Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership

This project is interested in understanding how gender inequality is culturally constructed. Through innovative and unique diagnostic tools the project will illuminate the taken-for-granted and underlying attitudes, values, and assumptions that prevent gender equality efforts within Business and Management Schools. Collaborative conversations with project partners and iterative analysis of gender equality theory and organisational practice will facilitate the creation and implementation of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) specific to each partner university. The GEPs include specific tasks and practices that address issues of discrimination such as slowed career progression, gender pay gap, and lack of women in leadership positions. The GEPs move beyond generalized discussions on gender discrimination to focus on the needs and constraints of the specific partner School. With this knowledge, the GEPs can then create tasks to address the named barriers. The partnering of structurally and geographically diverse B&M Schools adds depth and richness to our understanding of gender equality within Business and Management Schools and requires the TARGETED-MPI team to think beyond one-size-fits-all responses and solutions to the generic outcomes of gender inequality.

The GEPs will set key benchmarks for improvement and rely on outside monitoring to make sure the partner Schools meet their expected deadlines. While acknowledging and preserving the need for context and organisation specific gender equality plans, the project hopes to conclude with ‘best practices’ that can inspire other B&M Schools in their own gender equality efforts.

Family businesses represent the dominant form of business across the globe, and the importance of women in their emergence and continuity cannot be underestimated. Current work is revealing the diverse pathways that women engage into to start, develop and ensure the continuity of family businesses in diverse cultural contexts, discussing the role of gendered norms in a business family and challenging prior misconceptions about men’s and women’s role and participation.

In a unique collaboration, The Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership joined with three other LUMS areas of research expertise (Pentland Centre for Responsibility in Business; The Centre for Family Business; The Work Foundation) to bring leading academics, policy-makers and family business representatives and associations together for a two-day workshop at Lancaster Castle; Resilience and Family Business.

Participants explored resilience through the lenses of planet, place and people with keynote contributions, expert panels and group discussions.

More information and resources from the event are here: Resilience and Family Business 2022

The Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership will host a series of six online seminars focused on research methods in gender and management, which will be run between January-June 2023. Convened by Professor Valerie Stead and Dr Sophie Alkhaled, each seminar will introduce a particular method and feature expert scholars on gender and management. Speakers will present a method, with an illustration of it in use, provide key guidelines for use and ethical considerations. The series is supported by The Northern Advanced Research Training Initiative (NARTI) and will draw on the recently published Edward Elgar Handbook of Research Methods on Gender and Management.