An International Take on Women in Leadership

EURAM

We recently attended the European Academy of Management (EURAM) Conference in Rome. Perhaps not surprisingly but always disappointing the issues relating to women’s lack of access to leadership roles are remarkably consistent across geographic and cultural boundaries. The problems resulting from masculinist cultures was a fairly common theme as were the popular misconceptions about women’s choices regarding their careers (e.g. opting out of senior roles as a ‘free’ rather than a constrained choice). However, the solutions, or possible solutions, to the issues varied widely depending on ideology and political will. Some papers, amongst the many that were thought provoking, really resonated with us:

Faiza Ali from Macquarie University speaking about working to achieve equality in Pakistan – incredible challenges and courage in the face of political and religious systems that place little value on gender equity. Research undertaken by Anne Bardoel, Helen De Cieri and Tracey Shea from Monash University, Australia on the impact on work-life initiatives of the GFC. On one level there is the pleasing finding that there had been relatively little impact (little or no change to policy or established practices – fine tuning of current practices was reported) – but then it was also revealed that most of the companies participating in the research didn’t provide direct funding to the initiatives, therefore maintaining something that’s not directly costing the organisation suggests that such initiatives may not be as embedded as we had hoped!! We also heard from Pia Hook, Anna Wahl and Charlotte Holgersson from the KTH Institute of Technology, Sweden about their research regarding women as a power resource in organisations and women’s initial reluctance to see themselves as powerful - despite Sweden’s well entrenched gender equity culture and legislative framework.

Women in Science

Our thanks to Anna who alerted us to this editorial on science and gender in Nature Immunology (2009) vol 11 no 2, February. The editorial highlights that gender stereotypes prevent women from reaching their full potential and from gaining appropriate recognition for the research they undertake. Women are lost to the system at the completion of their postdoctoral fellowships – this transition point to academic faculty is seen as a critical first step for women wanting to build a research career. For those who do make this transition, challenges remain. The editorial notes that women scientists have slower rates of promotion, less recognition through research awards, hold fewer academic administrative roles such as departmental chair (relative to the eligible pool), are paid less than their male counterparts (as much as 30% in some cases!!!) and receive less research funding.

Another interesting point made is that women publish fewer papers, something that has shown across a number of studies since the early 80s. This might be seen by some as explaining the different career outcomes for women. However, it has also been shown that there is no difference in the number of citations for women or men scientists. The article notes that women are seemingly more consistent in producing good quality work, whereas men produce a greater quantity of more variable quality.

What remains disappointing is that it still a case of quantity over quality and shows that we need to keep questioning so-called merit based systems to ensure that systemic practices are examined for implicit gender bias and when bias is uncovered it is exposed as a first step to changing practices that disadvantage women.