Managing Scottish higher and further education: a comparison of (re)gendered organizations.

Thomson, Emily; McTavish, Duncan

Abstract

This article outlines the traditional gendered nature of further and higher education and how this has been challenged by long term developments. The focus on managerialism and competition provides a context for a re-invigorated 'agentic' (associated with masculinity) gendering. Non-executive management in further and higher education is deeply unbalanced in gender terms. Senior management in universities is male dominated but significantly more balanced in colleges. Furthermore, in universities, the career dynamic which privileges research and the gendering of this in favour of males, more than outweighs some new career spaces open to women. In colleges, the 1990s evacuation of many male managers created openings for women but in a particularly tough economic and business environment in which some have suggested that women have been used to bolster an 'agentic' male styled approach to management; others that a more adaptive less stereotypical approach is emerging.

Citation

Thomson, E., & McTavish, D. (2007). Managing Scottish higher and further education: a comparison of (re)gendered organizations. Public Management Review, 9(3), 421-433. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719030701425811

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2007-09
• Deposit Date: May 12, 2008
• Print ISSN: 1471-9037
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-9045
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 421-433
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14719030701425811
• Keywords: Management of Technology and Innovation; Management Information Systems
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/2143
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14719030701425811