IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jadmsc/v7y2017i3p21-d103019.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Women and Leadership in Higher Education in China: Discourse and the Discursive Construction of Identity

Author

Listed:
  • Jiayi Zhao

    (Independent Researcher, Lanzhou 730000, China)

  • Karen Jones

    (Institute of Education, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6UA, UK)

Abstract

Prior research indicates that just 4.5 percent of mainland China’s higher educational institution leaders are female. This article extends theory and research by drawing attention to identity and Discourse as an important, yet under-researched, aspect of the problem of women’s underrepresentation in higher education leadership. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with nine female academics in Chinese universities and informed by discursive approaches to identity and constructionist views, we analyze how women construct multiple identities, the interplay of identities, and the influence of broader societal Discourses of gender and leadership. The findings highlight the interplay between competing multiple identities, and illustrate how the women’s identities are shaped and constrained by dominant historical and cultural Discourses in Chinese society, which results in identity regulation (Alvesson and Billing 2009), notably identity positioning that is congruent with social norms and conventions. A key finding is that the female academics reject the leader identity. This is true for those in middle management positions, as well as women in early career stages, who might otherwise aspire to leadership. Implications for the leadership pipeline in China’s universities is discussed and recommendations are made for future research directions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiayi Zhao & Karen Jones, 2017. "Women and Leadership in Higher Education in China: Discourse and the Discursive Construction of Identity," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-17, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:7:y:2017:i:3:p:21-:d:103019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/7/3/21/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/7/3/21/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harding, Nancy & Ford, Jackie & Gough, Brendan, 2010. "Accounting for ourselves: Are academics exploited workers?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 159-168.
    2. Mats Alvesson & Hugh Willmott, 2002. "Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 619-644, July.
    3. Kate White, 2013. "An Outsider in Academia," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Barbara Bagilhole & Kate White (ed.), Generation and Gender in Academia, chapter 6, pages 103-124, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthew J. Phillips & Peta L. Dzidic & Emily L. Castell, 2022. "Exploring and Critiquing Women’s Academic Identity in Higher Education: A Narrative Review," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, May.
    2. Mónica Segovia-Pérez & Pilar Laguna-Sánchez & Concepción de la Fuente-Cabrero, 2019. "Education for Sustainable Leadership: Fostering Women’s Empowerment at the University Level," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-14, October.
    3. Karen A. Longman, 2018. "Perspectives on Women’s Higher Education Leadership from Around the World," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-6, July.
    4. Bao, Li & Tian, Xiaoming, 2022. "Climbing the academic ladder: Chinese women academics seeking recognition on the way to becoming professors," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clarke, Caroline & Knights, David & Jarvis, Carol, 2012. "A Labour of Love? Academics in Business Schools," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 5-15.
    2. Eveline Bruijn & Gail Whiteman, 2010. "That Which Doesn’t Break Us: Identity Work by Local Indigenous ‘Stakeholders’," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(3), pages 479-495, October.
    3. Carlos Martin-Rios, 2016. "Innovative management control systems in knowledge work: a middle manager perspective," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 181-204, May.
    4. Dambrin, Claire & Lambert, Caroline, 2012. "Who is she and who are we? A reflexive journey in research into the rarity of women in the highest ranks of accountancy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-16.
    5. Minbaeva, Dana & Rabbiosi, Larissa & Stahl, Günter K., 2018. "Not walking the talk? How host country cultural orientations may buffer the damage of corporate values’ misalignment in multinational corporations," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 880-895.
    6. Suzan Lewis & Deirdre Anderson & Clare Lyonette & Nicola Payne & Stephen Wood, 2017. "Public sector austerity cuts in Britain and the changing discourse of work–life balance," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(4), pages 586-604, August.
    7. Sharon Koppman & Elisa Mattarelli & Amar Gupta, 2016. "Third-World “Sloggers” or Elite Global Professionals? Using Organizational Toolkits to Redefine Work Identity in Information Technology Offshore Outsourcing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 825-845, August.
    8. Paul, Michael & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten & Groth, Markus, 2015. "Tightening or loosening the “iron cage”? The impact of formal and informal display controls on service customers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1062-1073.
    9. Yves Gendron & Laura F. Spira, 2009. "What Went Wrong? The Downfall of Arthur Andersen and the Construction of Controllability Boundaries Surrounding Financial Auditing," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(4), pages 987-1027, December.
    10. Joseph Olita Omekede & Dr. Joseph Musungu & Dr. Felix Orina, 2022. "Intrafemale Civility: Sisterhood in Ellen Sirleaf’s “This Child Will Be Greatâ€," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 6(8), pages 447-453, August.
    11. Danielle Treiber & Lize A. E. Booysen, 2021. "Identity (Re)Construction of Female Adolescents with Substance Use Disorders," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-19, June.
    12. Dentoni, Domenico & Pascucci, Stefano & Poldner, Kim & Gartner, William B., 2018. "Learning “who we are” by doing: Processes of co-constructing prosocial identities in community-based enterprises," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 603-622.
    13. Sörgärde, Nadja, 2020. "Story-dismantling, story-meandering, and story-confirming: Organizational identity work in times of public disgrace," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3).
    14. Claudia Gross, 2010. "Spiritual Cleansing: A Case Study on how Spirituality Can Be Mis/used by a Company," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 21(1), pages 60-81.
    15. Goretzki, Lukas & Messner, Martin, 2019. "Backstage and frontstage interactions in management accountants' identity work," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-20.
    16. Julian Marx & Stefan Stieglitz & Felix Brünker & Milad Mirbabaie, 2023. "Home (Office) is where your Heart is," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 65(3), pages 293-308, June.
    17. Florence Allard-Poesi, 2015. "Dancing in the Dark: Making Sense of Managerial Roles during Strategic Conversations," Working Papers hal-01145772, HAL.
    18. Jeffrey S. Bednar & Benjamin M. Galvin & Blake E. Ashforth & Ella Hafermalz, 2020. "Putting Identification in Motion: A Dynamic View of Organizational Identification," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 200-222, January.
    19. Shaheer, Noman & Chen, Yu & Kim, Hoik & Li, Sali, 2024. "Disguise or disclose? How identities of individual entrepreneurs on digital platforms influence their international success," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(2).
    20. Florence Allard-Poesi, 2015. "Dancing in the dark: Making sense of managerial roles during strategic conversations," Post-Print hal-01490734, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:7:y:2017:i:3:p:21-:d:103019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.