Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership

A dynamic research area of expertise focused on exploring and tackling gender inequalities in work and organisational contexts.

Our Research

Our research has a social justice agenda, motivated by the persistent global challenge of gender inequality. The Academy aims to connect scholars concerned with tackling gender inequalities in work-based contexts both at Lancaster and beyond, to develop networks at national and international level, to showcase and stimulate ground-breaking and impactful research and to promote knowledge-sharing amongst scholars and practitioners through events seminars and workshops.

With a range of projects across multiple areas, exploring themes including gender dynamics in family business, and gender equality in Business and Management Schools, our academics are identifying solutions to key issues across the world.

Academy Collaborations

Gender equality in Business and Management Schools

Despite years of progressive policy efforts to promote gender equality in Higher Education, women remain under-represented in all disciplines and at all levels of academia, especially at the professorial level, in senior leadership roles, including deans, university vice-chancellors and presidents and in gate-keeping positions, such as editorial boards and research funding bodies. The TARGETED-MPI project - Transparent And Resilient Gender Equality Through Integrated Monitoring Planning and Implementation aims to address this problem by understanding and addressing gender inequality in Business and Management Schools through the implementation and monitoring of Gender Equality Plans. TARGETED-MPI is supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and includes five project partners: Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece (PI); Lancaster University, United Kingdom; Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden; Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium; and, American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

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.

A group of people sitting on some wooden steps smiling — The TARGETEDMPI team.

Gender Matters

Businesses put gender equality and inclusivity high on their agenda. Media coverage of gender issues at work has never been greater, and we are seeing increased legislation to recognise the importance of gender equality including pay gap reporting and shared parental leave policy. Yet despite this attention, women continue to be under-represented in positions of power in organisations.

The Gender Matters project created in 2018 aims to shed light on this resilient problem by drawing on a range of international and national sources to identify the scope and range of gender challenges facing UK organisations.

Visit Gender Matters

Gender dynamics in family business

Researchers at the Centre for Family Business, are working in collaboration with members of the Academy for Gender, Work, and Leadership, to delve into the complexity of gender dynamics in families in business. This undertaking is important due to the increasing interest in understanding how gender influences roles and practices in family business, and to address the critique that women’s contribution in family business has been under investigated.

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

Researching Gender in Management

Gender and management research is complex and challenging requiring methods that can interrogate and make explicit deeply embedded social issues and structural inequalities. A key focus of our researchers is the development of critical methodologies and methods that can uncover and understand gendered systems, processes, practices and behaviours in multiple organisational and socio-cultural contexts in order to seek opportunities for change.

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.

Research Methods on Gender and Management

The Academy is running an online seminar series for researchers interested in learning about research methods, including early career researchers and doctoral students.

View recordings and presentations from previous seminars in the events archive.

Events archive

Individual member projects

Entrepreneuring as survival: The case of Syrian women refugees

The project explores contexts of forcible displacement, focusing on Syrian women refugees’ entrepreneurial practices in setting up and running ‘survivalist’ home-based micro enterprises. Specifically, the project illustrates how Syrian women refugees engage in identity work through cultural heritage entrepreneurship as a means of economic survival and cultural revival in the contexts of Jordan, the Zaatari Refugee Camp and the United Kingdom. It also highlights methodological challenges conducting such research with vulnerable communities. The project is funded by Lancaster University’s Global Challenges Kick-Starter Fund and LUMS Pump-Priming Award.

Publications from the project

Reuber, B., Alkhaled, S., Barnards, H., Coupper, C., & Sasaki, I. (Forthcoming) Something Borrowed Something New: Challenges in Using Qualitative Methods to Study Under-Researched International Business phenomena. Journal of International Business Studies

Alkhaled, S. and Sasaki, I. (2021) Syrian women refugees: coping with indeterminate liminality during forcible displacement. Organization Studies, pp.1-23 DOI: 10.1177/01708406211040214

Alkhaled, Sophie (2019). The resilience of a Syrian woman and her family through refugee entrepreneurship in Jordan. In Sibylle Heilbrunn, Jörg Freiling, & Aki Harima (Eds.), Refugee entrepreneurship: A case- based topography (pp. 241–254). London: Palgrave.

Current Activity

A photograph of Professor Val Stead smiling and looking into the camera

Lancaster expert presents evidence to MPs on equality at work ahead of International Women’s Day

A LUMS expert presented evidence to Members of Parliament in Westminster last week, focusing on modernising employment practises in the UK.

An AI-generated rainbow soundwave on a black background with matrix-style text falling through it in a cascade

Tinker, tailor, soldier, spoof… Forensic linguistics webinar series

In January we wrote a little bit about what it takes to become a forensic linguist or a forensic speech scientist – the qualities, skills, and qualifications. But if you did our MSc in Forensic Linguistics and Speech Science, what might you actually learn about in class? Our upcoming free webinar mini-series will give you the chance to join four live taster lectures by the academics teaching the programme.

This image shows a computer monitor with a spectrogram on it. In the background there are newspaper cuttings pinned to the walls. On the desk in front there is a keyboard and a mouse. The whole aesthetic is dark, like a criminal investigative lab, and a single lamp casts a moody, subdued light over the scene.

Signal in the noise: forensic linguistics and forensic speech science

Can linguistics help us to solve crimes? From trolling to disinformation to artificial intelligence, we take a look at two fields - forensic linguistics and forensic speech science - and the remarkable ways in which they can assist investigations and intelligence operations. Interested in working in this area? Read on to find out more.

The cover of the Lancaster University Management School Gender Equality Report 2023.

New gender equality report highlights Management School progress

Lancaster University Management School has produced its first Gender Equality Report.

Members of the TARGETED-MPI project stand in a group looking towards the camera while stood in front of a glass-fronted building at Lancaster University Management School

Researchers continue drive to tackle business school gender inequalities

Lancaster University Management School hosted international partners of the TARGETED-MPI project as they work to tackle gender inequality in business and management schools.

Resilience and Family Business

In a unique collaboration, The Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership joined with three other LUMS areas of research expertise for a two-day workshop at Lancaster Castle; Resilience and Family Business.

More News

Videos

Discover more of the work of the Academy through our research videos

Organisation Gender Challenges

Professor Valerie Stead, Professor Claire Leitch and Dr Sophie Alkhaled discuss the importance of their work on gender equality issues in the workplace.

Targeted MPI

Discover how working with institutions across Europe is helping to shape practice and policies on national and international levels.

Gender, Diversity and Innovation

How can increased diversity lead to more and better innovation in business? Dr Lara Pecis explains the benefits.

Women's entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia

Dr Sophie Alkhaled outlines how entrepreneurship provides women with a legitimate space to engage in sustainable social and political change in Saudi Arabia. 

Events

International Women's Day 2021

Gender equality is a global concern and one of the UN sustainable development goals, yet women continue to be under-represented in positions of power in organisations in the UK and globally.

In this special International Women's Day 2021 research event, The Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership teamed up with the Centre for Family Business on the theme of 'Achieving Gender Equality at Work in a Global Context; challenges and pathways.' Facilitated by Professor Ellie Hamilton, short presentations from Professor Valerie Stead, Dr Sophie Alkhaled and Dr Giovanna Campopiano each took a different perspective ranging from the broad organisational context to entrepreneurship and family business.

You can watch the presentations below.

Professor Valerie Stead

The contemporary gender challenges that hamper women’s progression in the UK workplace.
Dr Sophie Alkhaled

Research on entrepreneurship as a legitimate space for feminist solidarity and political activism in non-democratic countries
Dr Giovanna Campopiano

A discussion of the most up-to-date topics in research on women’s involvement in family business