IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jmgtgv/v25y2021i3d10.1007_s10997-020-09538-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nomination vs. election: do they influence women’s access to institutional decision-making bodies?

Author

Listed:
  • Sara Diogo

    (University of Aveiro
    CIPES – Research Center on Higher Education Policies
    University of Aveiro)

  • Teresa Carvalho

    (University of Aveiro
    CIPES – Research Center on Higher Education Policies)

  • Zélia Breda

    (University of Aveiro
    University of Aveiro)

Abstract

Portuguese higher education institutions (HEIs) are excellent case-studies of women representation in academia, considering their significant presence and rapid growth in HEIs. Nevertheless, and despite efforts to minimise gender gaps, women are still underrepresented in top management and leading positions, contributing to increment the phenomenon of vertical segregation. Based on the reality of the Portuguese academia, and focusing on an in-depth case study of a Portuguese university, this paper analyses if and how the way decision-making bodies are constituted, influence the gender balance of their members. Recently, within the New Public Management (NPM) context, HEIs have been subjected to external pressures to create a new organisational environment aiming at substituting the collegial model of governance with a managerial one. In this context, there has been a trend to replace the election by the nomination as the dominant process to occupy decision-making positions. The opening hypothesis of this study is that the way decision-making bodies are constituted, impacts on their gender balance. More specifically, it is argued that the nomination process tends to be more advantageous to women than the election. However, although it is possible to conclude that the gender balance decreases with the increasing importance of the decision-making body, it is not accurate to say that there is a direct relationship between the way actors are chosen to these bodies and their gender balance. In other words, the way actors are chosen can not be seen as the only factor influencing the gender constitution of decision-making bodies. The study provides a relevant contribution to the literature on mechanisms and strategies to improve gender equality in institutional decision-making processes and bodies.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Diogo & Teresa Carvalho & Zélia Breda, 2021. "Nomination vs. election: do they influence women’s access to institutional decision-making bodies?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(3), pages 879-898, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:jmgtgv:v:25:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s10997-020-09538-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s10997-020-09538-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10997-020-09538-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10997-020-09538-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Winfried Ruigrok & Simon Peck & Sabina Tacheva & Peder Greve & Yan Hu, 2006. "The Determinants and Effects of Board Nomination Committees," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 10(2), pages 119-148, May.
    2. Sabrina Wieland & Benjamin Flavel, 2015. "The influence of gender diverse corporate boards on employee-orientation," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 19(4), pages 825-848, November.
    3. Paula Burkinshaw & Kate White, 2017. "Fixing the Women or Fixing Universities: Women in HE Leadership," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-14, August.
    4. Kevin Campbell & Antonio Minguez Vera, 2010. "Female board appointments and firm valuation: short and long-term effects," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 14(1), pages 37-59, February.
    5. Paul Dunn, 2012. "Breaking the boardroom gender barrier: the human capital of female corporate directors," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(4), pages 557-570, November.
    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. Hanen Khemakhem & Manel Maalej, 2024. "The gender gap: what about board members’ perspective?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 28(2), pages 483-506, June.
    2. Ricardo Morais & Clara E. Fernandes & Valeriano Piñeiro-Naval, 2022. "Big Girls Don’t Cry: An Assessment of Research Units’ Leadership and Gender Distribution in Higher Education Institutions," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-14, August.
    3. Soraya Elizabeth Shamloo & Valeria De Cristofaro & Valerio Pellegrini & Marco Salvati, 2022. "Masculinity and Leadership Effectiveness (Self-)Perceptions: The Case of Lesbian Leaders," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-14, December.

    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. Patrizia Pastore & Silvia Tommaso & Antonio Ricciardi, 2017. "The Market Reaction to the Appointment of Women on Corporate Boards: Evidence from the Italian Listed Companies," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(12), pages 1-64, November.
    2. Nina Smith & Pierpaolo Parrotta, 2018. "Why so Few Women on Boards of Directors? Empirical Evidence from Danish Companies in 1998–2010," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 445-467, January.
    3. Bassyouny, Hesham & Abdelfattah, Tarek & Tao, Lei, 2020. "Beyond narrative disclosure tone: The upper echelons theory perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    4. Mateos de Cabo, Ruth & Terjesen, Siri & Escot, Lorenzo & Gimeno, Ricardo, 2019. "Do ‘soft law’ board gender quotas work? Evidence from a natural experiment," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 611-624.
    5. Katia Furlotti & Tatiana Mazza & Veronica Tibiletti & Silvia Triani, 2019. "Women in top positions on boards of directors: Gender policies disclosed in Italian sustainability reporting," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(1), pages 57-70, January.
    6. Vincenzo Scafarto & Federica Ricci & Elisabetta Magnaghi & Salvatore Ferri, 2021. "Board structure and intellectual capital efficiency: does the family firm status matter?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(3), pages 841-878, September.
    7. Gladys Merma-Molina & Mayra Urrea-Solano & Salvador Baena-Morales & Diego Gavilán-Martín, 2022. "The Satisfactions, Contributions, and Opportunities of Women Academics in the Framework of Sustainable Leadership: A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-23, July.
    8. Nguyen, Tuan & Nguyen, An & Nguyen, Mau & Truong, Thuyen, 2021. "Is national governance quality a key moderator of the boardroom gender diversity–firm performance relationship? International evidence from a multi-hierarchical analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 370-390.
    9. Martin Arnegger & Christian Hofmann & Kerstin Pull & Karin Vetter, 2014. "Firm size and board diversity," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(4), pages 1109-1135, November.
    10. Margaret Hodgins & Pat O’Connor & Lucy-Ann Buckley, 2022. "Institutional Change and Organisational Resistance to Gender Equality in Higher Education: An Irish Case Study," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-20, May.
    11. Sara Saggese & Fabrizia Sarto & Riccardo Viganò, 2021. "Do women directors contribute to R&D? The role of critical mass and expert power," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(2), pages 593-623, June.
    12. Amanpreet Kaur & Balwinder Singh, 2017. "Construing Reputation from Gender Diversity on Boards," Paradigm, , vol. 21(2), pages 111-125, December.
    13. Valeria Gattai & Piergiovanna Natale & Francesca Rossi, 2022. "Board Diversity and Outward FDI: Evidence from Europe," Working Papers 491, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2022.
    14. Qian, Meijun, 2016. "Women’s Leadership and Corporate Performance," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 472, Asian Development Bank.
    15. Blessing Kanyumba & Melanie Lourens, 2022. "Career development for female academics in Australian and South African universities: An integrative review," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 11(2), pages 391-401, March.
    16. Szymon Kaczmarek & Richard Nyuur, 2022. "The implications of board nationality and gender diversity: evidence from a qualitative comparative analysis," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 26(3), pages 707-733, September.
    17. Mascia, Danilo V. & Rossi, Stefania P.S., 2017. "Is there a gender effect on the cost of bank financing?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 136-153.
    18. Baghdadi, Ghasan A. & Safiullah, Md & Heyden, Mariano L.M., 2023. "Do gender diverse boards enhance managerial ability?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    19. Lone Engbo Christiansen & Ms. Huidan Huidan Lin & Ms. Joana Pereira & Petia Topalova & Ms. Rima A Turk, 2016. "Gender Diversity in Senior Positions and Firm Performance: Evidence from Europe," IMF Working Papers 2016/050, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Shibashish Mukherjee & Sorin M.S. Krammer, 2024. "When the going gets tough : Board gender diversity in the wake of a major crisis," Post-Print hal-04522722, 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:kap:jmgtgv:v:25:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1007_s10997-020-09538-6. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.