All at sea – gender and leadership in Britain’s Royal Navy (RN)

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 434-456
Author(s):  
Michael Dunn

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relationship between leadership and gender in the UK’s Royal Navy (RN) to answer the research question “Do men and women lead in different ways?”. Design/methodology/approach – The research collected factual data on personnel statistics and organisational structure in the RN. The primary research adopted a grounded theory approach using repertory grid and critical incident technique. The research design was to interview a snowball sample of 27 mid-ranking officers, equally split between men and women and drawn from the main branches in the RN. Findings – There is a significant gender deficit in the RN officer cadre with no women senior-ranking RN officers currently in post. A model of RN leadership was developed from a content and statistical analysis of the primary data. This was broadly equivalent for both men and women, except in one regard: women are expected to manage the impact of their gender so that their self-presentation conforms to the prevailing androcentric norms. The analysis also identified the consequences of unreflective leadership for followers and developed the term “damagement” to conceptualise this. Research limitations/implications – The small-scale research design precluded any generalisable findings, but further research, if confirmatory, should make a substantive contribution to both the theoretical field of gender and leadership, and the practice of leadership in the RN. Practical implications – These would relate the practice of leadership in the RN. Given further confirmatory research, the findings should inform the leadership selection, training and evaluation processes operated by the RN. It should also influence the Ministry of Defence’s policy on the wider deployment of women in the armed services, when the issue is next reviewed. Social implications – The research may have social implications for the wider acceptance of the valuable contribution that women can and should be making in the national armed services of the UK and beyond. Originality/value – The research was primary. It has added value though both its contribution to the leadership and gender debate and also the conceptualisation of leadership in the armed services, particularly the RN. In addition, it developed a new concept, that of “damagement” that could be critical in the development of more effective leadership styles.

LITERA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sri Harti Widyastuti

This study aims to describe Javanese women’s personality in the perspective of feminism and gender equality and inequality in Serat Suluk Residriya and Serat Wulang Putri. It employed the qualitative research design and modern philology. The findings are as follows. Javanese women’s personality in Serat Suluk Residriya includes their images. Gender inequality in Serat Suluk Residriya includes subordination, woman stereotype, rights to use but not to possess, women as sexual objects, and polygamy. Gender inequality in Serat Wulang Putri shows that women must have a lot of children. Gender equality in Sera Wulang Putrishows that men and women have equal rights to be ascetic, knowledgeable, skillful, brave and great, and wealthy.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Schlamp ◽  
Fabiola H. Gerpott ◽  
Sven C. Voelpel

PurposeWe investigate the role of gender in linking communicative acts that occur in the interactions of self-managed teams to emergent leadership. Specifically, this study presents a framework that differentiates between agentic and communal task- and relations-oriented communication as predictors of emergent leadership, and it hypothesizes that men and women do not differ in what they say but do differ in how they are rewarded (i.e. ascribed informal leadership responsibilities) for their statements.Design/methodology/approachInteraction coding was used to capture the meeting communication of 116 members of 41 self-managed teams.FindingsMen and women exhibited the same amount of agentic and communal task- and relations-oriented communication and were equally likely to emerge as leaders. However, men experienced an emergent leadership advantage when engaging in agentic and communal task-oriented behaviors. Agentic and communal relations-oriented behaviors did not predict emergent leadership.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings imply that theories could be more precise in differentiating between objective behaviors (i.e. actor perspective) and perceptions thereof (i.e. observer perspective) to understand why women experience a disadvantage in assuming leadership roles.Practical implicationsAlthough women displayed the same verbal behaviors as men, they experienced different consequences. Organizations can provide unconscious bias training programs, which help increase employees' self-awareness of a potential positive assessment bias toward men's communication.Originality/valueThis research utilizes an innovative, fine-grained coding approach to gather data that add to previous studies showing that, unlike men, women experience a disadvantage in terms of emergent leadership ascriptions when they deviate from stereotypically expected behavior.


2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Altmann

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the rise of strata manager as a newly emergent profession and note their impact on the governance within medium and high density, strata titled housing such as flats, apartments, town-houses and CIDs. Design/methodology/approach – This research presents finding from a small scale, qualitative research project focused on the interaction between the owner committee of management and strata managers. Findings – The introduction mandatory certification is championed by industry bodies. The strata managers considered they already demonstrated valuable attributes desired by committees of management. These differed to the attributes targeted by the new training regime, and the attributes valued by the committees of management. Research limitations/implications – This is a small scale pilot study. A larger study will need to be undertaken to confirm these results. Practical implications – There is a disjunct between the training and what strata managers consider relevant to undertaking their duties. This has significance for the ongoing governance of these properties and industry professionalisation. The resilience of Australia’s densification policies will depend on how learning will translate into better governance outcomes for owners. Social implications – One in three people within Australia’s eastern states lives or owns property within strata titled complex (apartments, flats and townhouse developments). The increasing number of strata managers and professionalisation within their industry has the ability to impact an increasing number of people. Originality/value – The impact of this new profession, and their requirements in terms of expertise has not been fully considered within existing academic literature.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 264-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaitlyn Wardrop ◽  
Kayla A. Wanamaker ◽  
Dena Derkzen

Purpose Recently, correctional agencies have argued that there are differences between factors influencing men and women’s involvement in the criminal justice system. The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity of a gender-informed risk/need assessment tool. Design/methodology/approach The sample consisted of 620 women offenders admitted to federal Canadian custody, as well as a matched-comparison group of 647 men. Items were selected from routine assessments in an administrative database based on an extensive literature review of factors related to criminal risk for women. Findings Results showed that the items included in this assessment and the overall rating of risk/need significantly predicted any return to custody for both women and men. As well, ratings incrementally predicted any return to custody over and above other established tools. Practical implications The gender-informed risk/need assessment tool, informed by the literature, performed well for both men and women. The research highlights the complementary, not competing, perspectives of gender-neutral and gender-responsive risk and need factors. Originality/value Factors commonly considered gender-salient predicted risk for men and women. The present study demonstrates that risk assessments tools for men and women should look beyond the factors routinely assessed in the research to identify novel dynamic factors that contribute to risk for men and women and could be targeted for intervention.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi ◽  
Grace Fortson ◽  
Katherine Harder ◽  
Trevor Riedmann

PurposeThe purpose of this commentary is to share preliminary findings from our ethnographic research on refugee women's livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic in Portland, Oregon (USA), and to highlight the significance of community efforts in providing gender-responsive measures that address the specific needs and challenges of refugee women.Design/methodology/approachThis commentary draws on a mixed-method approach, including ethnographic research (interviews and observations) as well as an analysis of emerging research on the social implications of COVID-19 in the fields of migration and gender.FindingsRefugee women's livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in various specific ways: from losing jobs and healthcare to becoming essential workers and assuming additional caretaker roles, to finding oneself again in unprecedented situations of limited mobility and social isolation. These impacts have been informed by restricted access to resources and services, lack of information about resources and services, and paramount fear due to ever-changing policy. Based on interviews and observations the authors conducted, they find that in many ways, community efforts have addressed the specific needs and challenges of refugee women in the absence of gender-responsive COVID-19 measures across institutional levels and policy areas.Originality/valueIn this commentary, the authors present original data from their ethnographic research on a particularly marginalized, yet resilient population: refugee women. By centering refugee women's experiences, the authors highlight the lack of gender-responsiveness in COVID-19 measures and provide insights into social implications of COVID-19 that often remain overlooked and understudied in discourse and politics.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
José Carlos Vázquez-Parra ◽  
Abel García-González ◽  
María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyze how university men and women in different disciplines of study in Mexico perceive social entrepreneurship competencies, using a multifactorial analysis to find possible areas of opportunity to reduce the gender gap in social-entrepreneurship-project proposals.Design/methodology/approachThis is a quantitative study with a validated questionnaire that records the perception levels of five social entrepreneurship subcompetencies. The survey, which includes 28 indicators, was applied to 140 university students from different disciplines. Hypothesis testing was applied to identify significant differences between men and women in each subcompetency by disciplinary area.FindingsIn the global sample, significant differences by gender were observed only in the social value subcompetency. In the disciplinary analysis, significant differences were found in architecture and design, business, and engineering and science.Research limitations/implicationsThe questionnaire only gathered data about the students' perceptions. To the extent that perception is triangulated with other instruments, it is possible to increase knowledge regarding how to train in social entrepreneurship.Practical implicationsThe results can be useful for university training and increasing the envisioning and formulating of government projects by young people who create new businesses.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the literature on the role of gender-specific perceptions of social entrepreneurship in Mexico.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ujvala Rajadhyaksha

PurposeThis study asks the following research question: does “city” context interact with gender and gender egalitarianism (GE) to impact the positive (WFPOS – work–family positive spillover) and negative (WFC - work-family conflict) aspects of the work–family (WF) interface of working men and women in India.Design/methodology/approachMANCOVA analysis is used to examine data gathered from 250+ working men and women from eight different Indian cities that were ranked based on the 2018 Ease of Living (EOL) Index.FindingsThere was no significant main effect of gender on WF interface variables. Low levels of GE and low EOL were significantly associated with high levels of WFC and WFPOS. There was a significant interaction between gender, GE and city. An examination of within-gender differences indicated that in low-EOL cities, men and women with low values of GE (traditionals) had significantly higher time-based WFC than men and women with high values of GE (egalitarians). Additionally, traditional women reported higher WFPOS than egalitarian women. In high-EOL cities, traditional men reported significantly higher time-based WFC than egalitarian men. There were no significant differences between women.Research limitations/implicationsGender, along with gender-related attitudinal and contextual variables, does a better job of explaining variance in the WF interface as compared to gender alone. Results support the notion that high WFPOS and high WFC can co-occur in contexts of change and transition such as rapidly growing urban centers.Practical implicationsThe results have significance for work–family practitioners as well as urban city planners looking to improve the quality of work–life in India and other similar emerging market economies experiencing rapid urbanization.Originality/valueThe study extends work–family research by bringing aspects of urban planning and gender studies into an understanding of the work–family interface.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-627
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Fogarty

Purpose The purpose of this paper is a reflective account in which one person who has been around long enough to see a good bit considers how COVID-19 might change the general contours of the world. Design/methodology/approach This paper follows a broadly based and relatively unstructured approach, based on personal understandings and whatever rigor might have been gained by a life spent thinking about research design and the limits of methodology. Findings The opposite of what many others believe will happen is argued for. Things will change more than we wish. Most will change for the worse. Research limitations/implications Accounting research will have a role to play, but to have impact, this study will require that researchers adopt a much more critical perspective about capitalism and its consequences than before. Practical implications Everyone must do the best they can. Everyone must learn to accept the new and not rage to restore that which existed in before times. Social implications Harsher climate of interpersonal relations will be realized. Originality/value This paper is more about change than about accounting. A 30,000-foot level analysis that does not try to provide many examples. An effort to rise above the specifics that vary across the world.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis L. Wagner ◽  
Archie Crowley

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to deploy a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to consider exclusionary practices enacted by academic libraries as evidenced through resource provision. Specifically, this paper looks at the inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals in library guides, TGNC naming practices in abstracts and the physical shelving of transgender studies texts. This paper concludes with a discussion of methods to overcome such exclusionary practices in the future. Design/methodology/approach This paper deploys CDA as informed by queer theory, affording a lens to consider how language and information are structured such that particular power dynamics emerge placing symbolic value on discursively normal identities. CDA helps illuminate when, how and why TGNC individuals remain excluded within academic librarianship practices. Findings Findings show continued investments in heteronormative and cisnormative structures concerning information provision and access for TGNC patrons. TGNC patrons using library guides consistently fail to see any mentioned made of their respective identities aside from research about their identities. Patrons seeking information of personal value (i.e. coming out resources) find few resources. Further, library stacks and databases enact consistent microaggressions such as fetishizing, deadnaming and misgendering. Research limitations/implications This project contains considerable social implications, as it pushes against a continued recalcitrance on the part of academic libraries to invest in neutrality by showing its failures regarding TGNC persons. Practical implications This study possesses a considerable set of practical implications and highlights tangible problems that could be addressed with relative ease by academic librarians through either systemic reorganization of information or TGNC patrons. Alternatively, this work also suggests that if such reformations are not possible, academic librarians can take it upon themselves to call attention to such issues and purposefully mark these failings, thus making it clear that it is a current limitation of how libraries function and invite patrons (both cisgender and transgender) to challenge and change these representations through research and advocacy. Social implications This project contains considerable social implications as it pushes against a continued recalcitrance on the part of academic libraries (and librarianship more broadly) to invest in neutrality. This study contests the idea that while possessing neutrality academic libraries also posit themselves as inherently good and inclusive. By showing the violence that remains enacted upon transgender and gender nonconforming folks through multiple venues within the academic library, this study makes clear that statements of negativity are thrust onto TGNC patrons and they remain excluded from an institution that purports to have their well-being as one of its core values. Originality/value The deployment of CDA within information science is still a relatively new one. While linguists have long understood the multiplicity of discourse beyond language, the application of this method to the academic library as a discursive institution proves generative. Furthermore, the relationship between academic libraries and their LGBTQ+ populations is both underrepresented and undervalued, a problem exacerbated when focusing on how transgender and gender nonconforming patrons see themselves and their relationships to the academic library. This paper shows the dire state of representation for these particular patrons and provides groundwork for positively changing such representations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136
Author(s):  
Balvinder Kaur Kler

Purpose The Climbathon is an annual mountain running championship that takes place in Kinabalu Park, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Participants race to the peak (4,095.2 metres) and back, a distance of 21 kilometres of rainforest and mountain terrain, with a steep vertical gain of 2,300 metres. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the first 25 years of the Climbathon and to identify the key success factors behind the staging of this small-scale international sports event in Southeast Asia. Design/methodology/approach The research design for this study is interpretive, utilises a qualitative case study approach incorporating analysis of documents, oral history interviews, and personal observations gained through attendance and volunteering at the event which produced six insights, suggested as key success factors for the Climbathon. This study was guided by one key research question, to understand what has ensured the continuity of this small-scale international sports event known as the Climbathon. Findings Findings suggest the Climbathon has endured the test of time due to an innovative use of the summit trail, adherence to international sporting regulations, a pro sports tourism public policy led by the tourism ministry, membership to international sports organisations, corporate sponsorship, and a special sense of place towards Mount Kinabalu and the Climbathon for the event organisers, volunteers and officials. Research limitations/implications This case study presents knowledge about the Climbathon but findings are not generalisable. Any application of the success factors would have to be as guidelines adapted for a specific sport event. The use of oral history as part of a case study is subjective and open to interpretation. Future work could incorporate interviews with participants, spectators, volunteers and the local sub-committees to gain alternative perspectives. Originality/value This study makes an original contribution to the events and tourism field by presenting a case study on the success factors of the Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon. The study suggests a three pillar model of “Place-Plan-People” which may be used as a guiding philosophy for event development and delivery of small-scale international sports tourism events in Asia and elsewhere. The inclusion of oral history as part of a case study research design is novel and useful when knowledge is not available in any published form.


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