on mid-career faculty advancement across gender is evaluated.

This study documents increased representation of women in all ranks within the STEM colleges, including that of full professor due to ADVANCE efforts. It also demonstrates the role of greater gender awareness and formalization of procedures in reducing the variability in the time as associate professor until promotion to full professor for all faculty members, while also shrinking gender disparities in career attainment. As a result of the codification of the post-tenure review timeline toward promotion, more recently hired faculty are promoted more swiftly and consistently, irrespective of gender. Post-ADVANCE, both male and female faculty members express a greater understanding of and confidence in the promotion process and no longer see it as either a hurdle or source of gender inequality in upward career mobility.

While data were collected at a single university, demographics and career experiences by women mirror those at other research universities. This study shows that within a given institution-specific governance structure, long-lasting effects on faculty career trajectories can be achieved, by focusing efforts on creating greater transparency in expectations and necessary steps toward promotion, by reducing barriers to information flown, by standardizing and codifying the promotion process, and by actively engaging administrators as collaborators and change agents in the transformation process.

This study addresses mid-career dynamics and potential mechanisms that explain gender gaps in the promotion to full professor, a largely understudied aspect of gender disparities in career attainment within STEM. It shows how institutional policy changes, intended to alleviate gender disparities, can benefit the career trajectories of all faculty members. Specifically, this study highlights the crucial role of codifying procedures and responsibilities in neutralizing subjectivity and inconsistencies in promotion outcomes due to varying departmental climates.

This paper aims to study vertical gender segregation, which persists even in the fields where women are represented at junior levels. Academia is an example. Individual performance and lack of a critical mass do not fully explain the problem. Thus, this paper adopted an intergroup perspective (i.e. social identity and competition theories) to study how a majority (i.e. men) can influence the advancement of a minority (i.e. women).

The paper investigated promotions from associate to full professor in Italy. The original data set included all promotions from 2013 to 2016. To study intergroup dynamics, individual-level variables were analysed together with structural factors, such as gender representation and availability of resources.

The effect of gender representation was significant in that promotions were more likely when full professor ranks within academic institutions were men-dominated and associate professor ranks were women-dominated. Concurrently, the analysis of individual-level variables supported the existence of discrimination against women. The paper argues that the majority grants more promotions under the pressure of change; however, this does not contrast with discrimination at the individual level.

The paper focused only on one country. However, the framework can be applied in other contexts and used to study segregation based on factors other than gender.

This study explored gender segregation from a new perspective, highlighting the importance of the interplay between individual and structural factors. This interplay might be one of the causes of the slow progress of gender equality.

Scholarly studies on mentoring have mostly focused on traditional mentor–mentee relationships, with little or no emphasis on how institutionalized mentoring activities that include different pedagogical approaches could be used to enhance the professional development of academics. To address this knowledge gap, this article examines how an institutionalized multilevel mentoring program could be used to enhance the professional development of early-career academics and academics in designated groups in a South African university.

The data for the study were gathered from 18 mentees and 2 program administrators using semi-structured interviews. The data gathered were assessed by way of thematic analysis that involved a detailed process of identifying, analyzing, organizing, describing and reporting the themes that were developed from the data set.

The findings revealed that when mentees participate in different mentoring and professional development activities that are structured based on different pedagogies, they can engage in higher-order thinking processes and develop multidisciplinary experiences within an expanded professional learning community. Enabled by the situated learning setting, mentees can negotiate the meaning of their professional practice within a professional community and comprehend the nuanced pedagogical approaches including scaffolding learning used by mentors to shape their career trajectory and guide them to secure promotions.

The current study contributes to the scholarly discourse on situated learning by showing that mentoring could be planned and implemented as a pedagogical endeavor with diverse learning activities and structured as a form of professional development program within a professional community.

Arab female academics struggle to advance within their universities in both academic and managerial ranks. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the factors hindering Arab women’s academic career development through studying the case of Jordanian academic women.

Data were gathered through document analysis (Jordan constitution, Jordanian Labour Law and its amendments, higher education and scientific research law, Jordanian universities’ law and universities’ HR policies and regulations), interviews with 20 female academics and a focus group with 13 female academics (members of the Association of Jordanian Female Academics).

The results indicate female academics as tokens facing many interconnected and interrelated barriers embodied in cultural, social, economic and legal factors. The findings support the general argument proposed in human resource management (HRM) literature regarding the influence of culture on HRM practices and also propose that the influence of culture extends to having an impact on HR policies’ formulation as well as the formal legal system.

The influence of culture on women’s career development and various HR practices is well established in HR literature. But the findings of this study present a further pressure of culture. HR policies and other regulations were found to be formulated in the crucible of national culture. Legalizing discriminatory issues deepens the stereotypical pictures of women, emphasizing the domestic role of women and making it harder to break the glass ceiling and old-boy network.

This paper aims to further the understanding about the relationship between work–life conflict and possible barriers to career progression due to the perception of anticipated work–life conflict, considering the unbounded nature of academic work through features such as its intensity, flexibility and perception of organizational support.

The model was tested using survey data from academics in a public university in the south of Spain. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

The results reveal that current work–life conflict, job intensity and perception of support have a direct effect on the anticipation of work–life conflict in the event of progression in academic careers. The flexibility that academics enjoy is not sufficient to prevent the expected conflict. Academics' age is relevant, but gender or having childcare responsibilities have no significant effect of the anticipation of conflict.

This study addresses the gap in the literature on anticipated work–life conflict, expanding the focus to nonfamily commitments in unbounded jobs such as academic posts. The authors are not aware of any other study that focuses on the anticipation of work–life conflict in the case of career advancement among current employees with professional experience or accurate knowledge of what job they will be doing instead of students. Work–life balance should not be restricted to women with caring responsibilities, as conflict is no longer only related to gender roles.

This paper not only explores existing work–life conflict but also empirically analyzes anticipated work–life conflict in unbounded careers such as academia. It represents a significant contribution in an underresearched field and may lead to future research in other settings.