Interactive theater: an effective tool to reduce gender bias in faculty searches

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Shea ◽  
Mary Fran Fran T. Malone ◽  
Justin R. Young ◽  
Karen J. Graham

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the development, implementation and impact evaluation of an interactive theater-based workshop by the ADVANCE program at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). The workshop is part of a larger institutional transformation program funded by the National Science Foundation. Design/methodology/approach This institutional transformation program relied upon a systems approach to diagnose potential causes for the underrepresentation of women faculty in certain disciplines. This revealed that increasing awareness of, and reducing, implicit gender bias among members of faculty search committees could, in time, contribute to increasing the representation of women faculty at UNH. A committee charged with developing a faculty workshop to achieve this change identified interactive theater as an effective faculty training approach. The committee oversaw the development of customized scripts, and the hiring of professional actors and a facilitator to implement the workshop. Findings The workshop’s effectiveness in fulfilling its goals was assessed using faculty hiring and composition data, program evaluations, participant interviews and questions in an annual faculty climate survey. Findings indicate that the representation of women faculty increased significantly at UNH since the implementation of the interactive theater workshop. Analysis of the multiple sources of data provides corroborating evidence that a significant portion of the increase is directly attributable to the workshop. Originality/value This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of interactive theater-based workshops in an academic environment and of the systems approach in diagnosing and solving organizational problems.

Author(s):  
Agnes G. D'Entremont ◽  
Kerry Greer ◽  
Katherine A. Lyon

Engineering remains a male-dominated profession, despite efforts toward change. It is possible that the images used in undergraduate recruitment materials could influence how an individual might perceive their “fit” within engineering. We considered both the representation and context of individuals shown in images and videos collected from 18 Canadian English-language engineering schools, using content analysis. In this paper, we focus on individuals coded as either faculty or industry members, as they illustrate the future possibilities of a career in engineering in this material. We found an overrepresentation of women faculty and women industry members compared to their population percentages at the schools (faculty) and in the profession (industry). We also found that women professionals of both types were under-represented among those professionals wearing business attire, and women industry members were over-represented among those industry members whose names and credentials were given, in both the images and videos. We encountered a similar overall over-representation of women among student imagery, and suspect that it is the result of intentionally highlighting women within the schools and the field of engineering. However, we believethat context, as well as presence, matters. The underrepresentation of women in some cases is worth examining for the message it may send about the future prospects of a student considering engineering.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Mousa

PurposeBy studying four public universities in Egypt, the author of this paper aims to identify how male faculty perceive the representation and status of their female colleagues.Design/methodology/approachThe author employed a qualitative research method via semi-structured interviews with 40 male academics in addition to five focus group discussions with an additional 20 male academics. The author subsequently used thematic analysis to determine the main ideas in the transcripts.FindingsThe findings confirmed that women faculty are not under-represented at professorial levels, but they are denied administrative academic positions, such as rectors and deans in universities. The author also discovered that the social norms shaping both national and organizational culture in Egypt create a cultural bias against women faculty.Originality/valueTo the best of the author's knowledge, this study is the first of its kind in the context of a developing nation to focus on the status and representation of women faculty from the perspective of male colleagues, and subsequently, it is the first to address the higher education sector in one of the leading developing nations in Africa and the Middle East. This paper contributes by filling a gap in HR management and higher education, in which empirical studies that address male faculty to identify their perceptions of the status and representation of their female colleagues have been limited so far.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 339-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siham Lekchiri ◽  
Cindy Crowder ◽  
Anna Schnerre ◽  
Barbara A.W. Eversole

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of working women in a male-dominated country (Morocco) and unveil the unique challenges and everyday gender-bias they face, the psychological impact of the perceived gender-bias and, finally, identify a variety of coping strategies or combatting mechanisms affecting their motivation and retention in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach Empirical evidence was obtained using a qualitative research method. The Critical Incident Technique (CIT) was used to collect incidents recalled by women in the select institution reflecting their perceptions of their managers’ ineffective behaviors towards them and the impact of these behaviors. The critical incidents were inductively coded, and behavioral statements were derived from the coded data. Findings The qualitative data analysis led them to structure the data according to two theme clusters: The perceived gender-bias behaviors (Covert and evident personal and organizational behaviors) and Psychological impacts resulting from the perceived bias. These behavioral practices included abusive behaviors, unfair treatment, bias and lack of recognition. The psychological impact elements involved decreased productivity, depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. Practical implications Understanding these experiences can facilitate the identification of strategies geared towards the retention of women in the workforce, and Moroccan organizations can develop and implement strategies and policies that are geared towards eliminating gender-bias in the workplace and to retaining and motivating women who remain ambitious to work in male-dominated environments and cultures. Originality/value This paper provides evidence that sufficient organizational mechanisms to support women in male-dominated environments are still unavailable, leaving them to find the proper coping mechanisms to persevere and resist.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 833-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youngsu Lee ◽  
Joonhwan In ◽  
Seung Jun Lee

Purpose As social media platforms become increasingly popular among service firms, many US hospitals have been using social media as a means to improve their patients’ experiences. However, little research has explored the implications of social media use within a hospital context. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a hospital’s customer engagement through social media and its association with customers’ experiential quality. Also, this study examines the role of a hospital’s service characteristics, which could shape the nature of the interactions between patients and the hospital. Design/methodology/approach Data from 669 hospitals with complete experiential quality and demographic data were collected from multiple sources of secondary data, including the rankings of social media friendly hospitals, the Hospital Compare database, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) cost report, the CMS impact file, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Analytics database and the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. Specifically, the authors designed the instrumental variable estimate to address the endogeneity issue. Findings The empirical results suggest a positive association between a hospital’s social media engagement and experiential quality. For hospitals with a high level of service sophistication, the association between online engagement and experiential quality becomes more salient. For hospitals offering various services, offline engagement is a critical predictor of experiential quality. Research limitations/implications A hospital with more complex services should make efforts to engage customers through social media for better patient experiences. The sample is selected from databases in the US, and the databases are cross-sectional in nature. Practical implications Not all hospitals may be better off improving the patient experience by engaging customers through social media. Therefore, practitioners should exercise caution in applying the study’s results to other contexts and in making causal inferences. Originality/value The current study delineates customer engagement through social media into online and offline customer engagement. This study is based on the theory of customer engagement and reflects the development of mobile technology. Moreover, this research may be considered as pioneering in that it considers the key characteristics of a hospital’s service operations (i.e., service complexity) when discovering the link between customers’ engagement through a hospital’s social media and experiential quality.


2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Soklaridis ◽  
Ayelet Kuper ◽  
Cynthia R. Whitehead ◽  
Genevieve Ferguson ◽  
Valerie H. Taylor ◽  
...  

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of gender bias among women hospital CEOs and explore to what these female leaders attribute their success within a male-dominated hospital executive leadership milieu. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study involved 12 women hospital CEOs from across Ontario, Canada. Purposeful sampling techniques and in-depth qualitative interview methods were used to facilitate discussion around experiences of gender and leadership. Findings Responses fell into two groups: the first group represented the statement “Gender inequality is alive and well”. The second group reflected the statement “Gender inequity is not significant, did not happen to me, and things are better now”. This group contained a sub-group with no consciousness of systemic discrimination and that claimed having no gendered experiences in their leadership journey. The first group described gender issues in various contexts, from the individual to the systemic. The second group was ambivalent about gender as a factor impacting leadership trajectories. Originality/value Representations of women’s leadership have become detached from feminism, with major consequences for women. This study reveals how difficult it is for some women CEOs to identify gender bias. The subtle everyday norms and practices within the workplace make it difficult to name and explain gender bias explicitly and may explain the challenges in understanding how it might affect a woman’s career path.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marialuisa Saviano ◽  
Ratri Parida ◽  
Francesco Caputo ◽  
Saroj Kumar Datta

Purpose – Health is a fundamental populations’ need and an integral part of the socio-economic development of a country. However, it is required to explain the growing role of the private sectors in addressing various health care needs. The purpose of this paper is to analyse potential contribution, criticalities and conditions of success of public-private partnership (PPP) as a strategy to face the complexity of nationally relevant Italian and Indian service systems. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology is built upon the basis of the viable systems approach (VSA) integrated with the fundamental interpretative elements of service science and service-dominant logic to contextualize interpretation to the management of service systems benefitting from recent advances in these research fields. Findings – A VSA-based general framework of reference is built that is useful for analysing any relational context in which different aims and expectations need to be harmonized to make the collaboration effective. On the basis of this framework, first insights on Italian and Indian health care PPPs are proposed, highlighting key elements of analysis and criticalities that may challenge a positive conclusion on health care PPPs. Practical implications – The implications of the study are both theoretical and practical. From a theoretical perspective, the study contributes to the scholarly understanding of complex health care system in Italy as well as in India with particular reference to the public-private collaboration phenomenon. It also suggests theoretical approaches in the form of a generic VSA-based framework as applicable. From a practical perspective, the study stimulates managers to a critical reflection about current health care management approaches which are reflected in the adoption of PPPs solutions. Originality/value – The paper discusses relevant worldwide decision-making challenges, such as the equality in the populations’ access to health service, suggesting managers the way to create conditions of consonance among the diverse stakeholders for a successful health care PPPs.


Kybernetes ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salman Ahmad ◽  
Razman bin Mat Tahar

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an assessment of Malaysia's renewable capacity target. Malaysia relies heavily on fossil fuels for electricity generation. To diversify the fuel-mix, a technology-specific target has been set by the government in 2010. Considering the complexity in generation expansion, there is a dire need for an assessment model that can evaluate policy in a feedback fashion. The study also aims to expand policy evaluation literature in electricity domain by taking a dynamic systems approach. Design/methodology/approach – System dynamics modelling and simulation approach is used in this study. The model variables, selected from literature, are constituted into casual loop diagram. Later, a stock and flow diagram is developed by integrating planning, construction, operation, and decision making sub-models. The dynamic interactions between the sub-sectors are analysed based on the short-, medium- and long-term policy targets. Findings – Annual capacity constructions fail to achieve short-, medium- and long-term targets. However, the difference in operational capacity and medium- and long-term target are small. In terms of technology, solar photovoltaic (PV) attains the highest level of capacity followed by biomass. Research limitations/implications – While financial calculations are crucial for capacity expansion decisions, currently they are not being modelled; this study primarily focuses on system delays and exogenous components only. Practical implications – A useful model that offers regulators and investors insights on system characteristics and policy targets simultaneously. Originality/value – This paper provides a model for evaluating policy for renewable capacity expansion development in a dynamic context, for Malaysia.


IMP Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 390-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars-Erik Gadde ◽  
Kajsa Hulthén

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse how theories evolve within scientific fields: why they receive attention and why they eventually become less attractive. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a literature review and focusses on the theoretical structure developed by Wroe Alderson. His contributions were highly appreciated and generally considered as “the” marketing theory. However, in few years his broad perspective was more or less neglected within the field where it was developed. At the same time, Alderson’s basic thinking was adopted by the evolving IMP approach. The specific objective of the study is to analyse why researchers in marketing abandoned Alderson, while IMP adopted many of his ideas. Findings The paper illustrates significant aspects of the evolution of theories. First, the paper shows how well-established conceptualisations, like Alderson’s total systems approach, may lose impact when the focus of research shifts. Alderson’s holistic framing was found too broad and all-encompassing to be useful when research attention was directed to specific aspects of marketing management and the socio-behavioural approach to distribution. Second, the paper shows in what respect IMP found support in concepts and models presented by Alderson in the challenging of fragmented mainstream framings of the business landscape. Originality/value This paper relates the rise and fall of Alderson’s concepts and frameworks to the evolution of theories of other schools-of-thought. Furthermore, the study shows how Alderson’s ideas were adapted to other research fields than where it was originally developed.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guanghui Qiao ◽  
Liu Ding ◽  
Linlin Zhang ◽  
Huili Yan

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reveal the knowledge evolution process, research hotspots and future trends in the accessible tourism research literature from 2008 to 2020. Design/methodology/approach A total of 213 articles on accessible tourism were selected from the core collection database of Web of Science (WoS) and analyzed using CiteSpace. Findings Over the 13-year period between 2008 and 2020, an increasing number of studies have been published concerning accessible tourism, but the overall base is still small. The research content mainly includes six modules. Among institutions, the University of Technology Sydney has published the largest number of papers. Cooperation among countries involves the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia, Portugal and China. Tourism Management is the leading journal for disseminating research on accessible tourism. Definition of “Accessible tourism” and the different scope of this phenomenon are re-discussed. In recent years, “experience” and “participation” have become the “new favorites” in accessible tourism research, which could reveal insights into future research directions. Research limitations/implications The sampling frame was defined in terms of the WoS database and even though this is an important database for global academic information, in the big data era, the authors may have to integrate information from multiple sources to comprehensively reveal and understand knowledge maps. Second, because of the operational constraints of the CiteSpace software, the authors only selected outputs published in peer-reviewed journals, excluding other published works, such as books and conference papers. Finally, because of the language restrictions of the authors, this research is limited to journals published in the English language. Practical implications Practically, the results of this study made a conclusion of accessible tourism research so that the researchers can easily know what has currently been done and what future research can do. Tourism managers can also understand the demands and the constraints of tourism for the people who have barriers to travel. They can supply more specific products for the accessible tourism and further promote the construction of barrier-free travel environments. Originality/value This paper unifies the literature on senior tourism and people with disabilities tourism, and uses CiteSpace to construct data and network visualizations, including a burst and dynamic analysis for the period covered by the sample. Furthermore, this paper proposed a more diversified accessible tourism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruchi Agarwal ◽  
Sanjay Kallapur

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the best practices for improving risk culture and defining the role of actors in risk governance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents an exemplar case of a British insurance company by using a qualitative case research approach.FindingsThe case study shows how the company was successful in changing from a compliance-based and defensive risk culture to a cognitive risk culture by using a systems thinking approach. Cognitive risk culture ensures that everybody understands risks and their own roles in risk governance. The change was accomplished by adding an operational layer between the first and second lines of defense and developing tools to better communicate risks throughout the organization.Practical implicationsPractitioners can potentially improve risk governance by using the company’s approach. The UK regulator’s initiative to improve risk culture can potentially be followed by other regulators.Originality/valueThis is among the few studies that describe actual examples of how a company can improve risk culture using the systems approach and how systems thinking simultaneously resolves several other issues such as poor risk reporting and lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities.


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