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1 – 10 of over 57000Robyn Pinder, Lisa Edwards and Alun Hardman
In this chapter, we explore gender equity issues in relation to the governance of sport in Wales. Our focus is primarily on Sport Wales (SW), the national agency…
Abstract
In this chapter, we explore gender equity issues in relation to the governance of sport in Wales. Our focus is primarily on Sport Wales (SW), the national agency responsible for developing and promoting sport and physical activity in Wales and for distributing National Lottery and Welsh Government funding. As a public authority, SW has a statutory responsibility to promote equality and eliminate direct and indirect discrimination. Their recent policy commitments express a desire to advance equality and promote inclusion and diversity within sports organisations in Wales. They also set the agenda for National Governing Bodies (NGBs) in Wales, in terms of providing a policy framework for understanding and pursuing gender equity in sport and sport governance. In this chapter, we present a snapshot of the governance and leadership policy landscape for Welsh sport, with a specific focus on gender equity. We present data collected from publicly available online policy documents relating to SW, and their NGB partners, relevant to gender equity provision. Based on the data, we suggest that there is evidence of progress in terms of the numbers of women on boards in Wales as well as the creation of gender equity policies within NGBs in Wales. We argue, however, that progress is inconsistent across the different NGBs in Wales, and it is less clear whether sport governing bodies can implement policies to effectively challenge organisational culture and ethos. We concluded by suggesting future Wales specific research priorities on this topic.
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De-Graft Owusu-Manu, David Mensah Sackey, Dickson Osei-Asibey, Rachelle Kyerewah Agyapong and David John Edwards
The purpose of the study is to investigate the challenges in improving women's energy access, rights and equitable sustainable development from a Ghanaian perspective.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to investigate the challenges in improving women's energy access, rights and equitable sustainable development from a Ghanaian perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The research utilizes a mixed method. A qualitative in-depth exploratory design was chosen to understand how gender is mainstreamed within Ghana's energy sector. This included semi-structured interviews with key managers, experience policy experts and focus groups. The semi-structured interviews were analyzed using thematic content analysis (TCA).
Findings
The study reveals that the National Energy Policy of 2010, as the main energy policy regulating the energy sector in Ghana, does make provision for gender equality, safety especially women, in line with Ghana's sustainable development goals. The energy policy aims to empower women and create gender parity in the sector. Nevertheless, the study also found major challenges to gender mainstreaming in the energy sector, including poor analysis in formulating energy policies, inadequate financial resources, and poor monitoring and evaluation.
Originality/value
The paper exposes gender equity challenges associated with the energy sector in Ghana. It also offers a new policy angle which connects gender mainstreaming to sustainable development. The research describes how women are included in developing energy policies and in addressing gender challenges in the energy sector.
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Ellen Kuhlmann and Ivy Lynn Bourgeault
This article aims to provide an overview on key trends in public sector policy and professional development and how they intersect with gender and diversity. It seeks to…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to provide an overview on key trends in public sector policy and professional development and how they intersect with gender and diversity. It seeks to explore new configurations in the relationship between gender and the professions and to develop a matrix for the collection of articles presented in this volume.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors link social policy and governance approaches to the study of professions, using the health professions and academics as case studies. Material from a number of studies carried out by the authors together with published secondary sources provide the basis of our analysis; this is followed by an introduction of the scope and structure of this thematic issue.
Findings
The findings underline the significance of public policy as key to better understand gender and diversity in professional groups. The outline of major trends in public sector professions brings into focus both the persistence of gender inequality and the emergence of new lines of gendered divisions in the professions.
Practical implications
The research presented here highlights a need for new models of public sector management and professional development that are more sensitive to equality and diversity.
Originality/value
This article focuses on the “making” of inequality at the interface of public policy and professional action. It introduces a context sensitive approach that moves beyond equal opportunity policies and managerial accounts and highlights new directions in research and policy.
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The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative case study of national innovation system in Canada and Sweden from the perspective of gender equality. The case study…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative case study of national innovation system in Canada and Sweden from the perspective of gender equality. The case study focuses on public policy to illuminate the formal aspects of innovation systems as they are conceived by the state in relation to gender, diversity and social inclusion. Formal policy measures are contrasted with interview data to provide a holistic picture of innovation policy as it relates to gender equality in both countries.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper relies on data from 44 qualitative interviews with innovation leaders in the public sector, private sector and academia in Canada and Sweden, as well as a sample of innovation and gender experts at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in Paris, France, between 2012 and 2014. The theoretical framework draws on feminist institutionalism to explain the gendered interactions of institutions in innovation spaces.
Findings
This study finds that Sweden is a global policy leader in the development of gender-conscious innovation policy, while Canada has yet to consider a gender-conscious approach to innovation policy. Gender-conscious innovation policy norms have not traveled across the OECD because of administrative solos and political opportunity structures.
Research/limitations implications
Each of the people contacted to sit for an interview was chosen primarily on their professional title and their ability to speak from a place of knowledge about innovation in their country and or industry, and this creates a success bias within the study focusing on the knowledge of elites in the field.
Practical implications
This study explores how policy might be reimagined to support gender equality and diversity, thus changing the institutional landscape to support a wider range of innovations and distributing the benefits of innovation in a more equitable way.
Social implications
This paper challenges assumptions about the social and economic power dynamics reflected in current innovation systems in Canada and Sweden.
Originality/value
This is the first study of its kind in comparative public policy to explore differences in gender equality and innovation policy in Canada and Sweden. This research also contributes more widely to the existing body of gender, public policy and innovation literatures in Canada and Sweden, respectively.
Over the past 20 years, the European Union has developed a comprehensive policy on gender equality (GE) in the fields of research, innovation and higher education. While…
Abstract
Over the past 20 years, the European Union has developed a comprehensive policy on gender equality (GE) in the fields of research, innovation and higher education. While North European countries have actively implemented policies in this direction, South and East European countries have been far less active and made limited progress, resulting in widening policy gaps across countries. Drawing from the experience of a capacity-building project (TARGET), this chapter explores the factors that impede the implementation of gender equality plans (GEPs) in research and higher education institutions across five countries – Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Italy and Serbia. It argues that the lack of a coherent GE discourse in research and innovation policies that sheds light on structural barriers and implicit bias is a central impediment: it severely limits the potential of GEPs and the power of change agents in research and higher education organisations in Southeast Europe to stimulate institutional change.
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Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to consider “equality mainstreaming” as an international policy and to explore some of the implications this raises for public…
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to consider “equality mainstreaming” as an international policy and to explore some of the implications this raises for public management.
Design/Methodology/Approach – The methodology is based on literature review looking at the way gender mainstreaming practices have developed a wider application to equality mainstreaming. Examining the relationship between mainstreaming and evidence-based management, it comments on the challenges this poses for public management.
Findings – Equality mainstreaming and its implications have been largely absent from public management discourse despite the growth of equality mainstreaming in international policy.
Research limitations/Implications – Research in public management should address mainstreaming and its potential for social change.
Practical implications – This chapter brings this issue to the forefront in an effort to engage academics and public managers.
Social implications – This chapter raises theoretical questions about mainstreaming and social change in favor of equality. It is a starting point for further research on public management as a tool for shifting organizational and societal values.
Originality/Value – The chapter provides an overview of previous literature and policy development in this area and then moves on to explore the implications of extending mainstreaming as a concept to other policy areas and examines both challenges and opportunities raised by this approach for the management of values in public services.
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Marte C.W. Solheim and Sigrun Marie Moss
The purpose of this paper is to explain how theories of inter-organizational learning can create new insights and nuances to how processes of intra-organizational learning…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain how theories of inter-organizational learning can create new insights and nuances to how processes of intra-organizational learning come about in a single, complex and multi-sited organization.
Design/methodology/approach
A constructivist thematic analysis of the “Handbook of Feminist Foreign Policy” produced by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SMFA) is completed, exploring the organization’s own presentation of the complex learning processes that took place when implementing the new policy in 2014.
Findings
The literature on inter-organizational learning has a so far unexplored explanatory potential to understand learning processes that take place in complex, multi-sited organizations. This case demonstrates why and how this potential is relevant to exploit. Five themes are constructed from the analysis; four pointing out how gender mainstreaming is spread throughout the different parts of the organization and one detailing how the learning process has provided the SMFA knowledge exportable to other organizations.
Originality/value
Due to the complexity in large, multi-sited organizations today, this paper argues what is classically understood as solely inter-organizational processes could also apply to a single organization, as the learning processes this engages in, transitions intra- and inter-organizational learning. The study advances current understandings through exploring mechanisms of gender mainstreaming.
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An increasing number of countries have introduced duties for public-sector organisations who, in addition to addressing discrimination, are now also required to promote…
Abstract
Purpose
An increasing number of countries have introduced duties for public-sector organisations who, in addition to addressing discrimination, are now also required to promote equality of opportunity between different groups. The purpose of this paper is to explore the limited progress of gender equality policies, through a study of the local implementation of equalities policies. The authors highlight the role of equalities leads in the public sector as local “agents of change”, and explore explanations of the implementation gap between policy and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports on a small-scale qualitative study with equalities leads in the health sector in England. The study comprised semi-structured interviews with equalities leads from nine health organisations which were purposively selected to include a mix of areas and populations. The interviews focused on the leads’ backgrounds and their perceptions of barriers to their work.
Findings
The equalities leads had a range of experience prior to their current post, though most had little formal subject-specific training. They highlighted a number of barriers to effective implementation of gender equality strategies, including resource issues, the impact of organisational change, the increased the number of equalities they were expected to address, organisational perceptions that gender was no longer a priority and resistance to what are seen as “tick box” exercises.
Originality/value
The value of this paper is that it adds to the understanding of the challenges facing the implementation of gender equalities policies in the health sector, the reasons for these and the role of local policy implementers in the effectiveness of national equalities policies.
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S.B. Burnett, C.J. Gatrell, C.L. Cooper and P. Sparrow
The paper considers the impact of work‐life balance policies on the work and family practices of professional, dual‐earner parents with dependent children, by assessing…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper considers the impact of work‐life balance policies on the work and family practices of professional, dual‐earner parents with dependent children, by assessing the extent to which “well‐balanced families” have been resultantly facilitated. It poses two research questions: the first centres on how far work‐life balance policies have better enabled working parents to manage their commitments to employers and children, whilst the second focuses on how far parental and employer responses to work‐life balance policies may be gendered. The ultimate aim is to (re)‐articulate the importance of gender in the work‐life balance agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws upon historical and conceptual research on work and family practices. It invokes gender as a lens through which notions of the “well‐balanced family” are considered.
Findings
It is argued that work‐life balance policies have not led to well‐balanced, or “gender‐neutral”, work and family practices. This is for two reasons, both relating to gender. First, the take up of work‐life balance policies is gendered, with more mothers than fathers working flexibly. This is partly because organizational expectations fail to acknowledge social change around the paternal parenting role. Second, work‐life balance policies focus mainly on the issues of paid work and childcare, failing to take account of domestic labour, the main burden of which continues to be carried by mothers.
Practical implications
Deeply ingrained social assumptions about the gendered division of labour within heterosexual couples limit the impact of work‐life balance policies on work family practices.
Originality/value
The paper moves forward the debate on work‐life balance through taking an interdisciplinary approach to an issue which has often been addressed previously from discipline‐specific approaches such as health, psychology or policy.
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Elias Andersson, Maria Johansson, Gun Lidestav and Malin Lindberg
In Sweden, gender mainstreaming policies have a long political history. As part of the national gender equality strategy of the Swedish forest industry, the ten largest…
Abstract
Purpose
In Sweden, gender mainstreaming policies have a long political history. As part of the national gender equality strategy of the Swedish forest industry, the ten largest forestry companies committed themselves to gender mainstream their policies. Limiting the impact of policies and the agency of change, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the varied and conflicting meanings and constitution of the concepts, the problem and, in extent, the organisational realities of gender mainstreaming.
Design/methodology/approach
In both, implementation and practice, gender mainstreaming posse challenges on various levels and by analysing these documents as practical texts from the WPR-approach. This paper explores constructions of gender and gender equality and their implications on the practice and the political of gender mainstreaming in a male-dominated primary industry.
Findings
The results show that the organisations themselves were not constituted as the subject of the policy but instead some of the individuals (women). The subject position of women represented in company policy was one of lacking skills and competences and in the need of help. Not only men and the masculine norms but organisational processes and structures were also generally invisible in the material. Power and conflict were mainly absent from the understanding of gender equality. Instead, consenting ideas of gender equality were the focus. Such conceptualisations of gender equality are beneficial for all risk concealing power structures and thereby limit the political space for change.
Originality/value
By highlighting the scale of policy and the significance of organisational contexts, the results indicate how gender and gender equality are constitutive through the governing technologies of neoliberal and market-oriented ideologies in policy – emphasising the further limiting of space for structural change and politicalization within the male-dominated organisations of Swedish forest industry.
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