Business schools are at the forefront of educating our future leaders and managers. Through ongoing engagement with industry leaders, policy-makers, and public and government bodies, they are also wellpositioned to shape the development of inclusive cultures in organisations and to influence national and global policy and research agendas. Yet women’s progress in academic roles in business and management schools lags behind that of men both in the UK and globally. This reflects a persistent overall pattern of gender inequality in Higher Education – and offers us a unique and important site to investigate and understand a complex and enduring problem. Women remain under-represented in all disciplines and at all levels of academia, especially at professorial level; in senior leadership roles, including deans, university vice-chancellors and presidents; and in gate-keeping positions, such as on editorial boards and research funding bodies. These challenges provide the context for the international TARGETED-MPI project – Transparent And Resilient Gender Equality Through Integrated Monitoring Planning and Implementation. Through this project, we aim to address gender inequality in business andmanagement schools with the implementation andmonitoring of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs). A CHALLENGING ENVIRONMENT Business schools face a number of challenges when it comes to achieving gender equality. What can be considered an asset – the diversity of its employees – can also serve as a hurdle preventing gender equality. Business school come from a variety of disciplines, including STEMM subjects (e.g., mathematics, statistics, operational research and information systems/technology), but also social sciences, arts, and humanities. They represent different intellectual traditions and perspectives, with varying approaches to understanding organisational practices and ways of working, and to creating new knowledge and solutions to organisational problems. This diversity can lead to innovative and creative approaches towards research and teaching. However, because hiring practices and salaries are often linked to professional expertise and larger competitive market forces, some systemic organisational inequalities become manifest, which makes gender equality efforts especially complex. Such deeply rooted cultural practices can result in a lack of transparency within hiring and promotion practices, research collaboration, and teaching allocation which in turn can affirm and entrench inequalities. The complex nature of gender inequality is further heightened by external events. It was a problem for business schools before Covid-19, but reports show women’s working lives have been disproportionally affected by the pandemic. Across the higher education sector, for instance, women’s research output decreased during UK lockdowns. As HE institutions struggle to survive the pandemic and resulting economic recessions and downturns, there is concern that gender equality efforts in place prior to the pandemic may be postponed, or even abandoned, in order to streamline and conserve resources. NECESSARY INSIGHT Projects like TARGETED-MPI project are timely and of crucial importance, providing a focus to analyse and understand the unique gender dynamics for business and management schools, and to implement bespoke changes. TARGETED-MPI is concerned to illuminate the taken-for-granted and underlying attitudes, values, and assumptions that prevent gender equality efforts. Data gathered by each project partner through focus groups and interviews within their own institution is helping to inform the development and implementation of specific GEPs. 32 |
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