Women in Higher Education Management Network (WHEM)
The Women in Higher Education Management (WHEM) Network was formed in late 2006 and held its first meeting at CIPES in Porto in May 2007. The investigators are listed below. Dr Kate White, Honorary Research Associate in the Centre for Women’s Studies & Gender Research, is coordinating the work of WHEM.
Project: Gender and senior management in Higher Education: cross cultural perspectives
Participating countries and investigators in the WHEM Network
Participating country |
Contact |
| Australia | Dr Kate White, Monash University |
| Finland | Dr Liisa Husu, University of Helsinki |
| Ireland | Professor Pat O’Connor, University of Limerick |
| New Zealand | Professor Jenny Neale, Victoria University Wellington |
| Portugal | Dr Maria de Lourdes Machado-Taylor, Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies |
| Portugal | The late Professor James Taylor, Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies |
| Portugal | Professor Pedro Teixeira, Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies |
| Portugal | Professor Teresa Carvalho, University of Aveiro |
| South Africa | Sarah Riordan, HERS-SA, and possibly African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town |
| Sweden | Professor Anita Goransson, Linkoping University |
| Turkey | Associate Professor Ozlem Ozkanli, Ankara University |
| UK | Professor, Barbara Bagilhole, Loughborough University |
Project Synopsis
The purpose of the project is to explore cross cultural perspectives of gender and senior management in higher education.
There are three phases to the project:
- Analysing the representation of women in senior management in six countries (see below)
- Undertaking qualitative research with senior managers, including current and former Rectors/Vice-Chancellors, that focuses on getting into and getting on in senior management and perceptions of broader management culture
- Producing a skills benchmark to assess future leadership positions that cuts across current gender bias, and develop a training package for women who are interested in applying for senior management positions
Aims and objectives
The aim of this research is to analyse gendered organisational cultures and their impact on the representation of women in university senior management.
The objectives are:- To gain an understanding of women’s representation in and experience of senior management in the nine countries in this study
- To establish a skills benchmark for appointments to senior management positions and identify if there are gender dimensions in these skills
- To develop training packages for women who wish to apply for HE senior management positions
Research questions
This research project will address the following questions regarding women in HE senior management:
- Is support and mentoring critical to getting into and getting on in senior management?
- What are the factors in women’s under-representation in HE senior management? Is discipline an important factor?
- Do recruitment and selection processes discriminate against women who apply for senior management positions? If so, how?
- What are the skills required for effective HE leadership and management?
- Does gender impact on senior management?
- Do men and women in HE have different management styles?
- Does having women in senior management impact on the organisational culture of HE?
Methodology
Stage 1
The first stage of the research was for investigators in each country to analyse the representation of women in senior management. We have defined senior managers as:
- Rectors/Vice-Chancellors
- Vice-Rectors/Deputy Vice-Chancellors
- Pro-Rectors/Pro Vice-Chancellors
- Executive Directors (for example Finance, HR etc)
While Deans and Deputy Deans are not technically senior managers, they have been included in the study because they form the recruitment pool for senior managers.
Data required:
- Percentage of women at each level in senior management in each country
- Percentage of women in senior management in old versus new universities (where relevant)
- Discipline of male Rectors/Vice-Chancellors
Results of Stage 1 of the project were presented at the European Association for Institutional Research Forum in Innsbruck in September 2007 (see Machado-Taylor, M., Ozkanli, O. White, K. & Bagilhole, B. (2007), Breaking the Barriers to women achieving seniority in Universities).
Stage 2
The second stage is to conduct open-ended, qualitative interviews with a sample of male and female senior managers, including current and former Rectors/Vice-Chancellors. The first cluster of questions is about getting into and getting on in senior management. Interviewees will be asked to define senior management in their university and then discuss their experience of being appointed to senior management, the factors or people that were most supportive, and how being in senior management affected their work/life experience. The second cluster focuses on doing senior management in their current or last position and explores perceptions of how their colleagues regard them, how they work with men and women in the management team, and if women have a different management style.
There is an additional set of questions for Rectors/VCs. These relate to their experience of selection panels for senior appointments, working styles of male and female managers, their ability to change the male management culture, and if having women in senior management makes a difference.
The final cluster of questions focuses on the broader management culture – the typical career path into senior management, the typical Rector/VC, appointment processes and influential bodies in these processes, and the gender profile of senior management.
The proposed interview schedule was discussed at the project meeting in Porto in May 2007 and finalised in November. At the end of the second phase a thematic book will be produced that analyses the data from participating countries.
De-identified summaries of these interviews will be forwarded to the project coordinator for preliminary analysis. Further analysis will be undertaken at the project meeting in Madrid in July 2008.
Stage 3
The third stage will be to produce a skills benchmark to assess future leadership positions that cuts across current gender bias, and develop a training package for women who are interested in applying for senior management positions.