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Article
Publication date: 9 February 2015

Helen Peterson

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how women managers in Swedish higher education (HE) both support and resist policies about equal representation, and to discuss which…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how women managers in Swedish higher education (HE) both support and resist policies about equal representation, and to discuss which factors influenced if, and how, these managers took on the role as change agents for gender equality.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 22 women in senior academic management positions (vice-chancellors, pro vice-chancellors, deans and pro deans) in ten Swedish HE institutions.

Findings

The paper highlights how these women situated themselves in an academic context where gender relations were changing. They supported equal representation policies in their everyday managerial practice and also by accepting management positions that they were nominated and elected to on the basis of such policies. However, they also resisted these policies when they experienced a need to “protect” women from being exploited “in the name of gender equality”.

Research limitations/implications

The paper addresses the call for research on the role of women managers in promoting, or preventing, change towards more gender balanced organizations. The paper builds on a small qualitative study with women only interviews. The study is therefore to be considered as explorative.

Practical implications

The paper makes a contribution to the research literature in the area of gender and change in academic organizations. The findings highlight how policies have different consequences in different settings and that people use their own (different) experiences when interpreting the effects of these policies. The findings thus show the varying impacts equal representation policies can have on women.

Originality/value

The discussion in the paper is situated in a unique empirical context characterized by demographic feminization and organizational restructuring. Most international literature on women in HE and in HE management is based on US or UK contexts. Swedish HE therefore provides an interesting setting. The analysis also addresses the call for more research that takes into account the multifaceted character of HE and that discusses disciplinary differences.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 34 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 February 2019

Jolien Voorspoels and Inge Bleijenbergh

The purpose of this paper is to explore the practices utilized by university actors when implementing gender quotas, and study how these practices affect gender equality in…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the practices utilized by university actors when implementing gender quotas, and study how these practices affect gender equality in academic decision-making bodies.

Design/methodology/approach

The study applies a practice theory lens to the case study of a Belgian university implementing a gender quota by performing 26 semi-structured interviews with actors, and collecting and analyzing relevant organizational documents.

Findings

This study shows that university actors implement gender quotas through three practices: gender-specific calls, scouting and “playing around”. Identifying this variation in practices helps to understand both actors’ sense-making of compliance with gender quotas and women’s decision-making power in academic bodies.

Research limitations/implications

This study explores how practices interact with the organization’s broader context and its power dynamics. In future studies, adding ethnographic observations would strengthen the practice approach.

Practical implications

The study indicates that implementing gender quotas can foster women’s representation in decision-making, but that a strictly procedural sense-making of gender quotas could also undermine this. Universities should continue implementing gender quotas, further analyze their implementation practices and comprehensively adapt their organizational policies and practices to comply with gender equality goals substantively.

Originality/value

Through a practice theory approach, this paper offers original insight into how actors comply with gender quotas. Uncovering the implementation process in particular, the paper reveals how gender quotas could foster gender equality in academic decision-making.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 38 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 24 October 2017

Elizabeth Erin Wheat

Under the doctrine of judicial review established by Marbury v. Madison (1803) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), courts retain the power and authority to review…

Abstract

Under the doctrine of judicial review established by Marbury v. Madison (1803) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), courts retain the power and authority to review legislative and executive actions and rule on their constitutionality or legality. Courts may also review actions of judges and lower court decisions. This is an important and necessary action to maintain the checks and balances and separation of powers in the United States (U.S.) political system. It is also critical for providing legal oversight and accountability. This chapter will first look at judicial review historically including relevant statutes and cases, actions by the executive branch, and efforts by Congress.

Additionally, the chapter will examine the relationship between judicial review and public policy. Through laws passed by Congress or regulations enacted by federal agencies, these branches of government draft policies with the expectation the judicial branch will enforce them. The courts, however, are to uphold the Constitution first and foremost, and rule on the constitutionality of the laws and regulations. Judicial opinions can have the effect of creating policy, which is a different purpose than the Founding Fathers intended. After reviewing the court system, the chapter will examine several issue areas where the court has been shaped by and in turn influenced public policy.

Details

Corruption, Accountability and Discretion
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-556-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 December 2022

Gail Crimmins and Sarah Casey

This paper argues that universities can facilitate women graduates' employability by supporting gender equity within their institutions. It presents a rationale and strategy for…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper argues that universities can facilitate women graduates' employability by supporting gender equity within their institutions. It presents a rationale and strategy for addressing the gendered nature of career confidence which negatively impacts women graduates' entry into the workplace – a phenomenon that influences women graduates' career and life trajectories, and all industries' capacity to serve women stakeholders.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors consider existing literature as “words to think with” (Kinsella and Shepherd, 2020), as a feminist methodology to contribute fresh ideas into the discourse arena of graduate employability and as a means to make social change possible (Phelan, 1994).

Findings

The paper presents the feminist viewpoint that a reconfiguration of gender relations in the academy, through deploying gender equity quotas, and professional development activities designed to expose and help mitigate implicit gender bias are required to support women graduates' career confidence and employability.

Research limitations/implications

The paper offers a viewpoint rather than an empirical evidence because of the difficulty in directly assessing a causal relationship between gendered education experience and graduates' self-efficacy and transition from college to work, “due to its longitudinal nature … [and] because cultural beliefs are … difficult to manipulate experimentally” (Sterling et al., 2020, p. 30,306). Also, while gender equity quotas have had some success, they can be disrupted by gendered bias within the workplace. Although the authors recommend a combination intervention of gender equity quotas and professional development to address gender bias, they acknowledge that the intervention is yet to be evaluated.

Practical implications

Universities are tasked with supporting graduate employability, an inherent quality of which is graduate identity. The study offers a practical solution to increasing the number of women leaders within the academy by recommending the introduction of gender equity quotas, supported by professional development designed to develop leaders' gender insight and change agency, and combat all university workers' gender bias. This approach provides more equitable work structures within universities and increases the number and nature of women role models to support women's graduate identity development. Gender equity principles are presented as the key to facilitating women graduates' self-efficacy and work readiness.

Social implications

Strategy designed to enhance women graduates' career confidence is critical because women's lower career confidence tends to inform their lower-level starting positions with lower-level pay, resulting in role and pay gaps that are sustained and magnified throughout the life cycle of their careers. Additionally, interventions to address gender bias in the academy are significant because providing gender equity quotas alongside facilitating women in leadership positions to be/come change agents move beyond what Cockburn (1989, p. 218) defines as supporting a short-term agenda of “equality for individual women … [to supporting a] project of transformation for organizations”.

Originality/value

The novel contribution of this paper is the feminist conceptualisation that gender equity practices, most notably a composite of gender equity quotas and professional development, are located within universities' remit to support graduate employability.

Details

Education + Training, vol. 65 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 September 2021

Mohamed Mousa

By studying four public universities in Egypt, the author of this paper aims to identify how male faculty perceive the representation and status of their female colleagues.

Abstract

Purpose

By studying four public universities in Egypt, the author of this paper aims to identify how male faculty perceive the representation and status of their female colleagues.

Design/methodology/approach

The author employed a qualitative research method via semi-structured interviews with 40 male academics in addition to five focus group discussions with an additional 20 male academics. The author subsequently used thematic analysis to determine the main ideas in the transcripts.

Findings

The findings confirmed that women faculty are not under-represented at professorial levels, but they are denied administrative academic positions, such as rectors and deans in universities. The author also discovered that the social norms shaping both national and organizational culture in Egypt create a cultural bias against women faculty.

Originality/value

To the best of the author's knowledge, this study is the first of its kind in the context of a developing nation to focus on the status and representation of women faculty from the perspective of male colleagues, and subsequently, it is the first to address the higher education sector in one of the leading developing nations in Africa and the Middle East. This paper contributes by filling a gap in HR management and higher education, in which empirical studies that address male faculty to identify their perceptions of the status and representation of their female colleagues have been limited so far.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 35 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 April 2024

Mohamed Mousa and Beatrice Avolio

This study aims to answer the following question: Why might home-based work duties be perceived by female academics as extreme?

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to answer the following question: Why might home-based work duties be perceived by female academics as extreme?

Design/methodology/approach

We employed a qualitative research method through semi-structured interviews with 33 female academics from three public universities selected from amongst 26 public institutions of higher education in Egypt. Thematic analysis was subsequently used to determine the main ideas in the transcripts.

Findings

We find that the sudden implementation of home-based work makes the academic duties of female academics extreme. Moreover, the following four factors help explain the extremity/intensity of the home-based work of female academics: mental and physical fatigue resulting from WFH, the inability to adequately meet family commitments when working from home (WFH), poor resources for home-based work and reduced ability to focus on the obstacles facing them in their academic career.

Originality/value

This paper contributes by filling a gap in human resources management and higher education in which empirical studies on female academics WFH and extreme academic duties have been limited so far.

Details

Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-4323

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 May 2020

Clotilde Coron

This work deals with social representations of gender equality in the workplace. Little academic work deals with the way workers define gender equality. My research also deals…

4196

Abstract

Purpose

This work deals with social representations of gender equality in the workplace. Little academic work deals with the way workers define gender equality. My research also deals with the implications of this definition in terms of policy implementation.

Design/methodology/approach

This work is based on a mixed-method approach. A quantitative study based on an online survey conducted in 2015 at a French company is mobilized to identify and measure the main representations of gender equality among the workers. Then, a qualitative study is used to explore these representations in depth and to examine how they influence the implementation of policy on gender equality.

Findings

This work shows that for French workers, equal pay and equal access to responsibilities are the most important dimensions of gender equality, while gender diversity and work-life balance seem less important. The representation of gender equality varies according to gender, professional field and managerial status. These variations help to understand the difficulty of implementing such policy.

Practical implications

Managerially, these results would strongly indicate that companies in France, but also in other developed countries, should consider carrying out awareness campaigns aimed at employees in order to promote a common culture and definition of gender equality. Indeed, the coexistence of various representations of gender equality partly explains the insufficient implementation—and thus the poor performance and general effectiveness of gender equality policies, both in theoretical and practical terms. Companies should also consider introducing awareness campaigns that specifically target men, who grant less importance to gender equality than women.

Originality/value

This study deals with social representations of gender equality in France, a subject which has been largely neglected or overlooked in existing fields of gender research. The international literature on gender equality shows that variations in representations of gender equality constitute a major subject for research and policies about gender, whatever the country. However, this topic still remains inadequately addressed. This research aims to strengthen such research literature dedicated to the issue of gender equality.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 39 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1977

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that…

2049

Abstract

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

Details

Managerial Law, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0558

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1983

R.G.B. Fyffe

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and…

11005

Abstract

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 3 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1975

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis…

Abstract

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.

Details

Managerial Law, vol. 18 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0558

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